The Call of Poohthulhu
Author: Neil Baker
Date: 2022-05-31 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Anthologies
Description: An imaginative amalgamation of two beloved literary genres, the whimsical early stories of Winnie-The-Pooh and the Mythos tales of H.P. Lovecraft! Ten amazing authors have created stories that take place in, or are inspired by, the 100 Acre Wood, and added a Lovecraftian twist to ruffle the feathers of an Owl, or shock the tail off a donkey! Old Ones, New Ones and Dark Voids cause a bit of bother with our favourite stuffed friends, and the whole anthology is crammed full to bursting with Very Dark Ideas and Perilously Sticky Expotitions. Reader Beware! Contents: • Introduction / Neil Baker • T
Publisher: April Moon Books

The Call of
Poohthulhu
~stories by~
John Linwood Grant
Christine Morgan
Lee Clark Zumpe
Pete Rawlik
Edward M. Erdelac
Robert P. Ottone
Jackson Parker
Lisa Cunningham
Kevin Wetmore
Jude Reid

An April Moon Books Publication
Published in arrangement with the authors
Edited by Neil Baker
All works published herein © 2022 of the
respective authors
Introduction © 2022 Neil Baker
This anthology copyright © 2022 April Moon
Books
Cover and Illustrations © 2022 Carmen Cerra
No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without written
permission from the publisher, except for the
inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
These stories are works of fiction. Any
resemblance to actual persons living or dead,
historical events or organizations is purely
coincidental.
First Edition 2022 Published in Canada.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9798447092917

DEDICATION

For the Stout, the Brave, and the Hungry.

CONTENTS

Introduction – Neil Baker i

The Celery at the Threshold – John Linwood Grant 1

The Very Black Goat - Christine Morgan 28
Back to the Black Bog – Lee Clark Zumpe 42
Where Howls the Edgog – Pete Rawlik 63
Head Like a Jar – Edward M. Erdelac 77

In Which We Discover the 101st Acre – Robert P. Ottone 109

Eeyore Makes a Friend – Jackson Parker 124

When She Was Very Tired – Lisa Cunningham 148

The Statement of Eeyore Carter – Kevin Wetmore 163

Acrewood – Jude Reid 178

i
INTRODUCTION
This anthology was born of a Flippant Remark.

Upon learning that the beloved first book of Winnie-The

Pooh by A.A. Milne had entered the public domain, I
wondered out loud on social media whether The Call of

Poohthulhu might be a Good Idea. It wasn’t long before a
slew of writers I had great respect for suddenly expressed
an All-Consuming Desire to write a Mythos-tinged Pooh
story, and the Good Idea began to take shape.

As the stories rolled in, it was apparent that the gentle
frivolity and hidden depths of Milne’s classic stories meshed
perfectly with the not-so-hidden anguish of H.P.

Lovecraft’s writing, and this might explain why Eeyore is so
prominent in the anthology.

Here's to Flippant Remarks.

Enjoy.

Neil Baker – April Moon Books

1
THE CELERY AT THE THRESHOLD
BY JOHN LINWOOD GRANT
Being a grown-up can be terribly tiresome.

Instead of teasing the ducks in the park, strolling
through bluebell woods, or splashing in the brook with our
friends, we must spend much of our time doing Important

Things. And the more Important they are, the less
interesting they seem.

So when Christopher Robin came into my study on a
dull, wet morning, I cannot say I objected to the
interruption; in fact, I placed my pen down, happy to be
freed from doing complicated sums and writing even more
complicated sentences.

Piglet was with him, and both had that look which says,

‘I am about to ask you a question’. It is a funny look – a bit
of a smile and a bit of a frown, as if the person isn’t quite
sure which way to start.

“We wondered if possibly…” said Christopher Robin.

“If by any chance…” said Piglet.

“You might have…”

“Astoryforusbecauseitisrainingandwehavenothingtodo?”

Which all came out in a rush from both of them at the
same time, and made me laugh.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

2

Now, I was sure that there was plenty to do – colouring
books, and games, and all manner of small affairs which
needed attention, such as washing properly behind certain
ears. But, as I say, I was rather bored with my own

Important Things, and so I gave their request proper
consideration (which is when you think hard about
something, rather than just pretending to do so).

“What sort of story did you want?” I asked, when I had
finished thinking.

Christopher Robin sat down on the worn old rug which
has been in my study for Years and Years.

“One with a Jolly Big Adventure in it.”

“A Jolly Big Adventure about me,” added Piglet.

“Hmm.” I rubbed my chin. “But if it was really big, it
would have an awful lot of room in it, and Piglet is only
small. He might rattle around in there, like a dried-up pea in
a whistle. Do you think there should be a few of your friends
in there as well, just to make it more comfortable?”

After some discussion between the two, they agreed that

Piglet would not like to be a dried-up pea, and it might be a

Good Idea if it were a story with just a few others in it.”

“I think so too,” I said, nodding gravely. “I believe I have
just the story you want. Do you both remember when you
went in search of the South Pole?”

Piglet looked at his paws, uncertain.

“Pooh found the North Pole, didn’t he?”

“He did indeed. But this was a much more important

Expedition. It was the time when Christopher Robin met
his friend Dorothy Jane --
”
“Who is a Girl,” said Christopher Robin.

“Yes, who is a Girl, and Eeyore decided to stop eating
thistles, and –

”

“Oh, that Expotition!” said Piglet as casually as he could.

“Of course I remember that. I thought you meant some
other Pole at first, what with there being so many of them.

I was there, wasn’t I?”

“You were, and you were very brave.”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

3

Piglet looked pleased. “I would like that story.”

“So would I,” said Christopher Robin, stretching out on
the rug, his sandals kicking idly in the air and Piglet at his
side.

And so I lit my pipe, leaned back, and told it to them…

Christopher Robin was walking through the Forest one
sunny day when he chanced upon Pooh and Piglet, who
were sitting under a tree.

“Hello, you two,” he said.

“Hello, Christopher Robin,” said Pooh and Piglet.

“What are you up to today?”

Pooh looked around. “We were sitting under this tree. It
is a Haycorn Tree, and Piglet is fond of Haycorns.”

Christopher Robin nodded. “So it is. But this isn’t acorn
time. That won’t be for months and months, when all the
leaves start to fall off.”

“We thought we might wait,” said Piglet.

“Won’t you get hungry after a while?”

“Yes,” said Pooh. “In fact, I’m hungry already. I don’t
suppose you have anything with you, by any chance?”

“Not at the moment, I’m off to look at my old raft.”

“Tricky things,” said Pooh. “I don’t like them, myself.”

“What are tricky things?”

“Drafts.” Pooh rubbed his neck. “My house is full of
them, and every time I put some moss in one of the holes,
another one blows open.”

“Silly Bear! A raft is a sort of Very Flat Boat. I use it for
my Adventures – as long as I am Adventuring somewhere
where the stream goes.”

Pooh and Piglet decided that, as the Haycorns would not
be here for a while, they would go along with their friend,
and inspect this Very Flat Boat. It really was a nice day;
many of Rabbit’s friends-and-relations were basking on the
grassy banks near the stream, and even Eeyore had left his
damp, boggy home to let the sunshine warm up his tail.

“We’re going on a boat,” said Pooh.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
4
“A Very Flat Boat,” squeaked Piglet.

Eeyore lifted his head from a patch of disappointing
thistles.

“You’ll probably fall in the water,” he said in his usual
glum tone. “And then you’ll want me to rescue you. And I’ll
fall in. And we’ll all get colds.”

Christopher Robin patted the old grey donkey on the
back.

“It’s a fine raft, and quite safe. We can go all the way
down the stream, as far as the Big Ditch.”

“I go that way a lot,” said Pooh, affecting a nonchalant
air, “but I lent my own Draft to Kanga yesterday, for Roo
to play on. That’s how safe they are.”

Piglet, who had been listening hard, held up a paw.

“Excuse me, but does this mean we are going on an

Expotition?”

Christopher Robin looked at Pooh, and Pooh looked at

Christopher Robin.

“Yes,” said Christopher Robin. “We are going on an

Expedition to find–”

“The South Pole!” said Pooh, who always got East and

West mixed up – a bit like Left and Right – and thought
that South might be easier to find (especially if he asked

Christopher Robin when no one else was around).

And so it was decided. There would be a Grand

Expotition to discover the South Pole, and Winnie the

Pooh, P.D. (Pole Discoverer) would be in charge of the raft.

For as Pooh said, had he not been the captain of many ships
before, including The Floating Bear, and been First Mate of

The Brain of Pooh, that bold vessel which had saved everyone
during the Terrible Flood?

He had, they agreed – except for Eeyore, who pointed
out that he hadn’t needed saving anyway. But no one
listened to him.

As you know, Expeditions must be organised, and have
everything they needed with them, in pockets and paper
bags. Christopher Robin said he would need to get his Big

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

5

Boots, and his gun; Piglet said he would tell Rabbit, and

Rabbit’s friends-and-relations, while Pooh and Eeyore
inspected the raft.

“What are we inspecting it for?” asked Eeyore as he and

Pooh went down to the bend in the stream, where the
bulrushes grew.

“We are inspecting to find it where Christopher Robin
left it,” said Pooh.

“I still think we’ll fall in. Maybe we will fall in, and then
when we get out and start to dry ourselves, it will rain as
well. That’s usually the way.”

But there was the raft, just as it was supposed to be –
pulled up with half in the bulrushes and half on the bank. It
was made of four large planks of wood tied together with
lots of rope, all very sturdy, and one of the planks had

‘...ORNED BE...’ stenciled on it.

The donkey peered down at the writing.

“What does that mean? Is it a name?”

“It’s... the ship’s name,” said Pooh, who wished

Christopher Robin or Owl were there to help him out. “It’s
short for… short for… Horned Bee. That’s it.”

“Horned Bee?”

“You’ve heard of Bumble Bees, and Honey Bees?”

“Yes. I was stung once. On the ear. And it really –

”

“Well, said Pooh hurriedly, “Horned Bees don’t have
stings. They have horns instead. So they are quite safe. And
they make the best hunny. It is a Nomen.”

Pooh wasn’t exactly sure what a Nomen was, or what
they looked like, but Owl said that Nomens meant that
something was going to happen, which was bound to be
exciting. And that was the point of an Expotition.

“Oh.” Eeyore looked doubtful. “If it is a Nomen, I
suppose...”

It wasn’t long before Christopher Robin returned,
followed by Piglet and Rabbit.

“I hear you are planning to look for another Pole,” said

Rabbit, who had several carrots sticking out of his pockets.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

6

“Am I going?”

“Do you want to go?”

“I’ll have to ask.”

Pooh blinked. “Who will you have to ask?”

“Me,” said Rabbit, and went to the bank to have a good
chat with himself. The others whistled to themselves, or
admired the Horned Bee, until at last he rejoined them.

“Rabbit reporting for the Expotition,” said Rabbit, and
saluted Christopher Robin, who returned the salute

(although the cork fell out of his gun, and they had to spend
a few minutes trying to find it in the long grass).

“Captain Bear,” said Christopher Robin. “You may
proceed.”

There was a further delay whilst they argued over what

‘proceed’ meant, and what sort of seeds it might involve, but
at last the Horned Bee was slid out of the rushes, and everyone
was on board.

“To the South Pole!” announced Pooh, feeling
important, and Christopher Robin pushed a long pole into
the stream. One big push, and the raft floated free, to be
caught in the gentle current of the stream and taken on its
way.

“Piglet, you shall be the Look Out,” said Captain Bear.

“Because I can’t lookout for the stream and lookout for
other things at the same time.”

“Is that an important job?” squeaked Piglet.

“Very.” Christopher Robin. “Without a Look Out, we
might hit Dangerous Rocks, or a Sunken Pirate Ship. As

Look Out, you will see them in time, and shout ‘Ahoy. Look

Out’.”

“We probably will hit something anyway,” said Eeyore,
who was sitting at the back of the raft and gazing gloomily
into the clear, shallow water.

Every so often the raft would scrape against stones
under the water, and sometimes they had to get off and push
it until it floated again, but they all agreed it was a Fine Craft.

“Roo would have liked this,” said Rabbit. “Do you

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

7
remember our last Expotition, when he fell in and learned
to swim, and Pooh found –

”

He stopped suddenly, staring at the long wooden pole
which Christopher Robin was using to keep the Horned Bee
in the middle of the stream.

“I remember, because I found the North Pole.”

“And where is the North Pole now, Pooh?” Rabbit jerked
his head towards what Christopher Robin had in his hands,
and gave several exaggerated winks. “Where could it be?”

“Is your eye all right, Rabbit?” asked Piglet, sounding
concerned. “As Look Out, and Very Important, perhaps I
should also Look At poorly eyes.”

“The Pole!” said an exasperated Rabbit, abandoning his
winks.

“Yes, that’s where we are going,” everyone agreed, even

Eeyore.

“No, on the Draft! Isn’t that the North Pole, over
there?”

There was much shuffling around the deck of the small
vessel as one by one, the animals went over and examined
it. Christopher Robin was smiling.

“It was Owl’s idea,” he said.

“To take the North Pole to the South Pole?” Pooh was
confused. One Pole at a time was quite enough for him.

“So we would know when we find it.”

“But we already have it.” Pooh scratched his head.

Christopher Robin gave a sigh.

“Dear old bear – when we see another Pole like this one,
then we will know that we have found the South Pole. Do
you see?”

Pooh did not. He had thought that was Piglet’s job,
seeing things. But he said ‘Yes,’ because it was easier. And
he had the feeling that captains were supposed to know
about everything – except for Dangerous Rocks and Sunken

Pirate Ships.

“How far is it to the South Pole?” asked Piglet. “Will it
be cold down there?”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

8

“It wasn’t cold when we found the North Pole,” Pooh
pointed out. “It wasn’t even that far, really. Poles are like
that – just waiting to be discovered.”

Down past the Six Pine Trees they floated, and through
the Hundred Acre Wood, where Owl, who was busy sorting
out his cupboards, flew over them once to wave his wings
and wish them luck. Down past the Copse Where the

Woozle Wasn’t, and on through the bright morning.

Pooh lay back and rubbed his tummy, which was making
funny noises.

“I don’t suppose –” he started to say.

“Bridge A-hay!” shouted Piglet, leaping up and down.

Rabbit tutted. “It’s ‘Ahoy’, That’s what you’re supposed
to call out.”

“Ahoy A-hay, then!” Piglet was still leaping up and down
with excitement. “But it looks like a bridge to me.”

It was a bridge. In fact, it was the old wooden bridge
which crosses the stream just before the Big Ditch. After
this, the stream grows much deeper, and too dangerous for

Small Craft.

“Time to get off,” said Christopher Robin, and poled the

Horned Bee to the broad sandy shore, where, with a little
shudder, it grounded itself.

Everyone tumbled off onto the sand, and picking
themselves up, they checked that they had all their paws,
tails and waistcoats – except those who had no tails or
waistcoats.

The sun was warm, and after they were sure the Horned

Bee could not float away, the animals sat by the stream,
feeling pleased with themselves. Piglet congratulated

Captain Bear, Pooh congratulated Mr. Look Out Piglet, and
they shook paws. Christopher Robin announced that it was
time to break out the rations.

No one had brought as much as Pooh had hoped. There
were Rabbit’s carrots, an open tin of condensed milk, and a
small piece of melted, slightly fluffy chocolate from

Christopher Robin’s pocket. There had been an almost full

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

9
pot marked ‘Hunny’ as well, but as Pooh said, the sun was
so hot that it had mostly evaporated.

“I wish I had just a little hunny left,” said Pooh. Not
expecting an Expotition, he had eaten only three breakfasts,
and was really rather hungry. “Food is good for shock.”

Rabbit looked puzzled. “What shock?”

“Boo!” said Pooh, suddenly.

“Oh, that shock.”

“Some of us,” said Eeyore, “I say some of us, we just have
to eat whatever we can find.”

And he bit into a clump of long grass and thistles.

“Ow!” came a small voice.

Eeyore stumbled back, and gave the others a Doleful

Glance. It was a Doleful Glance which meant ‘Even my
own food no longer likes me’, and ‘I knew this would
happen one day’.

“I knew this would happen one day,” he said, in case any
of them had failed to understand.

“I don’t think thistles can go Ow!” Christopher Robin
poked the weeds with the end of the Pole, and out tumbled
a small creature who’s like they had never seen before.

It resembled nothing so much as a fat little bunch of
celery, with pink eyes on stalks at the top where it should
have had leaves, and legs like thick roots at the bottom. And
it had quite a few little root-like arms, all sticking out from
its middle. Everyone would have been awfully scared,
except that it looked terrified itself, its eyestalks waving all
over the place and its roots trembling.

Christopher Robin could see that this was Something

Different, not any sort of ordinary animal. He put down his
pole, which he had grabbed in case of Hostile Intent, and
squatted next to the strange creature.

“Hello. I’m Christopher Robin, and these are my friends

– Pooh Bear, Piglet, Rabbit, and Eeyore. Who are you?”

“I… I… I…”

“No need to b-b-be afraid,” said Piglet, who was hiding
behind one of the old grey donkey’s legs.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

10

“N-n-nothing to be scared of,” agreed Rabbit, from
inside another big patch of grass.

“I shall never be able to eat thistles again,” said Eeyore
dolefully. “Not if they are going to go ‘Ow!’ at me.”

Pooh Bear, P.D., stepped forward.

“Ahem,” he said. “Ahem. As Captain of the good ship

Horned Bee – which is over there, by the way, and can be
moved at any time if it is in your way – I would like to...”

But by then he had forgotten what he would like to, and
so settled for what he hoped was another friendly Ahem.

Two of the creature’s pink eyes regarded him, and its
roots stopped shaking so much.

“You’re not… you’re not Shoggoths?”

The Expotition agreed with enthusiasm that they were
not Shoggoths, especially as they had no idea what a

Shoggoth was.

“Are they like Woozles?” asked Piglet, creeping out from
behind Eeyore.

The creature shivered. “What’s a Woozle?”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

11

An eager chorus explained that Woozles crept around at
your back, but you never saw them, and they were Tricky

Like That, and they nibbled your fur when you slept, so you
got cold.

The little pink eyes looked worried, then confused, and
then relieved. If it is possible for eyes which do not have an
actual face around them to do all those things.

“Yes,” it said. “They are a bit like that. They are also Very

Black, and Very Grumpy, and they hide until they want to
gobble you up. And they go ‘Glurp!’ a lot.”

“It’s funny you should mention that,” said Pooh, who
was feeling rather knowledgeable for a Bear with Little

Brain. “I did hear a Woozle go Glurp! Once. At least, I think
it did.”

“Oh dear,” said the creature. “That does sound like a

Shoggoth.”

No one knew what to say after that, so they all stood
there, counting their toes, or roots, and feeling awkward.

“What should we call you?” asked Christopher Robin at
last. He did like everyone to have at least one proper name.

The creature wriggled further out into the open.

“I am a Small Elder Thing, and I am lost. I had been
having a lovely long sleep in my home, but something woke
me up. Some sort of stomping noise outside.”

“Heffalumps,” Pooh whispered to Piglet.

“Heffalumps,” agreed Piglet. “Bound to be.”

“I went upstairs to see what the stomping was, and our
front door had disappeared. It was a nice, solid front door,
as well.” A tear dripped from one eye.

The animals nodded and made suitably sympathetic
noises.

“So I went to look for it, and that is how I got lost in the
grass and weeds. When I heard lots of voices, I hid, in case
any of them were going to go Glurp! Then I saw these big
teeth coming nearer and nearer, and…”

Eeyore gave a depressed flick of his tail, and his ears
flopped. “If you had said. If you had said ‘I am in these

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

12
thistles, so please be careful not to eat me as well’. No one
every says, you see?”

“Never mind.” Christopher Robin stood up. “We are on
an Expedition, and Expeditions are meant to find missing
things. Captain Bear, Mr. Look Out Piglet, and you others

– shall we help our new friend to get home again?”

There was a chorus of agreement that they should.

“What does your door look like?” asked Pooh, who had
seen a few front doors in his time and considered himself
quite an Expert.

The Small Elder Thing hesitated. “It is… a bit round,
and a bit flat, and a bit stony.”

“A bit stony?”

“It is a stone,” admitted the Small Elder Thing. “But a
nice one. And it has Certain Marks.”

Christopher Robin said that if they saw the front door
with Certain Marks on the way, they would rescue that as
well.

“On what way?” asked Pooh.

“An extremely important point, Captain Bear. Do you
know which direction you came from?” Christopher Robin
said to the Small Elder Thing.

It lifted itself up on its rooty feet, which made it look
more like a bunch of celery than ever, and its eyes wiggled
around until they were almost in knots.

“Er… over there, maybe?” It tipped its top end towards
the Big Ditch.

No one, not even Christopher Robin, had ever crossed
the Big Ditch. It was wide and often full of water, like a
stream that didn’t move. And when it wasn’t full of water it
was full of nettles and spiky plants even worse than thistles,
and it was still wet and smelly. So the Expedition was
relieved when the Small Elder Thing said that it thought its
home was near the ditch, but on this side.

“There are blackberries,” it said, “And a long hump of
sandy soil with holes in.”

Rabbit pulled on one ear, smoothed his waistcoat and

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

13
stroked his whiskers, by which everyone knew he was
thinking.

“There is...”

He rubbed his nose.

“There used to be...”

And just as they were all going to walk on, he gave a
shout.

“Yes! I remember that some of my friends-and-relations
used to live around here. They moved, after the Great

Flood, of course. But we Rabbits always like a sandy bank –
good for digging in, and for lying on when the sun shines.”

“Do you think you could find it, Rabbit?” asked

Christopher Robin.

“I have a nose for these things. Which is why I rubbed
it. The holes I mean will be...” He paused, realizing that they
were surrounded by tall weeds and bushes, and that it was
hard to see far at all. “If Kanga were here, she could
probably bounce up and spot them right now.”

“Ah, but we have a Look Out,” said Christopher Robin.

He picked up Piglet – who squeaked in surprise – and placed
him on Rabbit’s shoulders. “Here you go – if Piglet holds
on to your ears, he will be able to see for absolutely miles.”

Rabbit muttered under his breath, but let Piglet take hold
of his ears.

“Careful there,” he said. “They don’t come off, you
know.”

In this manner, they formed an orderly column – Rabbit
at the front, with Piglet balanced on top of him; the Small

Elder Thing next, in case they saw Something Useful and
had to ask him about it, and everyone else following.

Christopher Robin stayed at the back; his gun ready in case
of Shoggoths. Or Woozles.

“A Haycorn Tree!” announced Piglet after they had gone
a little way.

“No,” said Rabbit.

“A bee!”

“No,” said Rabbit, which disappointed Pooh, as where

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

14
there were bees, there might have been honey.

“A bush that looks like a Hedgepig!”

“No!” said everybody at once.

After Christopher Robin had explained that Piglet was
only supposed to Look Out for a sandy hump with rabbit
holes in it, Piglet was quiet for a long time. Long enough for

Rabbit to think that Piglet was getting very heavy, and that
this had not been a Good Idea.

“I see it! I see it!” shouted Piglet, waving his paws, and
promptly fell off.

Christopher Robin came forward.

“Just beyond these gorse-bushes,” he agreed. “Well
done, Mr. Look Out.”

Piglet went pink with pride, and picked himself up.

Sure enough, when they had pushed their way through
the bushes (trying not to get too prickled), there stood a
mound of sandy soil even larger than the one where Rabbit
lived – but the holes in this one were crumbling and
overgrown, which showed that no one had burrowed here
for ages.

“Is this where you live?” Rabbit asked.

The Small Elder Thing nodded all its eyestalks in
excitement.
“Yes. If we –
”

It made a frantic whistling sound and drew in all its eyes
and roots.

There was a Someone coming around the hump!

“Hello,” said the Someone.

In front of them was a Girl. She wore a smock which
was muddy and crumpled, and a large round hat, like one of
the explorers in a book about Egypt or some other strange
country far away. Under the helmet, her hair was blonde and
frizzy, and stuck out all over the place.

“Are you a Native Tribe?” asked the Girl.

“We are an Expotition,” said Pooh, who felt that as

Captain of the Horned Bee, he was still of Some Importance.

“Ah. How exciting. I’m Dorothy Jane, and I’m an

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
15
Arkylogist.”

“I am Christopher Robin,” said Christopher Robin.

“And I was going to be an Achy… Arkylogist, but these

Expeditions keep me so terribly busy.”

He introduced the others, one by one.

“Why have you brought a bunch of celery with you?”

she asked.

The Small Elder Thing had popped its eyes up again,
and was waving one root in as friendly a manner as it could
manage.

“That isn’t celery,” Christopher Robin explained. “It is a

Small Elder Thing, and is a good friend of ours.”

Pooh offered Dorothy Jane his paw, and she shook it,
keeping one hand on her hat so the brim didn’t fall over her
eyes.

“What, um, sort of Arkylogist are you?” asked Pooh,
who had no idea what an Arkylogist was

“Oh, the usual sort, I suppose. I look at pieces of pot
that I find in the ground, and glass and suchlike – things that
have been left behind by the people who lived here before,
years and years ago. And sometimes I dig them up.”

“You dig people up?” Pooh thought that was a bit
strange.

“No, silly bear,” said Dorothy Jane, pulling a Face. “The
pots and suchlike. I look at them for Marks and Signs.”

“Oh, Signs.” He nodded his head. He knew about Signs.

Piglet had one saying TRESPASSERS WILL outside his
house, and Owl had one saying WOL. Signs were jolly
important. And he had a Thought.

“I don’t suppose that – while you were Arkyloging – you
have seen a large stone around here with Marks or Signs on,
have you?”

“We are trying to find our friend’s front door,” said

Christopher Robin. “And the home that the door belongs
to
.
”

“Then we should have a Council of War,” said Dorothy

Jane.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

16

Piglet tugged at Pooh’s arm. “Who are we at war with,

Pooh?”

“I don’t know. Woozles?”

“A Council of War,” said Christopher Robin, “Is where
we all tell everyone everything we know, and decide on a

Plan.”

Which is what they did. The Small Elder Thing explained
that he and his family lived in tunnels far below where the
rabbits went. They slept most of the time, and knew little
about what was above them. Rabbit agreed that this was
quite possible – neither he nor his friends-and-relations
liked to go too deep, as it got very damp down there.

Dorothy Jane said that she had been on the mound
digging for Roaming stuff. Apparently the Roamings were
people who wandered around a lot, and wore tablecloths
instead of clothes. They had lived here a long time ago. But
she hadn’t found anything of theirs yet except a broken
penknife.

However, there was a larger entrance on the other side
of the hump, one big enough to crawl into. She had thought
it was a badger hole, but now she wondered if it might be
the opening out of which the Small Elder Thing had
wiggled. She had seen no sign of a big flat front door,
though.

Finally – after a long argument about who had finished
the last of the condensed milk – it was agreed that Rabbit,
who understood holes and tunnels, would be the

Expedition’s guide into the hump. Eeyore would stand
guard while the rest of them went down the hole.

“Don’t worry about leaving me behind,” said Eeyore.

“Do you want to go into the burrows with us?” asked

Pooh.

“It’s all the same to me. Damp down there, rain up here.

I suppose if I’m going to get wet, I might as well wait here
for the rain and do it properly.”

Pooh wanted to point out that there wasn’t a cloud in
the sky, but Christopher Robin called him to hurry up, and

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
17
he trundled after the others.

On the far side of the hump, above another patch of
thistles, was a much larger opening than any rabbit would
leave. Inside, it looked very dark.

“Is this where you came from?” asked Rabbit.

The Small Elder Thing shuffled its roots, took a few
more shuffles back, and a few forward. It waved its eyes
around.

“It may be. I… I’ve never come above ground before.

I’m not supposed to, you see?”

Christopher Robin, who was Not Supposed to do many
things, understood.

“Very well. Eeyore, you will watch for Woozles or

Shoggoths out here, and if you see one, you must give the
loudest bray you have ever given. And we shall all rush out
and surprise them.”

“Some people would say I’ve had a good life. Some
people would.” Eeyore sat down with a Flumph! “At least I
haven’t been one to complain.”

The others gathered by the opening.

“I don’t like the look of this terribly much,” said Piglet,
whose knees had started to knock together. “It looks awfully
dark in there. What if something goes Glurp! at me?”

“But you’re big and strong,” said a voice Piglet did not
recognise. “I’m not. I might get eaten.”

He looked up, and to his left, and to his right, and then
down, where – to his surprise – he saw one of Rabbit’s
friends-and-relations. Her name was Amelia Beetle, and she
had been quietly following the others all this time.

“Perhaps you would be safer going home,” he said,
trying to be kind – and wishing he could go home, too.

“I promised my Aunty I would go on the Expotition,”

she said. “Because my cousin Alexander ran away last time,
when you went in search of the North Pole, and the others
said we had let down the Beetle name. So I followed you
today, even though I’m smaller than everyone else, and quite
scared.”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

18

Amelia Beetle was, in fact, scared of nothing, and had
once bruised a sparrow’s beak, but she felt that Piglet
needed just a little encouragement. She was clever like that.

“Oh,” he said, and tried to affect a more casual air. “It
won’t be so bad, I suppose. Not as bad as when I was stuck
in my house during the Great Flood...”

And he carried on that way until he had forgotten how
worried he had been, and his knees were completely better.

At first it was much like a rabbit burrow, and not as dark
as they thought. There was some light from behind them,
and little holes in the roof where worms and voles had been
busy. Christopher Robin and Dorothy Jane had to crawl on
their hands and knees when they entered, but the burrow
got bigger – and darker – as they went further in.

Christopher Robin had brought a big new torch with
him, in case it was gloomy at the South Pole, and he shone
the torch so everyone could see. Rabbit – who was used to
much tighter burrows than this – had gone ahead, and
could be heard digging around. For a while the animals
could pretend that they were just on a stroll, only with a sky
made of soil, and a torch inside of the sun, but the burrow
soon began to descend. It now felt very Undergroundy.

“Is anyone hungry?” Pooh rubbed one foot across the
floor, which was damper than before. “I mean, if some of
you are getting weak from lack of food, we could go back and
have a snack.”

But no one else seemed to be hungry at all.

“This must be the way I came out,” said the Small Elder

Thing, waving its roots in excitement and pointing. “Look.”

Scratched into the wall was a Mark. It was an odd Mark,
with no letters that anyone could read. It had five points like
a star, and it made your eyes hurt if you looked at it too long.

“It is probably Roaming,” said Dorothy Jane. “The

Roamings liked making Marks and Signs, to show which
stones were theirs.”

“It makes me feel funny,” said Piglet, trying to look at
something else instead.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
19
Just then, Rabbit scurried back.

“There are lots of tunnels below this, and they are made
of stone, not sand or soil. I don’t think any of my family
ever went this deep.”

Christopher Robin gave his torch to Dorothy Jane, and
took hold of his gun. With Rabbit at his side, he crept
forward, and the Expedition proceeded into the depths.

It wasn’t a very fast Proceeding, because Dorothy Jane
kept waving the torch around and going Aha! at lumps in
the ground which turned out to be bits of gravel or pebble,
not Roaming Remains at all.

Soon they came to two big stone posts, one on either
side, after which they could see that the tunnels walls were
of smooth rock. And down there it was dank, a word which
means damp and cold, and therefore saves time – except
when you have to explain it, as I just did.

The Small Elder Thing hesitated.

“I think this is the way. You could just leave me here...”

But his eye stalks slumped, and he said it in such a way
that you knew he didn’t want to be left alone.

Christopher Robin and Dorothy Jane looked at each
other.

“An Arkylogist,” she said, “Is always digging holes and
suchlike. And Investergrating them. That is where people
like the Roamings left the things they did not want,
especially their old bottles and teapots.”

“Expeditions have to do that as well,” said Christopher

Robin. “We Investergrate a lot, and often have to go under
the ground for Miles and Miles, don’t we, Pooh?”

At that moment, Pooh was remembering when he got
stuck in Rabbit’s doorway, and thinking that he didn’t want
to get stuck down here. But the Small Elder Thing did look
sad, and Pooh was a Kindly Bear at heart.

“Miles and miles,” he agreed. “Sometimes I don’t even
notice how many miles we have gone. Under the ground.

On Expotitions.”

The floor was almost muddy here, and as they walked

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

20
along, they made slight squishing noises. Piglet was not a

Happy Piglet, but every time he hesitated, or opened his
mouth to say something like ‘Shouldn’t we go back?’, he
noticed Amelia Beetle scurrying along beside him, and feel
that he ought to be Brave.

In order to distract themselves, the animals tried talking
in cheery tones about the sunny day above them. They
spoke of the Six Pine Trees, and how they bent in the wind,
and how clouds sometimes looked like sailing ships, and
how nice it would be to have a birthday party for someone,
a party with blue and yellows balloons… until they all felt a
bit homesick, and had to stop doing that.

Pooh offered to sing them one of his songs, but the only
one he could remember was about the Little Drummer Boy
who entered a crack in the rocks and never came out again.

Rat-a-tat-tat,
He went under the hill;
Rat-a-tat-tat,
You can hear him still.

And as you can imagine, no one wanted to hear any more
of that Song, thank you very much.

“How deep do you think we are, Pooh” asked Piglet.

“Seven and a half miles,” said Pooh, who had absolutely
no idea, but thought he should. “At least.”

“Oh. Yes, I thought it was about that.”

As I said, Dorothy Jane would keep pointing the torch
at anything she thought was interesting, instead of ahead of
them, so its light went all over the place. There were strange
shadows on the walls, and sometimes there seemed to be
more shadows than there were members of the Expedition.

“Look,” she said, after they had followed another curve
in the tunnel. “Holes!”

Not far from the floor were several much smaller
openings, and the Small Elder Thing shivered.

“That is how Shoggoths come up, from far below,” it

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

21
said. “They make themselves small, and then when they are
out, they make themselves big. Big and black.”

“I don’t think Woozles can do that,” said Piglet. “Can
they, Pooh?”

“It is hard to tell,” said Pooh, trying to look in every
direction at once. “Wild Woozles can be very tricky. Why, I
heard of a Wild Woozle that –

”

He had glanced over his shoulder, and something big
and black was behind him!

“Ahoy!” he cried. And “Ahay!”, just in case.

Piglet – who had thought he was still the Look Out and
the only one who should shout Ahoy! – whirled round and
round, trying to see what the matter was, until he felt quite
dizzy.

“Is it Shoggoths?” whimpered the Small Elder Thing,
and drew in all his eyes and roots, which made him fall over.

Everyone stumbled and bumped into each other, until

Christopher Robin began to laugh.

“Silly old bear. Look...”

And taking the torch from Dorothy Jane, he shone it
around. Every time he pointed it at the others, their
shadows fell on the tunnel walls – big black shadows.

Pooh waved one paw experimentally, and his over-sized
shadow did the same.

“I thought it was,” he said. “I mean, I thought it was my
shadow. Still, you can’t be too careful.”

But when he got down on his knees and peered into one
of the small dark holes, he couldn’t be sure if he could hear
a Glurp! in the depths or not…

Shadows Not Shoggoths, he said to himself, and didn’t
mention the Glurp! to the rest.

Rabbit could see much better in the dark that anyone
else, and didn’t need the torch. Once he was sure that they
were being followed by Shadows Not Shoggoths, he had
gone ahead again, and now he came scrambling back.

“There’s a...” he paused, thinking. “A sort of… Room,
round the next bend.”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

22

The Small Elder Thing waved its roots around in
excitement.

“I was sleeping in a Room! And it had a bend outside it.

Hurrah!”

Its little pink eyes tried to look at everyone at once, and
it got slightly dizzy, so they let it sit down for a moment.

Then the animals lined up properly, like a real

Expotition, and with Christopher Robin and Dorothy Jane
at the front, they marched forward.

It was definitely a room. It had a high ceiling made of
rock with squiggles on it, and more of the five-pointed stars.

Christopher Robin, after counting on his fingers twice to be
sure, explained that this large chamber had five sides.

On four sides stood four statues. These looked the same
as the Small Elder Thing, but were much, much bigger, as if
the nervous little creature had been inflated to five times his
size.

The Small Elder Thing gave a squeal of relief, and rushed
over to press itself against the nearest statue.

“This must be where you came from,” said Christopher

Robin.

<Yes, it is.> said the statue. <And we thank you for
returning the Small One.>

The statue slid forward on thick grey roots, until it stood
over the adventurers. It had a voice which was so different
that I have put its words inside funny marks, in case you
were to get confused with how people normally speak. Its
voice was in the damp air and yet inside everyone’s heads,
as if it were saying hello to your thoughts as well.

<Welcome to our home.>

At this size, they could see that the creatures really
weren’t celery at all, but they did still look rather Vegetabley.

Or whatever the proper word might be.

“Oh my!” gasped Pooh.

“Goodness!” said Piglet.

Rabbit hid his head in his paws, and Amelia Beetle
picked up a pointed twig, holding it in front of her like a

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

23
sword. Dorothy Jane shone the torch so that they could see
large red eyes peering down at them.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said. “I am Dorothy Jane,
and I am an Arkylogist.”

<Ah. A Seeker in the Past.>

“And I am Christopher Robin,” said Christopher Robin.

“We were on an Expedition to find the South Pole, but then
we met the Small Elder Thing, and it was lost. We wanted
to help.”

<Very good of you.> The Huge Elder Thing looked
around the chamber. <Sadly, the South Pole is so many
miles from here that your small legs would fail before you
reached it. And it would be far too cold for you there. We
lived there, once.>

For a moment, even though its voice was terribly odd, it
sounded sad.

“We don’t mind that much,” said Pooh. “We have lots
of other places we can go.”

<So you are Masters of the North. That is good to
hear.>

For a moment, it went silent, and then two enormous
wings unfurled from its ribbed sides. For a moment the air
smelled of those little jars of spice which Cook has in the
pantry, and of burnt cabbage – and then it closed its wings
again.

The Expedition stared, speechless.

<Ah, even We get stiff over time.> it explained.

The Huge Elder Thing wriggled its middle roots
together, like you do with your fingers when you are
thinking of something hard, like sums, or how to explain
that the Chocolate Cake fell on the kitchen floor all by itself.

And it slid its way to the wall behind it, touching a five-sided
bump in the stone.

With a grinding noise, the wall opened to reveal a
cupboard, from which the Huge Elder Thing took a short
rod made of some strange, gleaming metal. It was a bit like
the sort of poker you used when the hearth needed poking,

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
24
and a bit not like that at all.

<This has been at the true South Pole, when that was
our home. It has touched the Great Ice.> said the Huge

Elder Thing. <It will be our gift to you.>

Everyone looked at everyone else, until Pooh stepped
forward and accepted the metal rod, bowing to the Huge

Elder Thing as best he could.

“Thank you,” said Pooh. “We shall keep it with our

North Pole, which is back on our Draft, the Horned Bee.”

Now I cannot tell you if these Elder Things have a sense
of humour or not, because I do not know them well, but its
middle roots twitched as if it might – it might – have been
chuckling.

<A wise choice.> it said. <But it is time for the One you
call the Small Elder Thing – who should not have woken up

– to go back to sleep, like the others.>

“Will… will we see it again?” asked Piglet.

<Possibly. But not for a long time. When you leave, I
shall fashion a new door to block the entrance, and make

Certain Marks on it. Then none of us will wake and wander
off.>

There was something about the Huge Elder Thing
which made everyone bow then, as if they had been spoken
to by a Really Really Important Person, more Important
than anyone else they would ever meet. The Small Elder

Thing shook paws and hands and feelers (for it did not
forget Amelia Beetle), and went to stand on the fifth side of
the room. In moments, all the Elder Things were just like
statues again.

Feeling pleased but quiet, the members of the

Expedition made its way into the tunnels.

This time they didn’t fear the Shoggoth Holes so much,
and every so often someone would touch one of the Special

Marks they passed, ‘just for luck’. When the torch flashed
around, they knew that it was just making shadows, and
everything was supposed to have a shadow.

Finally they saw daylight ahead, and rushed into the open

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

25
to take a deep breath, or roll on the grass, or whatever they
felt like doing after being underground for ages. Pooh Bear
tried to brush off the soil and mud which clung to his fur,
and Piglet and Amelia Beetle did a little dance, which
showed how relieved they were that nothing really horrible
had happened down there.

Eeyore was sitting in the long grass.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve been fine here on my own,
with no one to talk to, not knowing what was happening.”

Christopher Robin gave him a hug.

“Well done, old donkey. You stopped anyone sneaking
up behind us.”
Eeyore flicked his tail. “I suppose --
”

“We might have been trapped down there by Enemies
or Animals with Hostile Intent if it wasn’t for you being on
watch.”

“If you put it like that –

”

“What are you sitting on?” asked Piglet.

“A cold stone. I have cramp in my tail now.” Eeyore got
up, and turned around. “I often get cramp in my tail when

I sit down. You expect these things when –
”
“The stone!” squealed Piglet. “Look!”

Dorothy Jane, who was an Expert on Stones, came over,
and lifted it onto its side to examine it. Underneath was a
worm, which wriggled away in a hurry, and on the flat face
of the stone was a carving of a five-pointed star.

“That has to be their front door,” said Christopher

Robin. “It must have fallen over and rolled down into the
grass.”

Working together, they pushed the stone back up the
slope, and into the mouth of the large passage into the
hump. It fitted perfectly.

“There. Now the Elder Things won’t even have to make
a new door.”

Piglet stepped back, and squinted in the general direction
of the high sun.

“How many days do you think we were underground?”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

26

“Very difficult to tell,” said Pooh, “But it is definitely
almost Lunchtime. We should go back to our homes, and
get a spot of something to eat.”

Dorothy Jane followed them back to the stream, and
there they showed her the Horned Bee, which she declared to
be good enough for an Ocean Voyage, and as fine a vessel
as she had seen.

“It has been a pleasure,” said everyone to Dorothy Jane,
and Dorothy Jane to everyone.

“If you are ever Arkyloging in the Hundred Acre Wood,
please do call on us,” said Christopher Robin politely.

“Thank you. I will.”

And off she went through the long grass, back in the
general direction of the Secret Hill – which was what they
called it now so that no one else would find out about it or
know what was there.

“It will take a lot of work to push the Horned Bee
upstream,” said Christopher Robin, “I propose we walk
back and come for it tomorrow.”

Piglet held the metal rod – the one which the Huge Elder

Thing had given them – next to the North Pole, which

Christopher Robin had used to help guide them
downstream.

“We should take these with us, though, to keep them
safe,” said Piglet.

The animals, who were all tired after their adventure in
the Secret Place, agreed, and so the Expedition formed up
for the march home, with Pooh carrying the North Pole and

Piglet proudly carrying the Almost South Pole. For a while,
anyway, until Christopher Robin noticed it was too heavy
for the little animal, and asked if he might have a turn.

Rat-a-tat-tat
He went under a hill
Rat-a-tat-tat
And his name was Bill
(Except that it was Winnie the Pooh, really)

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

27
sang Pooh, and this time no one minded at all.

Yet none of them ever knew that in the Big Ditch behind
them, something Black and Definitely Not a Woozle was
listening.

Glurp!

My pipe had gone out, and Christopher Robin was
looking awfully sleepy.

“I imagine they all needed a nap after that,” I said.

He looked up, his eyes half-closed. “Is that why I don’t
eat my celery when Cook serves it at dinnertime?”

“It may be,” I said, realizing too late that I had probably
set myself up for another argument with Cook about

‘certain vegetables as were himportant for little’uns’.

“And did we ever meet the Small Elder Thing again?”

“You might have – but I forget. Perhaps I am tired as
well, and will remember some other day.”

“P’raps,” said Christopher Robin, and soon he was fast
asleep on the old rug, Piglet tucked under his arm.

Which is how this story ends.

28
THE VERY BLACK GOAT
BY CHRISTINE MORGAN

Once it was, of a brisk and rather blustery fall day,

Christopher Robin took it into his head to go on an

Adventure.

But, as one should never go on an Adventure alone, he
first went to find his most best of friends, one Edward Bear,
hereafter to be known as Winnie-the-Pooh, or just Pooh.

Who, despite being a Bear of Very Little Brain, happened to
be a Bear of Very Large Heart, as well as Very Great

Courage. There could be no one better to accompany

Christopher Robin on an Adventure, as Adventures were
often fraught with Great Dangers.

“Hello, Pooh,” called Christopher Robin, happening
upon his friend sitting on a log outside of his house, where
he lived under the name Sanders, which was written on a
board above the door.

At that particular moment, Pooh had just finished a mid
morning snack, a pot of hunny lying clean and empty beside
the log as he licked the last remnants from his paw and had
been wondering how to occupy his time until luncheon. He
looked up quite gladly, and said, “Why, hello, Christopher

Robin! I don’t suppose you’ve come to invite me to

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
29
breakfast?”

“Silly old bear,” Christopher Robin said fondly.

“Breakfast was many hours ago. No, I’ve come to invite you
on an Adventure!”

“An Adventure,” echoed Pooh, giving it solemn
contemplation. “Aren’t those often fraught with Great

Dangers?”

“Yes,” said Christopher Robin, “which is why I am
asking you. It would not be fair to ask Piglet, who, as you
know, is a Very Small Animal. And Rabbit, I’m sure, would
say the whole thing was foolish.”

“Well,” Pooh said, hefting to his feet, “you will not hear
me say such a thing. But tell me, Christopher Robin, have
you brought the necessary supplies?”

“I have,” Christopher Robin assured him. “I’ve brought
my compass, and paper and pencil to make a map. I’ve
brought my umbrella, in case it should rain. And I’ve
brought my popgun, should any of the Great Dangers prove
to be Greatly Dangerous.”

“Ah, very good,” said Pooh, “for there might be

Heffalumps, and it would not do to run afoul of a

Heffalump unprepared.”

With the matter so settled to their satisfaction, they
headed off. At first, their paths took them to familiar places,
such as the thistly corner of the Forest where dwelt Eeyore
the Old Grey Donkey.

“Hello, Eeyore,” they said. “Would you care to join us
on our Adventure?”

But Eeyore, glum as ever, swung his head side to side. “I
expect I would be only a burden,” he said with a long and
sad sigh. “You go on. I shall stay home, for it looks as if it
will rain.”

“I have brought my umbrella for just that reason,”

Christopher Robin said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to
come along?”

Eeyore gazed at him gloomily. “You’ll have far more fun
and excitement without me. I think I’ll count thistles until

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
30
the rain starts, and then sit in the mud.”

“All right, then,” said Christopher Robin. “We will tell
you about all the Great Dangers later.”

“That sounds dreadful,” said Eeyore. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” they told him, and continued on their way.

After a while, they reached the creek running along the
border between the familiar Forest and the somewhat-less
familiar Hundred Acre Wood, much of which Christopher

Robin had not yet explored. This in large part was due to
the advice of Owl, who lived in a grand residence known as

The Chestnuts. Owl was quite learned and wise, knew many
things, and used many Very Big Words. When Pooh asked
if they were going to stop and visit, Christopher Robin
paused to make ‘hmm’ noises as he thought it over.

“Do you know, Pooh, I think this time we shall not,” he
finally said. “For Owl will no doubt be full of dire warnings
and ominous cautions. The last time I asked him about
other parts of the Hundred Acre Wood, he became Quite

Grim and told me there were Some Places it was Best Not

To Go.”

“And did he use many Very Big Words?” queried Pooh.

“He did,” said Christopher Robin. “One was ‘eldritch’

and one was ‘squamous’ and I cannot remember the others.

But he made it sound as if there were all manner of Terrible

Things.”

“More terrible than Heffalumps?”

“So it would seem.”

“More terrible than Woozles?”

“So it also would seem.”

“My goodness,” said Pooh, his eyes wide and his mind
boggled. “How could that be?”

“Still,” said Christopher Robin, with confidence, “I have
my trusty popgun... and, more important yet, I have a Bear
of Very Large Heart and Very Great Courage.”

At that, Pooh felt most proud and special, for he knew

Christopher Robin meant him, so was then all the more
determined to continue on this Adventure, despite a qualm

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

31
of misgivings squirming in the vicinity of his tummy.

“Or, perhaps,” he said to himself as they progressed
downhill, toward a darker thicket of rather old and gnarled
looking trees, “it is a qualm of hunger squirming in my
tummy, for I have had nothing to eat since my mid-morning
snack, and it must be nigh on to luncheon-time by now.”

He wondered if Christopher Robin had brought
anything of that nature among their supplies but withheld
from inquiring. To tromp along like this meant he could
surely be excused from skipping his Stoutness Exercises
later on.

The further they progressed, the darker the thicket
seemed, and the more old and gnarled-looking the trees.

Dusty green-black moss hung in skeins and tangles from
their twisted boughs. Pale, waxy mushrooms sprouted in
clusters from their thickly hunched roots. The ground,
sloping into a proper Hollow, became more and more a
moist, loamy soil. Pooh felt it soaking into his feet and saw
it mucking up Christopher Robin’s shoes. Although the
blustery -- only rather blustery, remember -- breeze rustled
the canopy above, sometimes shedding leaves to drift down
like the rotting wings of dead moths; upon the mulchy forest
floor the air hung damp and still. Somewhere nearby, a
stream neither babbled nor chuckled but gurgled and
glugged, the way bathwater might in a half-clogged drain.

“I say, Pooh ...” said Christopher Robin, almost in a
whisper.

“I say, Christopher Robin ...” said Pooh, in as much of
an almost-whisper back.

But, before either of them could actually say what they
meant to say when they said ‘I say’ -- which would most
likely have been along the lines of how perhaps they’d had
enough Adventure for one day -- they heard what seemed
to be someone singing from a grove up just ahead.

Well, they could hardly turn back at that point, just when
their Adventure might have actually become a Discovery!

Furthermore, Pooh felt fairly certain neither Heffalumps

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

32
nor Woozles were prone to sing, and even if the words of
the song sounded even stranger than many of Owl’s Very

Big Words, the voice singing them sounded quite ordinary.

“I think it’s a girl,” Christopher Robin said. With some
surprise, to be sure; they seldom encountered other people
on their rambles through the Hundred Acre Wood, let alone
children. Let alone girls; aside from Kanga, girls were all but
unknown in their circle of acquaintances.

And it was a girl, they saw after carefully navigating the
slick stepping-stones across the gurgling and glugging slow
moving inky stream to peer between immense tree-trunks
into the heart of the thicket. There had been formed a
clearing or grove of sorts, shaded by branches interwoven
high overhead but carpeted in a dense undergrowth of
mosses and ferns and thistles quite unlike the ones Eeyore
liked to eat. The girl -- for, as mentioned, it was a girl -- sat
upon a large grey rock rearing up from the earthen greenery.

Pooh thought her a somewhat odd-looking girl, though
he would have been first to admit he had only seen them
primarily in Christopher Robin’s picture-tale books. Those
girls tended to have yellow curls, frilly dresses, shiny shoes,
clean pink faces, and rosy-red cheeks.

This girl had messy brown hair tied back with a string,
and a grimy face with a purplish bruise under one eye. She
wore a drab smock with a dirty apron over it, and no shoes
at all; her feet were muddied to the ankles. A battered wicker
basket covered with a scrap of cloth rested on the rock
beside her. But what was perhaps most astonishing of all?

The girl was not alone in the thicket, for there was there
with her a Very Black Goat! And no ordinary Very Black

Goat at that; like Pooh, it was sewn, stuffed, and stitched,
stumping about on its two hind legs, which ended in cloven
hooves that appeared to have been carved from wood. It
looked to stand half the girl’s height, its fur matted and
shaggy. From its head sprouted four stubby, blunted curves
of horn, which also appeared to have been carved from
wood.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

33

As the girl sang, the Very Black Goat rooted and
burrowed and dug into mounds of fallen leaves, casting
aside slimy twigs, collecting up what may have been beech
nuts or buckeyes. It then brought these to the girl, who
added them to her basket, which appeared to be nearly half
full of the darkish, lumpy nodes.

Then, most abruptly, the girl stopped singing, and she
and the Very Black Goat both turned to stare directly at
where Christopher Robin and Pooh hid between the tree
trunks.

“Hello,” said the girl. “Are you Trespassers?”

“No,” Pooh replied. “That would be Piglet’s
grandfather.” He went on to explain about the Trespassers

Will sign at Piglet’s house, but Christopher Robin nudged
him to hush, so he hushed.

“Hello,” said Christopher Robin, warily but not wanting
to be rude. “I am Christopher Robin, and this is Winnie
the-Pooh, and we are on an Adventure.”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

34

“An Adventure!” The girl tilted her head. “You must be
quite brave, to come here!”

“I have my popgun,” Christopher Robin told her, “and

Pooh is a Bear of Very Great Courage. Who are you? We
have never met a girl in the Forest before.”

“That is your fault, then,” she said, “for I live here, with
my Mother and all of my Brothers and Sisters.”

“How many Brothers and Sisters do you have?” asked

Christopher Robin, most perplexed, for he had certainly
never known of an entire family to live so deep within the

Hundred Acre Wood.

“Hundreds and hundreds!” she told him. “Nine hundred
and more!”

Now, this, of course, seemed especially preposterous,
but Christopher Robin was far too mannerly to say so.

“My name is Aniza,” she went on, “and this is Chag, my
best friend, who is, as you can see, a Very Black Goat.”

Chag, the Very Black Goat, looked directly at Pooh and
grinned what Pooh found to be a not-terribly-pleasant grin.

Chag had crooked teeth the color of old newspapers, a nasty
straggle of hairy beard, and eyes that made Pooh think,
impossibly, of rancid hunny. Impossibly, because of course
hunny could not go rancid; nonetheless, that was what came
to Pooh’s mind. Never before, in all of his memory -- Bear
of Very Little Brain though he might be -- had the idea of
hunny in any form struck him so unappetizingly.

“And what,” asked Christopher Robin politely, “are you
doing?”

“Gathering Truffles,” she said, as if it should have been
obvious.

“Truffles?” Pooh looked around, glad for the chance to
avoid Chag’s toothy grin and rancid-hunny eyes. “Are they
something to do with Heffalumps?”

“No, silly old bear,” Christopher Robin explained.

“They’re... like mushrooms, I think. Or turnips, or
potatoes. They grow in the dirt.”

“Very Black Goats are Very Good Truffle Hunters,”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

35

Aniza said. “So are some dogs and pigs, so they say, but

Very Black Goats are much better. As for Heffalumps, I
don’t even know what a Heffalump is.”

“Oh,” said Pooh, rather relieved. “Then there must not
be any Heffalumps around here. But,” he added, turning to

Christopher Robin, “if pigs are good Truffle Hunters,
perhaps we should have brought Piglet along after all.”

“Perhaps you should ha-a-ave,” said Chag, whose voice
was bleaty and harsh to the ears. “Pork goes so nicely with

Truffles.”

“Oh, now, stop.” Aniza hopped down from the rock,
swinging her basket.

Pooh saw that her feet really were extremely filthy, and
although he was not much of a judge of toenails or toes,
something about the way her toes splayed with a deep
groove between them and the way her toenails grew so thick
and under curved and clicked on the stone struck him as
disturbingly unusual.

“How long has it been since we’ve met anyone new to
play with?” she went on. “Come and play, Christopher

Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, come sing and dance and skip
and jump! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! And then we shall go home to

Mother for tea!”

To such a suggestion, Pooh might ordinarily have been
all in agreement. For, where there was tea there often was
hunny, and perhaps scones with cream, marmalade toast, or
even little cakes. This time, however, he hesitated, and
found similar hesitancy upon Christopher Robin’s face.

“Oh that is most kind,” Christopher Robin said, still
clearly not wishing to be impolite, “but we would have no
wish to be such a bother.”

“No bother at all! We have found So Many Truffles, it
would be a shame to see them go to waste.” She lifted the
cloth from the basket, revealing it filled nearly full with the
dark, lumpy nodes.

To Pooh, they did not look very appetizing. The scent
of them was heavy and earthy and dank, making him think

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

36
of root-cellars. But not neat, tidy root-cellars such as

Rabbit’s, with everything sorted into wooden bins, each
clearly labeled as KAROTS or ONYNS or TURNPS in
large-penciled block-letters.

“Thank you,” said Christopher Robin, trying yet again,

“but we really should be heading back --

”

“Nonsense!” said Aniza. “I will hear none of it.”

“None of it,” seconded Chag.

They both, little girl and Very Black Goat, grinned
widely together, and Pooh saw, to his consternation, that
her teeth as well were crooked, and the color of old
newspaper. So too did her eyes put him in mind of rancid
hunny, quite killing the rest of his appetite.

“You will come and meet Mother,” Aniza told them.

“You will come and sing and dance and skip and play with
us, and it shall be the Most Splendid Fun.”

“Most Splendid,” Chag agreed, and laughed a bleaty
byea-ah-ah laugh.

Christopher Robin had drawn near to Pooh, and side by
side they edged backwards a few steps through the moist,
mulchy soil. Behind them, the stream gurgled and glugged.

From further ahead, past the clearing, where the trees grew

Very Large and Gnarled indeed, something stirred in an
eager, impatient immensity.

“You will,” Aniza repeated. “Mother wishes it. Have you
no manners?”

At that, Christopher Robin shifted uncomfortably, for
he did have manners, had been raised to be obedient and
polite.

Aniza took another step toward them. “Don’t make us
chase you,” she said.

“Or do,” said Chag, grin widening such that a great many
more teeth were revealed. “Do; that would also be Most

Splendid Fun.”

“I... I am most woefully sorry...” stammered Christopher

Robin, who had edged so far backward his heels sank in the
mud. “But we really must go --

”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
37
In a motion So Sudden that Pooh could barely
comprehend it, Aniza flung aside her basket and sprang in

Such A Jump even Kanga might have gasped. In a flash, she
had Christopher Robin gripped by the wrist, her grubby
fingernails digging into his skin.

“You will come to Mother!” she said in a snarl the likes
of which no nice little girl should ever snarl.

Christopher Robin cried out, though whether in surprise
or fear or pain Pooh could not be sure. He tried to pull his
arm away, but she held on with a strength also the likes of
which no nice little girl should ever have.

Now, of course, Hitting A Girl was one of the Worst
and Most Rudest Things, and Christopher Robin was not
about to do it no matter how hurt or frightened he was, but
he did, by pure reflex, give her a Shove, such that she
stumbled and let go of him and fell on her bottom.

“Hurry, Pooh!” shouted Christopher Robin, turning to
run. He bounded from one slick stepping-stone to the next
and had made it almost to the stream’s far bank when his
shoe slipped, and down he went into the shallows with a
splash.

Pooh, meanwhile, had not dawdled, for all that his legs
were Rather Short and Stumpy. But…

“Not so fast!” growled Chag, and it was true, for Not So

Fast was nonetheless the best Pooh could do. He had barely
reached the second stepping-stone when the Very Black

Goat seized him and flung him so hard to the ground Pooh
thought his seams might split.

It may have been that Hitting A Girl was one of the

Worst Things, but Pooh had heard no such rules about

Hitting A Very Black Goat, and here in this moment of his
terror and extremity, he wouldn’t have cared if he had. He
hopped up and swung a paw, and struck Chag an

Astoundingly Solid Blow to the chin.

Chag staggered, and Pooh ran as quick as his Short and

Stumpy legs would take him. Aniza snatched at him but
missed, and then he was across the stepping-stones as

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

38

Christopher Robin, soaking wet, scrambled out of the
stream.

From deep amid the darkest clusters of Very Large and

Gnarled trees, there came a rustling ground-shaking rumble,
as of Something Huge heaving itself up, Something Huge
and Musky and Fecund -- an Owl-word for certain, of which

Pooh had no idea what it meant, but knew was most fitting

-- gusting great snort-wafts of Dank, Angry Breath.

He and Christopher Robin did not look back, fleeing up
the sloping path down which they’d come, tripping and
blundering, Christopher Robin scraping his knees and the
palms of his hands, Pooh snagging a stitch on a jutting
branch so that a tuft of stuffing was left hanging. As they
fled, they heard Aniza and Chag pursuing... pursuing and
gaining, like Sure-Footed Goats...

“We cannot outrun them,” panted Christopher Robin,
skidding to a halt by the bole of a large Chestnut Tree.

“We... must hide,” puffed Pooh, who would not need
to do his Stoutness Exercises for a whole week after this.

“No,” said Christopher Robin. He unlimbered his
popgun. “We must fight.”

“Fight?!” Pooh squeaked, which made him sound
alarmingly like Piglet.

“Fight,” repeated Christopher Robin grimly. “After all,

Pooh, remember, you are a Bear of Very Large Heart and

Very Great Courage.”

“Am I? Oh, yes, I suppose I am,” said Pooh, hoping to
convince himself.

He had not much time for self-convincing, for Aniza
and Chag topped the rise just then, whooping as if this really
was the Most Splendid Fun indeed. But their whoops cut off
when Christopher Robin’s popgun fired, pinging a spray of
pine bark and splinters inches from Aniza’s head.

“Stop there!” he called to them. “I don’t want to shoot
you!”

Aniza, quicker than quick, ducked behind the tree, where
she began throwing rocks and pinecones with such

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

39

Impressive Accuracy that Christopher Robin also had to
duck for cover. As she did this, Chag charged onward, head
lowered, horns leading.

And there simply was nothing else for it but for Pooh to
do likewise, charging to meet the Very Black Goat square
on.

A roar tore from him, a roar the likes of which no one
would have expected from Winnie-the-Pooh. A Very Brave

Roar, a Very Loud Roar, a roar such as would have had

Piglet cowering in a gorse-bush for the rest of the day.

Chag’s horns caught Pooh in the well-padded
midsection, making him utter a big winded “Oof!” His feet
slid a bit, churning furrows in the damp dirt, then dug in so

Pooh could Stand His Ground. This he did despite having
yet more tufts of stuffing poking out; those horns may have
been stubby and blunted but they nonetheless gouged
painful rents in Pooh’s hide.

There then followed a Ferocious Tussle, Pooh and Chag
slugging and grappling, toppling over to roll and tumble and
punch and kick. Chag’s crooked teeth snapped at Pooh’s
nose. Pooh stomped one of Chag’s cloven-hoofed legs
sideways so that it almost tore off at the back-bent knee.

The two of them made all manner of Terrible Animal

Noises, and Chag may also have said some Very Bad Words,
such as not even Owl might have known what they meant,
but Kanga would have covered little Roo’s ears.

With Christopher Robin also yelling from one side, and

Aniza yelling from the other, with the popgun firing and
pinecones and rocks being flung, it was Quite A Ruckus,
though still not Loud Enough to drown out the crunching
and crashing approach of Something Huge shaking the
entire Forest with its Monstrous Strides.

“Pooh!” called Christopher Robin in despair, looking Up
and Up with the color draining from his face and his popgun
dropping unheeded to the dirt as a Dreadful Shadow fell
over him.

Pooh did not look Up and Up, did not want to. Instead,

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

40
he wrapped his stout but strong arms around Chag’s shaggy
body and squeezed. Squeezed with all his might, squeezed

Oh Such A Squeeze that Chag’s seams split wide open.

Stuffing -- not white and puffy like Pooh’s stuffing but
spongy and dark and smelling of mildew -- burst out in
loathsome bulges.

Aniza screamed. Chag screamed. Pooh squeezed even
harder. He squeezed until Chag’s horned head lolled, until

Chag’s hooves drummed frantically and then went still, until

Chag hung limp and lifeless as an empty sack.

Still without looking Up at the Dreadful Shadow
looming, the Something Huge with its great snorts of Angry

Breath, Pooh cast Chag away and hurried -- limping quite
badly, leaking more stuffing from a dozen new rents and
tears -- to the place where Christopher Robin knelt sobbing
and gibbering. He helped Christopher Robin up, and,
tugging him by the hand, led him away as fast as he could.

Once, only once, did Pooh risk a glance back, to see

Aniza cradling Chag’s tattered remains, wailing her grief and
rage skyward with Murderous Revenge in her eyes. Of the

Something Huge with its Dreadful Shadow, he saw nothing

... and he was glad.

How they made it safely all the way to Christopher

Robin’s house, Pooh did not know. What he knew was that
they did make it, although Christopher Robin was in Such A

State he had to be put straight to bed. There, he stayed for
the next several days, and was so Not Himself a doctor had
to be brought in, giving him spoonfuls of medicine.

Everyone was Quite Fretfully Worried about him. And
none more so than Pooh, who stayed with Christopher

Robin by his bedside the whole time, rows of neat stitches
holding his hide together and his new stuffing in.

Finally, more than a week later, Christopher Robin
opened his eyes and seemed somewhat More Himself, wan
and quiet but at least knowing both who and where he was.

“Oh, Pooh,” he said. “I dreamed we went on an

Adventure.”

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

41

“I dreamed that too,” said Pooh.

“And it was Very Awful Indeed.”

“Yes,” said Pooh. “Yes, it was.”

“I think it would be best if I did not remember.”

“I think it would be best if neither of us did.”

Christopher Robin sank weakly into his pillow. “Good.

Let us not remember, for it was Very Awful Indeed.”

“I have already forgotten,” said Pooh, though he was not
proud for lying to his dearest friend.

“One thing, though, that I do remember ...” said

Christopher Robin in a rather drowsy voice. “You, my silly
old bear, were Most Exceptionally Brave.”

With that, he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

And, although they both lived many years longer, they never
spoke of this Adventure again.

42
BACK TO THE BLACK BOG
BY LEE CLARK ZUMPE

Wearied by a long succession of sleepless nights, Eeyore

– the Old Grey Donkey whose gloomy mind is often
occupied by somber thoughts on matters of great concern

– gazed skyward with a breathless intensity. Overhead, cold
alien stars crept across the dreaming firmament, striving to
crowd the great gulf of space with flecks of light to offset
the intractable tenebrosity. He imagined the minor gods of
long forgotten pantheons compelled to partake in this
nightly procession, reduced by time from their apex as
powerful deities to little more than far-flung candle-bearers
in the dark, pitiless void.

Such puerile thoughts amused him, as much as anything
could bring solace to his melancholy mood.

Christopher Robin once told Eeyore that if you look
closely enough at certain groups of stars, you can find the
outlines of animals or figures from Greek mythology. The

Boy Who Lived Behind the Green Door likened it to the

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

43
connect-the-dots puzzle books he sometimes shared with
his closest friends, Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet. According
to this model, the night skies contained a certain number of
clustering stars – known as constellations – that had been
arranged in an identifiable pattern to represent something
only recognizable to a select group of individuals on one
specific planet in the universe. Furthermore, Christopher

Robin said that some people believe the constellations and
the alignments of stars influence a person’s demeanor as
well as their destiny.

Eeyore had studied the stars quite thoroughly and found
the entire notion rather ludicrous. It revealed a need to
impose order on chaos and to instill meaning in a
meaningless existence. It likely served as a reassuring sign of

Some Great Power among the primitive minds who first
sought elements of the divine in nature in the distant past,
but Eeyore wondered how a civilization that had advanced
so decisively to the point of functional self-destruction had
not yet relinquished its obsession with magic and
superstition.

That anyone with even a modest grasp of intellect could
embrace the notion that unseen gods scribble oracular notes
in the twilight almost gave the glum Old Grey Donkey cause
to crack a smile. Almost.

It should be mentioned that among the dwellers of the

Hundred Acre Wood, Eeyore considered himself the most
knowledgeable, though he certainly never made such a claim
outside his innermost thoughts. To do so would be to
infringe upon Owl’s confidence as the group’s scholarly
mentor – though that scatterbrained resident of The

Chestnuts knew little about everything and nothing about
most things. He spoke with such authority that even
twaddle and poppycock sounded clever and sharp to most
who bothered to listen.

Eeyore considered Rabbit an intellectual peer, at least in
some respects. The burden of his knowledge – and the
manner in which he had to mete it out in laborious measure

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

44

– often left Rabbit quite bedraggled. He took pride in
knowing the others sought out his guidance, though he
usually grew frustrated with their lack of understanding and
their inability to follow even the simplest of instructions. To

Eeyore, Rabbit always seemed like he might be teetering on
the edge of madness, lodged indefinitely on the very verge
of violent delirium.

As for the rest …

Pooh had always made up for his slow-wittedness with
an abundance of kindness and generosity, and with genuine
enthusiasm and infectious optimism that would feel
insincere if exhibited by anyone capable of understanding
that there is more to life than emptying endless jars of
honey. Piglet, too, had no interest in “book smarts,” but he
possessed an innocence that had no thought of self. Kanga
might have been the wisest of all, but she seemed content
spending all her time tending to Baby Roo.

All of them slept soundly each night, tucked beneath
blankets in their cozy abodes, oblivious to the nightly
procession of stars wheeling in their celestial trajectories,
never deviating from course as they crawled across the black
void. Never deviating … until that abominable night.

The fireball appeared unexpectedly, accompanied by the
rumble of distant thunder and a train of light. Though he
could not say with certainty from which constellation the

Cosmic Lump had been hurled earthward, Eeyore would
later recall that it first appeared in the northeast quadrant of
the sky. It traveled faster than Kanga racing across an open
meadow in answer to Baby Roo’s call; faster even than
lightning leaping from cloud to cloud. Somewhere between
the upper atmosphere and the heathland of the Hundred

Acre Wood, the object exploded in a fiery, cataclysmic burst
of light. The resulting shockwave knocked poor Eeyore to
the ground and flattened the jumble of twigs and branches
he had assembled as temporary shelter. Though he did not
know it at the time, the blast stirred from sleep nearly
everyone in the surrounding countryside, shattered some

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

45
windows at the home of Christopher Robin, and uprooted
a cluster of sweet chestnut and silver birch on the edge of
the Black Bog. As terrible and tragic as that might sound,
what fell from the skies that night would soon bring far
greater ruin to the acreage shared by Eeyore and his friends.

In the moments that followed, anxious howls of startled
dogs arose from the neatly groomed properties of estates
bordering the Hundred Acre Wood. Answering the tumult
came a cacophony of cries and bellowings, grunts and
growls, and squawks and squeaks, as every living creature
reacted to the nocturnal upheaval. For a short time, the
clamor filled the night with panic and dread – but, gradually,
the commotion subsided.

In the stillness and silence that settled over the
landscape, the Old Grey Donkey set out across the soggy
corner of his forest, tromping through tussocks of purple
moor-grass and sphagnum moss, determined to find what
manner of matter could dislodge itself from the vault of the
black empyrean.

“Did you see it, Bear?” Christopher Robin arrived much
later in the day than usual, his excitement evident in both
his expression and his demeanor. He met Winnie-the-Pooh
and Piglet on a bridge that spanned a small stream
meandering through the Hundred Acre Wood. “Did you see
that hullabaloo this morning?”

“No,” said Pooh, straining his memory to decide
whether he had forgotten what he remembered or he had
recalled something he had chosen to disregard. “I don’t
believe I’ve encountered any Hullabaloos today, although
it’s possible there may have been one or two hiding behind
that spinney of larch trees where Piglet and I often see

Woozle tracks.”

“Silly Bear,” said the Boy Who Lived Behind the Green

Door. “A hullabaloo isn’t a beast! It’s a kind of hubbub, a
ruckus.”

“Of course.” Pooh nodded ardently, although he felt no

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

46
closer to understanding what Christopher Robin meant.

“Of all Hubbubs, Ruckuses are my absolute favorite.”

“Mine, too,” Piglet agreed. A moment later, his eyes
filled with worry. “Are Ruckuses dangerous? Are they

Hostile Animals?”

“Let’s start over again,” Christopher Robin said, stifling
his laughter so as not to embarrass his friends. “Last night,
a meteorite – ” He stopped in the middle of his explanation,
realizing his audience lacked Very Clever Brains. He
continued, using much smaller words. “A rock from the sky
blew up over East Sussex. I’m sure you both heard that!”

“No, I’m afraid not.” Winnie-the-Pooh shrugged his
shoulders. “I find that some nights when I am particularly
hungry, I eat so much honey that it fills up every inch of
space inside of me, from my back paws right up to my ears.”

The very mention of honey made Pooh’s stomach growl.

“If you’ve ever had honey in your ears, you know that it’s
quite unlikely that you will hear much of anything.”

“I can’t say that I’ve ever had honey in my ears, Bear.”

Christopher Robin rolled his eyes. “What about you, Piglet.

Did you hear the blast?”

“I hide beneath so many layers of blankets and pillows
that sometimes Pooh has to come in and find me,” Piglet
said. “I get lost underneath all the bed clothes.”

“It’s rather like digging up a dead body, I suppose.”

Pooh regretted the comparison immediately, fearful that

Christopher Robin might ask uncomfortable questions if he
learned about the recent grave desecration at a nearby
cemetery. “Not that I would know about such things,” the
bear added, confident his guile would be sufficient to
mislead the boy. “It’s not as if beekeepers are buried with
their bee-hives, anyway.”

Pooh’s stomach growled again.

“Well, aside from you two, most everyone heard it,”

Christopher Robin said, his tone growing noticeably cross.

He had never noticed how exasperating his friends could
be. “And it caused quite a bit of damage, in fact. Early this

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

47
morning, a small army of scientists invaded the Hundred

Acre Wood hoping to find the meteorite – the rock from
the sky. They must have thought it came down in the Black

Bog, because that’s where they focused their search.”

“That seems as good a place as any for a Meaty Orite to
be.” Pooh tossed a small branch into the water and watched
it float downstream. “Where do Meaty Orites come from
originally?”

“From space, of course.” Christopher Robin tossed in
his own twig, placing it near the swiftest current in the
steam. It quickly overtook Pooh’s and sailed off into the
distance. “It had to cross the galaxy to reach us. It may have
even come from the farthest reaches of the universe.”

“And what exactly is it,” Piglet finally asked.

“It’s like a shooting star,” Christopher Robin said.

“Except, instead of burning up in the sky, all or part of it
crashes down onto the ground.” This revelation caused

Piglet to immediately seek shelter underneath Pooh’s
drooping girth and to turn his gaze skyward in search of
falling debris. “Once it cools down, it may be
indistinguishable from any old rock – but it’s so much more
than that. It’s an interstellar souvenir, a galactic artifact …

”

“A Cosmic Lump?” Eeyore startled the small band as
they discussed the previous night’s marginal calamity.

“That’s what it looked like to me,” the Old Grey Donkey
said. “Just a charred Cosmic Lump glowing like a cooling
ember.”

“You saw it?” Christopher Robin nearly shoved Piglet
and Pooh into the water as he rushed toward Eeyore. “You
saw the meteorite?”

“Of course.” Eeyore stood alongside the stream, gazing
woefully down at his reflection in the water. Though seeing
his likeness never afforded him much gratification,
something about it today seemed particularly unsettling –
almost as if the eyes glaring back at him belonged to
someone else entirely. He shook his head with a small sigh.

“I saw it fall from the sky. Since I knew no one else was

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48
going to sort it out, I decided I would do it myself.”

“I don’t understand,” Christopher Robin said. “What do
you mean?”

“I had to make sure no harm came to any of us,” he said.

“So, I buried it.”

“That’s why the scientists couldn’t find anything.”

Christopher Robin laughed and laughed as if he might never
stop. To think: All those learned researchers and
academicians had been outsmarted by the Old Grey

Donkey. “That’s brilliant, Eeyore. Now we can unearth it
and study it ourselves!”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Known for his chronic
pessimism, Eeyore tended to voice his reservations about
almost every course of action, no matter who expressed it.

In this instance, though, he did so out of more than habitual
cynicism. He could not find words to express his loathing
of that object that fell from the sky, but he knew it to be
more dangerous than any of the others could imagine. “I
think it’s best to leave it be and forget it’s even there.”

“Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud, Eeyore,” Christopher

Robin said, mocking him gently. “Owl will be so thrilled
when he finds out about this. Neither of us have ever
examined anything that came from Outer Space.”

As happened more often than not, Eeyore regretted his
decision to sacrifice what could have been a tranquil
afternoon of secluded misery for the grating company of his
friends.

“I understand your excitement.” Eeyore could not fault
the boy for his desire to learn. He knew Christopher Robin
considered himself an expert in science because he attended
school regularly, earned excellent grades on his exams, and
professed to have read every book ever written – a claim the

Old Grey Donkey knew to be either naïvely inaccurate or
intentionally dishonest. “But please reconsider, for all of our
sakes.” Eeyore spoke with such solemnity and pessimism
that his words fell like the knell of doom to both Pooh and

Piglet. “Is your thirst for knowledge so great that you would

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
49
risk all our lives?”

Among those gathered at the creek, only Eeyore truly
understood that such things should not be treated with
impulsiveness and irresponsibility. Only he knew that
something that had originated from some far corner of
unknown stellar space might carry with it the very likely
possibility of elements toxic to every living thing that called
the Hundred Acre Wood home.

“Let me think about it overnight,” Christopher Robin
said, noticing that the sun had already begun its slow descent
in the west. He needed to start the hike back to his home,
back to the familiar Green Door and to his family, who
would be waiting there for him so they could sit down to
eat their evening meal. “You certainly have given me some
pause, Eeyore,” he added. “Enough to reflect on your
advice.”

“That’s all I can ask,” Eeyore said.

“I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Christopher Robin said. “By
the way, Eeyore – it looks like you’ve lost your tail again.”

The following day, Christopher Robin met Owl just after
dawn and headed for the Black Bog. Unlike the scientists
who had surveyed the swampy scrub the previous morning,
the two scanned the landscape in search of an unintended
marker: Eeyore’s detached tail. Because the imprudent
appendage had a habit of going missing at least once a
month, everyone who dwelled in the Hundred Acre Wood
had become a capable tracker, able to spot the ragged
extremity at some distance and amidst nearly any form of
thicket or undergrowth.

Though Christopher Robin had promised his friend

Eeyore that he would consider his advice overnight, the boy
had no intention of missing the opportunity to get his hands
on the Cosmic Lump. In his dreams, he imagined himself
showered with praise for finding the meteorite and for
unlocking its innermost secrets. He wondered what
accolades and awards might follow if he discovered

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

50
previously unknown scientific properties, new elements to
be added to the periodic table, or even hints at the existence
of extraterrestrial life.

“There it is – I think,” Owl said, his face distorted with
a mix of shock and revulsion. He gazed down upon

Eeyore’s tail, abandoned in a patch teeming with ferns,
mosses and liverworts. “It looks a bit different from what I
recall.”

Light rain had fallen between midnight and dawn,
leaving the bog even more waterlogged than usual. Poor

Eeyore’s lost appendage had grown soggy and sad since it
had unfastened itself from its host. Insects swarmed over it
now, desperately trying to lay claim to it for some unseen
queen languishing in a nearby nest. Some of the more
impetuous drones nibbled ravenously at the frayed ends of
the gristly stub. Owl’s disgust did not spring from this
impromptu feast, however: It was the pale, fibrous tissue
that seemed to have somehow propagated from the Old

Grey Donkey’s tail that took him aback.

“What is that?” Christopher Robin – always eager to
conduct a thorough, methodical investigation of scientific
curiosities – found a long, firm stick and poked the fleshy
mass. His prodding immediately sent the swarming creepy
crawlies into a frenzied retreat. “Should we collect it for

Eeyore?”

“I think not,” Owl said, looking askance at the boy. “I
think we should let it sit out beneath the sun for a few days
so it will have a chance to dry out. We can tell him where to
find it or come back for it when we have the time.”

“An excellent suggestion, Owl.” Christopher Robin next
turned his gaze to a small mound of dirt and mud only a few
feet away from Eeyore’s putrid nub. “Just as I expected,”

the boy said. “Find the tail, find the meteorite.”

Eeyore’s attempt at camouflaging the Cosmic Lump
proved wildly incompetent. The late-night storm had
washed away much of the muck he had piled atop it to
conceal it. Though more than a day had passed since its

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

51
descent through the atmosphere, it still emitted enough heat
to send up clouds of steam. Once Christopher Robin had
brushed away the remaining soil, he perceived of a ruddy,
pulsing glow radiating from deep within its pitted surface.

When the boy shoved a twig into one of those cavities, the
branch burst into flames. The subsequent tendrils of smoke
carried the awful stench of decomposing flesh – an odor

Christopher Robin had only experienced on a handful of
occasions when his father had to dispose of a rodent that
had crawled into their attic to die.

“It smells foul,” Owl said, having caught a whiff of the
smoke. “I wonder if that is what Outer Space smells like.”

“I wouldn’t think Outer Space would have much scent
to it at all,” said Christopher Robin. “And even if it did, we
couldn’t smell anything in the vacuum. If there’s nothing to
breathe, there can’t be anything to smell.”

“Is it heavy?” Owl tottered a bit closer to the Cosmic

Lump, extending one of his wings cautiously. He caressed it
softly with his feathers. “Will you be able to lift it by
yourself?”

“I think so,” Christopher Robin said. The boy possessed
enough foresight to anticipate the need for a means of
conveyance. For that purpose, he brought along his rickety
old wooden wagon with the wobbly rear-right wheel.

“Would you mind pulling the wagon over here?”

“I would be happy to assist you,” Owl answered, though
he struggled with the execution of the task. Finding his
feathers useless for grasping the pull handle, he finally
decided to nudge the wagon from behind with his talons.

“Will this do?”

By that time, Christopher Robin had wrenched the

Cosmic Lump from the clingy mire of the bog, rolling it
away from the resulting black pool in which Eeyore had
hoped to abandon it. Touching its surface burned the palms
of his hands. He considered removing his shirt and using it
as a buffer – but the thought of his mother’s
disappointment at seeing his ruined clothing ended that line

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
52
of thinking.

“Here we go!” Christopher Robin wrapped his arms
around the Cosmic Lump. “For science!”

As Christopher Robin lifted the meteorite from the
ground, he cried out in pain. His scrawny legs buckled
beneath him. For a moment, he thought he might lose his
hold on their precious find – but he managed to turn around
and deposit it into the wagon.

Tears streamed down his face in the aftermath, and he
trembled as he sobbed. The considerable exertion left him
dizzy and breathless. He collapsed a moment later, his
muscles no longer capable of supporting his weight.

Wordlessly, he sat in the mud of the Black Bog trying to
recoup his strength. Blisters began to appear in the palms of
his soft hands, and the scorched skin of his arms rippled
with searing discomfort.

The passage of time became strangely unimportant.

Fleecy clouds raced across the pale blue sky. The sounds of
civilization – locomotive whistles, wind chimes, factory
bells, sounds of street traffic, and the giddy laughter of
children gamboling outdoors – had been deadened to a dull
murmur. Though his eyes did not close, Christopher Robin
felt himself swept into a liminal space between ignorance
and epiphany. Neither awake nor fully asleep, he drifted into
a gentle darkness through which he heard the faint,
melodious opiate of unearthly music.

Owl watched over the boy throughout his
convalescence, waiting patiently to see that familiar spark of
innocence and wonder return to his eyes. Throughout his
vigil, he observed an array of aberrant aspects in the
surrounding environment. Vegetation in the vicinity began
to exhibit curious properties, including strange variations in
texture and hue as well as astonishing rates of growth. Owl
could actually see bog asphodels burst through the
sphagnum carpet, unfurl their leaves and explode into with
sulfur-yellow, star-like flowers. Some plants erupted in vivid
blossoms, though Owl knew very well he had never seen a

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
53
flower bloom on any one of them.

Wildlife avoided the Cosmic Lump completely. An
exodus had begun on the ground, with multiple species
plotting courses that would put great distance between them
and the meteorite. Even dancing dragonflies and damselflies
altered their flightpath to shun the thing.

As hours advanced, the threat of nightfall forced Owl to
consider finding help for Christopher Robin, though he
doubted Winnie-the-Pooh could offer any practical
recommendations. Because Christopher Robin was a boy,

Owl deduced, Kanga – who had experience raising an
offspring – might be the best source of counsel.

Just when Owl had made up his mind to confer with the
wisest mother in the Hundred Acre Wood, the boy emerged
from his trance.

“Let’s get this back to your laboratory, Owl,”

Christopher Robin said, forcing himself to his feet. His eyes
remained distant and cold. The spark of innocence and
wonder Owl hoped to find had been replaced by something
solemn and sepulchral. “We have so much work to do.”

Having felt emotionally depleted from the recent
encounter with his friends on the bridge, Eeyore spent the
following day avoiding any form of social engagement.

Although he cared a great deal about Christopher Robin,

Winnie-the-Pooh, and Piglet, his extreme shyness and his
fear of interaction meant he had to limit the amount of time
he spent in their presence because even an innocent
conversation could sometimes feel like torture.

It pleased Eeyore that no additional rocks from outer
space had chosen the Hundred Acre Wood as their
impromptu bullseye. He felt that any further cosmic debris
that might happen to become displaced or dislocated –
intentionally or by accident – ought to consider alternative
targets in less populated regions, or perhaps even plunge
into a large lake or vast ocean. In his opinion, the fact that
the incident had not repeated itself over the two subsequent

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

54
evenings meant that the universe almost certainly had not
commenced its inevitable disintegration and that the entire
episode had been a fluke of nature that would soon be
forgotten.

Except …

The Cosmic Lump had disappeared. Eeyore panicked as
he approached the spot where he had originally found the
meteorite in the Black Bog. For a moment, he thought he
had made a navigational error. He thought he might have
taken a wrong turn and gotten lost amidst the swampy
terrain. The bog, after all, could be a confusing labyrinth
even for those familiar with it.

But no – this was the spot.

Someone had managed to locate the rock from outer
space despite his best efforts at concealing it. They had
excavated it, removed it, and hauled it off to some venue
where they could poke it and prod it and measure it and test
it. They would tinker and toy with it. They would try to crack
open its pitted husk and liberate whatever alien elements –
or entities – resided within its fortified core.

Anyone who had spent as little as a single dreary
afternoon with poor Eeyore would attest to his
extraordinary level of nihilism, his obstinacy, and his spirit
of resigned hopelessness that sometimes accompanies an
honest assessment of the magnitude of one’s negligible
existence. His friends knew him to be self-effacing, meek,
and – from time to time – patently pessimistic. In reality,
though, on the few occasions when he stood as a defeatist
and a doomsayer and had been proven wrong, he admitted
his mistake.

This time, there was no mistake: The Cosmic Lump
would bring doom to the Hundred Acre Wood. He knew
his pessimism be validated, and his fears would prove only
too true.

The Old Grey Donkey knew who to blame for this
impending calamity.

The tell-tale tracks of Christopher Robin’s rickety old

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

55
wooden wagon – the one with the wobbly rear-right wheel

– meandered across the bog in a trajectory that would carry
it to Owl’s place in the Chestnuts. Owl and the boy
maintained a surprisingly well-equipped underground
research laboratory. Though strictly off-limits to most of
their friends, Eeyore had gotten a glimpse inside their
scientific sanctum one day when the two were dissecting a
curiously well-dressed toad while a mole and badger
protested the unsolicited autopsy outdoors with loud grunts
and utter indignation.

Christopher Robin and Owl lacked any insight born of
experience. Their curiosity had, on more than one occasion,
been spurred into inexcusable excursions – though nothing
as potentially disastrous as their present endeavor. Eeyore
shuddered as he ruminated over the possible consequences.

The Old Grey Donkey did not have to ponder for more
than a few moments, for as he stood amidst the Black Bog
he became aware of changes – some subtle, some startlingly
dramatic – in the environment. The Cosmic Lump had
already begun poisoning the Hundred Acre Wood,
spawning hideous mutations and precipitating aberrations
that would lead to unspeakable future horrors.

Something slithered through a nearby pond stirring
ripples in the murky water. Its glistening scales jutted above
the surface for an instant before disappearing into the
sludge. Along the periphery of the pond, a pair of stoats
turned their noses skyward, sniffing something unsettling in
the air. Eeyore smelled it, too – and it smelled like rotting
flesh and crumbling bones.

In the distance, he heard the tortured wail of a dying

Heffalump – and he hesitated to imagine the beast that
could fell such a mammoth.

Yet of all the biological abominations that appeared to

Eeyore in that moment of revelation, none sickened him as
much as the one that could be his own sibling. The sound
of its sad whimpers drew him in for a closer look. His crude
doppelganger – had it somehow sprung from his lost tail? –

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

56
now quivered before him with hideous life. Not yet fully
formed, the False Eeyore huddled in the shade of a hazel
tree, its organs and bones still visible through great gaps in
its hide. It made awful gurgling noises with each breath, and
its eyes reflected an infinite measure of torment.

“It’s here …” Blood and bile oozed out of the mimic’s
maw as it tried to communicate. “It’s here, and it’s
spreading. Soon, it will poison everything.”

“What is it?” Eeyore suddenly found himself filled with
empathy for the mishappen creature whose spontaneous
generation must have been as excruciating as the most
painful death imaginable. “Where does it come from?”

“From beyond,” the thing muttered. “Outside time and
space. Stop it. Bring it back to the bog. Return it to the place
where it fell. Left undisturbed, it will do no further harm.

Maybe those things it has already altered will even revert to
their true nature.”

“And if I cannot return it?”

“It will infect your world and your universe as it has done
over and over again across countless dimensions.” Eeyore’s
nascent twin moaned and wept. “It will bring an eternity of
sorrow and pain, just as it did in my Hundred Acre Wood.”

Eeyore knew what he had to do. As he followed the
wagon tracks toward Owl’s place, he thought for a moment
that he heard the sound of a distant piper playing a strange,
unearthly tune.

When Eeyore arrived at the Chestnuts, he discovered the
doorway to Owl’s research laboratory ajar. Unlike the
entrance to the scatterbrained raptor’s cozy treetop abode
found at the union where one of the sturdiest branches met
the trunk, one could access the underground workshop
through an egress in a neighboring elm – long dead and
rotten – that seemed perpetually besieged by an encircling
army of toadstools. A painted sign above the entry read:

WELCOM – PLEZ GO A WAY!

A second sign had been affixed to a post and planted

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
57
amongst the toadstools. It read:
SCIANTUSTS WIRKING

The Old Grey Donkey paid no attention to either
message as he nudged the door with his snout. Beyond lay
a narrow, sloping corridor that descended into cavernous
darkness. Fortunately, Owl kept several handheld candle
lanterns on a shelf just inside the passage, along with wax
candles and lucifer matches. The dim light scarcely
penetrated the subterranean shadows, but it provided
enough illumination to ensure poor Eeyore did not stray
from the path.

Who knows what horrors might have infiltrated that
subterrestrial warren since the arrival of the Cosmic Lump.

After traversing the long, narrow tunnel, Eeyore finally
crossed the threshold and entered Owl’s research facility.

Inside, he found a perplexing jumble of pipes and wiring;
long wooden shelves crowded with sealed jars containing
weird, bulbous blobs of corpulent matter; an exhausting
array of inexplicable apparatus and mechanical devices that
hummed and chugged and sputtered in a monstrous
burlesque; and, near the center of the nightmarish chamber
of horrors, a primitive surgical table with leather restraints.

Fresh blood stains on the floor near that fixture suggested
it played a part in some ghastly experiment within the last
few hours.

No part of this gruesome spectacle matched Eeyore’s
memory of the room where Owl and Christopher Robin
conduced their harmless research. The Grey Old Donkey
had already seen evidence that the Cosmic Lump triggered
strange biological transmutations; now, he knew it could
alter reality just as easily. Perhaps in its presence,
corresponding universes overlapped and coalesced –
bringing to the surface the most corrupt and depraved
examples of each individual.

Even as that thought occurred to Eeyore, a misshapen
and antagonistic version of young Christopher Robin
sprang from a dark alcove, lunging toward his former friend.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

58

The influence of the meteorite had reshaped him so he was
more beast than boy. He snarled as he pounced on Eeyore,
ripping at him with sharp claws and trying to sink his jagged
teeth into flesh. Eeyore bucked and tossed him headlong
into one of the wooden shelves filled with sealed jars,
beakers and clay pots. The thing came crashing down on
top of Christopher Robin, pinning him to the ground.

Owl next appeared from the shadows, blood seeping
from a dozen wounds in his pale pink hide. He had lost his
feathers, and both of his eyes had been scooped from their
sockets. He cawed and croaked, but spoke only a single
word:

“Bear.”

Determining that Owl posed no immediate threat,

Eeyore quickly found the Cosmic Lump, still resting in the
boy’s wooden wagon. A number of tools lay scattered on
the floor around it, suggesting that they had already begun
their experiments before the shocking transformations
began. Whatever attempts they made to penetrate the rock’s
outer crust failed, thankfully. Had they succeeded, the Old

Grey Donkey wondered if there would be anything left of
the world.

As he departed, he turned back and saw Winnie-the

Pooh scurry across the chamber on all-fours. For a moment,

Eeyore thought the Bear might come after him. Instead, he
came to rest alongside his longtime friend. He sniffed the
boy, covered in some viscous liquid oozing from the broken
j
ars.

Pooh’s stomach growled.

Christopher Robin muttered something incoherent, but
his lips did not move. His eyes – now tainted with the
ghastly miasma of an unfamiliar, unearthly hue – grew larger
and larger, and his face grew pale as death itself.

It took poor Eeyore hours to haul that wagon back to
the Black Bog. The Cosmic Lump somehow guessed his
intentions and fought to ensure its survival.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

59

Whatever consciousness dwelt in that rock lashed out at
its surroundings, warping the landscape, and recruiting
every living creature to serve in its defense. Eeyore had to
fight waves of voracious rodents, stinging insects, and
ravening buzzards and sparrowhawks.

All the while, Eeyore struggled against voices taunting
him from inside his own skull. He heard that awful piping –
now discordant and shrill – as well as distant drums that
seemed to emanate from the center of a swirling vortex. He
heard chanting and awful screams that he believed to be the
echoes of dead worlds scattered across countless parallel
dimensions.

Back at the Black Bog, the hole where the meteorite had
fallen had expanded into a churning void that longed to
devour the sum total of all existence. From somewhere deep
in that abyss, hopelessness sprang. From the heart of that
eternal darkness, thoughts of uselessness and despair
trickled into the minds of the lonely, the reticent, and the
insecure.

Eeyore peered down over the rim of that chasm,
knowing that it wanted to claim him as another victim. His
malformed twin shambled over to stand at his side.

“It wants us to give up,” False Eeyore said. “It depends

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU
60
upon our fear. It wants us to fail.”

“I know,” Eeyore said. He took a few steps back from
the edge and placed his forepaws on the wooden wagon.

“But I want my friends back.”

The Cosmic Lump tumbled down into the abyss, and a
flash of light flooded the Hundred Acre Wood.

When Eeyore awoke, he found himself alone in the

Black Bog. His twin had disappeared – but Eeyore hoped
he had found his way home, too. Night had fallen, and an
army of forgotten gods had etched familiar constellations
into the heavens.

Eeyore spent the sleepless night wandering across the

Hundred Acre Wood. He found Winnie-the-Pooh snoring
in his bed, an empty jar of honey on the nightstand. He
found Piglet buried beneath his bedding, encamped in a
makeshift fort just in case Something Awful intruded upon
his humble dwelling. Owl stood on the firm branch outside
his front door, exercising his night vision to monitor a
variety of nocturnal visitors – though he had adopted a
strictly vegetarian appetite in recent years.

Eeyore even made a stop at the home of Christopher

Robin. He found the boy sitting in bed reading a pulp
magazine filled with lurid tales of the weird and fantastic.

The Old Grey Donkey eventually settled down in a
meadow and closed his eyes. After such a long overnight
journey, he expected sleep would come quickly. As he
drifted off, he thought about how much he looked forward
to talking to all his friends the next day.

Perhaps he could ask Christopher Robin to make him a
new tail.

All night long, the stars mocked Eeyore.

The constellations had been redrawn. Nothing in the
heavens had escaped the transformation. Somehow, the
change made the universe even more inhospitable. Its
unmistakable indifference underscored the likelihood that
he would never again be comforted by his closest friends.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

61

He had been expelled from any possibility of meaningful
relationships and deprived of all hope.

Eeyore wandered along the outermost boundaries of the

Hundred Acre Wood, now encircled by a crude earthen
embankment topped by a barbed wire fence. Outside,
farmsteads and sprawling estates had fallen into disrepair
from what appeared to be long years of sustained neglect.

Crops withered in the fields. Vehicles sat motionless along
the roadside, their former occupants nowhere to be found.

More ghastly than the scenes of mass migration, though,
was the awful silence.

The Old Grey Donkey thought it best not to speculate
about what caused the family of Christopher Robin to join
in the apparent exodus. He could not even be certain that
the grim panoply before him encompassed the world he
knew before the arrival of the Cosmic Lump. Nothing felt
quite like home to him any longer. Nothing felt exactly
familiar. Everything strived to mirror his memory but,
ultimately, reflected only an imperfect facsimile.

Eeyore plopped down amidst a patch of thistles. He
allowed himself the luxury of sampling them, expecting
disappointment. They tasted bitter and unpleasant – so
awful he spat them back out onto the ground. Nothing felt
right. Nothing felt real. He wondered if he had slipped into
another dimension. The misplaced stars added credence to
that theory.

On the other hand, maybe his entire existence was
artificial. Maybe all of it was an incomprehensible bit of
weird fiction, or the angst-ridden musings of a lonely little
boy.

For a brief moment, Eeyore experienced something akin
to déjà vu. He recalled standing on the edge of a precipice
with someone who could have been his twin, encouraging
him to get rid of the rock that fell from outer space.

Something about that curious dream brought him some
measure of comfort. Eeyore closed his eyes, hoping he
would find his way home someday.

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

62

63
WHERE HOWLS THE EDGOG
BY PETE RAWLIK

It was on the third day after the rain had stopped, and
the wet had retreated, that Edward Bear, called Winnie

Ther-Pooh, who lived under the name Sanders, decided that
he should go and visit his friend Piglet at his house and
check on how he had fared during and after the storm. It
had after all, been a rather frightening and frightful storm,
and Pooh had heard the wind crack several branches in the

Hundred Aker Wood, and the rains had made the floody
and boggy places swell, and he was sure that the stream had
swollen as well. But three days had passed, and the stream
was likely less swollen, as were the floody and boggy places,
and it was time to go and see Piglet. Yes, thought Pooh, it
was definitely time to go and see Piglet.

The path from Pooh’s home amongst the roots of a
towering walnut tree, to Piglet’s residence in a more serene
and modest beech tree was normally a rather short walk.

But Pooh had been wrong about the floody places being less
swollen. The flooding certainly wasn’t as bad as it had been
when Piglet’s house had drowned, but it was still very wet,
and Pooh, being a bear of very little brain, had still not
learned to swim. And so Pooh had to go the long way, past

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

64
the Six Pine Trees and south along the riverbank. The
waters were much deeper and much swifter than they
normally were, and they carried with them all manner of
debris – mostly tree branches and old logs, which one
expects to find in the wood, but also other things that one
does not. Pooh thought he saw a trumpet, and something
that might have been a bicycle, and another something that
could have been a bin lid.

As he moved he followed the bank and when he came
to the bend he saw a great conflagration of detritus with
branches of all size and from a great variety of trees include
oaks and pines and maples and birches. And there in the
mass he saw something else, something that was not
anything man-made, but was not a branch or a tree or a
bush. It was a cluster of bristles, not unlike the thick tassels
of a dried mop, they weren’t exactly white, nor were they
gray, nor were they pink, but they were all of these at the
same time. If Pooh were to think of a name for this color
and the texture of what was there in the water it might have
been mushrum, yes, mushrum would be a very fine name for
this, a fine name indeed. And then the mushrum colored
thing pushed against the tangle of branches and something
terrible reared up from beneath the water and let out a queer
noise that Pooh - being a bear of very little brain – could
not identify or describe except perhaps as a horrendous
howl, that made the bits of fluff between his ears feel queer.

And Pooh feeling particularly uneasy, hurried further down
the path, and did not dare to look back.

It took some time for Pooh to finish his travels to

Piglet’s house in the beech tree, but he did eventually get
there, and was pleased to see that the tree was intact and
that the floody place had not reached up to the door. In
fact, it had not even reached up to the sign that identified
the home as having once been lived in by Piglet’s
grandfather, Trespassers William, or as the old sign said,

TRESPASSERS W, for short. For some reason that sign

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65
made Pooh feel better, it comforted him in a manner he
couldn’t understand. Maybe it was the fact that he was now
with his friend, or that he was almost in his friend’s home,
or something else that he couldn’t wrap his thoughts
around. But again, being a bear of very little brain, it didn’t
bother him much, and he didn’t dwell on it.

“Hallo,” he called out, knocking on the door. “Good
morning Piglet,” he stated for he suspected it might still be
morning. At the least his tummy had not yet begun to
rumble, meaning it was not yet time to eat his lunch, though
it might be time to eat Piglet’s lunch.

From up in the tree, the shutters on a window were
thrown open, and then the window itself was raised, and the
very small animal that was Piglet peaked out. “Pooh!” Piglet
exclaimed. “It is so very good to see you. I shall be right
down.”

But Piglet was not right down. Indeed, Piglet seemed to
take an inordinate amount of time to come to the door, and
it was only after the door was opened and Pooh went inside,
that Pooh understood why.

Pooh had always thought of Piglet as a rather fastidious
creature. He was not as compulsive about it as say Rabbit
was, but still Piglet preferred his house ordered and tidy.

But this morning, Piglet’s house seemed in a kind of
shambles with furniture piled up in front of the door and
the windows all latched even though the shutters were all
closed. The dim light and clutter made Pooh
uncomfortable, and he shuffled his feet nervously.

“I am so very glad you are here Pooh,” announced Piglet
straightening his green jumper. “I know it is early, but
would you like a spot of lunch? I have tea and Haycorns…”

“And honey?” interrupted Pooh.

“And honey, Pooh,” said Piglet.

“Good,” said Pooh. “And while we eat our lunch you
may tell me what has happened to so upset your home,
friend Piglet.” When Pooh said that Piglet’s home was
upset, he also meant that Piglet seemed upset, for Piglet’s

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66
green jumper seemed disheveled, and his skin seemed a
paler shade of pink than normal.

It did not take long for Piglet to make tea, or to set the
table, or to supply himself with a modicum of haycorns and

Pooh with a jar of honey. And so it was not long before

Piglet began to speak about what had so upset his home,
meaning in fact what had so upset him that his home had
become, to use Pooh’s word, a shambles.

“You will forgive me Pooh, I am not myself. I have not
slept well, and I am afraid that my nerves are on edge.

These last few nights have been most disturbing, and I have
had to barricade the doors and windows to protect myself.”

Pooh looked around at the various piles and assumed
those were what Piglet meant by barricades. “From what,
friend Piglet, are you protecting yourself?”

“That is the subject of some d-d-discourse,” said Piglet
tapping on a rather large and old looking book. Piglet of
course was well versed in letters, being able to both read and
write, whereas Pooh could not. Rabbit and Owl said they
could read as well, but Pooh had some doubts about that.

“The tales of fantabulist creatures living in the Hundred

Aker Wood go back for generations,” Piglet continued. “I
have on many occasions heard the foreboding call of the
wild heffalump, and together you and I once went in search
of woozles. Of course there was that ill-advised expotition
to the North Pole. Christopher Robin is still gathering the
necessary supplies for a trip to the South Pole, but I daresay
that such a trip may never be undertaken. We may as well
say that we are planning to head to the West Pole and be
done with it. But I digress.”

He took a sip of tea and offered Pooh a haycorn, which
the old bear refused being rather satisfied with his honey.

“It was on that first evening after the rains had stopped and
the clouds were rolling away to the east. I had gone out in
the dusk, when the light was out of the west and the sky was
all tinged with streaks of red and amber. I had heard, as I’m

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

67
sure you had, several branches break in the storm and I
wanted to survey the extent of damage, if any. To my
surprise and pleasure, that despite there being an immensity
of flooding, this was concentrated to the fields beyond the
hedgerow, and there was little to no damage to my beech.

Observing this, I was content to retire back to the comfort
of my home. I was almost to my door when I heard the
most peculiar of commotions. I turned in the direction of
the sound, and witnessed something large moving about
around where a fallen tree had created a gap in the
hedgerow.” As he retold the story Pooh could see Piglet’s
hands shaking. “I am not an animal of any size Pooh, and
am by my nature prone to retreat from such situations, but

I thought perhaps it might have been Rabbit or even Owl,
or any number of our friends who had gotten caught in the
storm waters and then washed down here to be trapped
against the hedgerow. And so with an abundance of
caution, I stepped out across the field and called out,

‘Hallo?’ My call was meant with a flurry of commotion as
whatever it was suddenly struggled to disentangle itself from
the gorse of hedgerow. It fell into the waters, and was
quickly washed away.”

“What-what-what was it?” asked Pooh fearfully.

Piglet shook his head and tugged at his green jumper.

“The long shadow cast by the dying sun meant that I never
got a good view of it, but it was large, larger than me, but
still smaller than you, and all spikey it was with long thorns
like the prickles of a gorse bush. As it was swept away it
made a horrific howling that made my back feel most
strange. As I said, because of the light I never got a good
look at it, but it made on my eyes an impression of color
that I cannot rightly put a name to.”

“It wouldn’t be mushrum would it?” Said Pooh taking
another paw full of honey from the jar.

“Hmm,” said Piglet, “yes, mushrum is as good a word as
any.”

“I thought so too,” said Pooh.

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68

And then Piglet’s eyes turned to examine Pooh. “How
did you know?”

“I’ve seen one, I think,” said Pooh smacking his lips as
he sucked the honey from his paw.

“In the hedgerow?”

“No,” said Pooh. “In the stream on my way here, it
made such an awful noise. As you said.”

“Yes,” said Piglet, “A terrible sound.”

“But what was it?” Pooh pressed Piglet.

“That my friend Pooh is a most excellent question.”

Again he thumped the book. “This book was written about
my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather

Hogson William.”

“That is a lot of greats,” said Pooh.

“Well this was a long time ago, and pigs were bigger back
then.”

“I see,” said Pooh. “But what about the thing in the
hedgerow?”

“I am getting there, Pooh. After the thing in the
hedgerow had drifted away, I returned home and made
myself some dinner, and set about doing some research
amongst the papers and books that have been lodged here
by my family for generations.”

“What exactly is a generation?” Wondered Pooh.

“It is a very long time of years as calculated by the
comings and goings of various members of my family.”

“Oh,” said Pooh. “How long is that when it comes to
bears, I wonder?”

“It is still a very long time,” replied Piglet and then
continued his story. “All the time I was reading there came
on occasion the distant, lonesome, and loathsome
horrifying howl. Even from a distance and with myself
firmly ensconced within the walls of my home that terrible
sound made me quite uneasy and made my back feel
strange. It was then that I came across this book, The Tree
on the Hedgerow. According to this book, the hedgerow
between the beech wood and the Hundred Aker Wood

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69
proper was planted as a marker and wall not between the
two forests, but between our world and another, one that
was home to a desolate land inhabited by terrible beasts.”

“Another world?” asked Pooh, being a bear of very little
brain.

“It is hard to explain,” answered Piglet, “but imagine it
if you can, a land that isn’t ours with fields and forests of its
own, that can only be entered if one walks a special way
through a special place. In this case, that place being the
hedgerow. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” said Pooh, “but go on.”

“Amongst the beasts of this other world are a species
known as Edgogs, creatures of terrible demeanor and
loathsome habits, whose sole purpose is to find ways from
their world to others. The hedgerow, according to this
book, not only marks the borderland between our world
and theirs, but also keeps them at bay, as long as it is intact.”

Again Piglet took another sip of tea.

“That,” said Pooh, “seems a rather outlandish
preposition.”

Piglet nodded. “I know it sounds quite ridiculous, Pooh,
but I swear, that if you had been here for the last few nights
and seen and heard the things that have happened, you
would have no doubts as to the veracity of my claims.”

“What exactly has happened, friend Piglet?” said Pooh
reminding himself that this was what he wanted to know in
the first place.

“Well,” said Piglet, “that first night my dreams were
disturbed by the distant howlings of what I had come to
believe was the Edgog, and the tales concerning the land
beyond the hedge, and Hogson’s adventures there.”

“Hogson went to this other world?”

“He did. At least I think he did. He may have, or he
may have just dreamed it all. Anyway, there was in his day,
a storm not unlike the one we had just a few nights ago, and
just like then, a breach was made in the hedgerow. Not a
large one, and nothing that could not be repaired by

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70
replanting the uprooted bush. But it was a few days later
when my many-times great grandmother, whose name was

Farnsworth, found Hogson laying just outside the

Hedgerow. She nursed him back to health and he told her
all about his adventures on the other side.”

“What was there?”

“As I said, a rather desolate land full of beasts, and rather
overrun with a queer species of plants and animals. Hogson
is all rather vague about things, hinting at one thing or the
other, but never resolving to go into any real detail on any
particular matter.”

“Whatever happened to Hogson?” Asked Pooh.

“He settled down with Farnsworth of course, with
whom he had a farrow of sucklings, from which I am
descended, in one way or another. Then he wrote this book,
or she did really, listening to him tell his stories. It is all very
suggestive, which I suppose is why my dreams were so
disturbed. One’s imagination is a dreadful thing
sometimes.”

“Piglet, are you telling me all of this is because you had
some bad dreams?”

“No, no Pooh. That was just the first night after the
storm. It was the second night that the real disturbances
began. The day passed without concern, and after my
supper I was perfectly content, albeit rather tired. But as
the sun dipped low, there came from the darkness beyond
the hedgerow, particularly where the gap had been made, a
cacophony most foul and foreboding. It was not unlike the
sound one hears when our friend Eeyore crosses the bridge
over the stream, but magnified in numbers, and possessing
a kind of hollowness to it, as if a dozen or more hooves were
tramping across a wooden passageway within some great
cave or mine. It was distant at first, and very faint, but as
the hours passed it grew ever louder. The noise preyed on
my mind, and I imagined that the very foundations of my
home were shaking in response to the dreaded tattoo.”

Piglet put his cup down, as by now it was quite empty.

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71

“Sometime past midnight the drumming march became
more muted but closer, and I realized that whatever it was
had now moved onto the foot path that leads to my door.

In a panic, I pushed the table and the chairs up against the
frame, and retreated to my room at the top of the stairs.

There I am not afraid to tell you I cowered against the
constant racket of the tapping and rapping on my windows
and doors. The maddening cacophony finally ended with
the dawn, and I exhausted, finally succumbed to fitful
sleep.”

Piglet paused and poured himself another cup of tea. He
offered some to Pooh, but the old bear declined. Truth be
told, he hadn’t even touched his first cup, but he had nearly
finished the jar of honey. Piglet settled into his chair and
began telling his story once more. “I slept well past noon
and woke very hungry. After eating I stepped outside to
survey the damage, and was greatly alarmed by what I saw.”

“But, Piglet,” said Pooh, “I’ve seen outside your house,
and I didn’t notice any damage.”

“Exactly,” said Piglet. “How is it possible that such a
terrible racket was made, with all the pounding and rapping
and tapping upon my windows and doors, and yet no
damage was done? It was maddening Pooh, quite
maddening. And still it planted in me a seed of fear. For if
these Edgogs were such that they could assault me in such
a manner and yet leave no trace, how would I ever prove it
to anyone? Without proof, how would you, Pooh bear, or

Rabbit, or Owl, or even Christopher Robin ever believe me?

It was a conundrum.”

“What is a conundrum?” asked Pooh.

“A very difficult puzzle, usually of your own making,”

answered Piglet.

“I thought so,” said Pooh.

“It was as I said, a conundrum, but after having myself
a very long think, I realized a solution. But by that time it
was too late.”

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72
“Why was it too late?”

“Because my think had been so long, that it was now
evening once more, and before I could put my plan into
action, it was dark, and the drumming upon the bridge had
begun, and I had no choice but to barricade the doors and
windows once more, and retreat to my upper room. Which
is where you found me.”

“When?”

“This morning, friend Pooh, before lunch.”

“Oh, yes, now I remember,” said Pooh. “Is there any
more honey?”

“No,” said Piglet. “We must be done with lunch,
because now we must be about implementing my plan.”

“Oh, bother,” remarked Pooh.

“Indeed,” said Piglet, “ Oh, bother, indeed.”

It was dusk by the time Piglet and Pooh put their shovels
away and went back inside Piglet’s house. Piglet had
promised Pooh another jar of honey for supper, but before
that he went to the door marked BOOM CLOSET and
brought out two very long and thin objects. At first Pooh
thought they were brooms, but then he noticed that they
glinted in the light, and had no bristles.

“Piglet, whatever are you doing with those guns!”

exclaimed Pooh.

Piglet giggled. “I’ve always had them, Pooh, they are
family hairwombs, from my Grandfather Trespassers Will.”

“I see.” said Pooh, but he didn’t really.

It was then, even before Piglet had a chance to set the
table for supper, that the drumming noise began, and Pooh
became very anxious and Piglet very nervous. Each of them
grabbed one of the guns and made sure they were properly
loaded.

“They seem very close,” observed Pooh.

Piglet nodded, “They seem much closer than before!”

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73

And then there was a clattering of pots and pans which

Piglet and Pooh had set to alarm them when their trap had
been properly deployed, which is to say full, which is to say
there was something in it.

At that moment the drumming noises stopped, and
instead there came a most horrific howl, one that made the
fluff between Pooh’s ears feel funny and Piglet’s stomach
go all wobbly. The noise so disturbed them that they both
had to sit down for a moment to collect themselves.

“Now what do we do?” asked Pooh.

“I’m not sure,” said Piglet, “I didn’t plan this far ahead.”

“I thought not,” said Pooh.

“Maybe we should get Christopher Robin,” suggested

Piglet.

“Does that mean going outside?” said Pooh.

“Yes,” said Piglet sadly.

“I thought so.”

And so the two friends together made their way out the
door. But, before they could get very far, they again heard

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74
that horrific howling noise. Again the fluff between Pooh’s
ears felt queer, and Piglet’s back felt strange. In fact so
strange did Piglet feel that he fell down and tore his green
jumper.

It was then that from the pit they had dug, the Edgog
emerged. It was the first time Pooh had seen one, but he
agreed that it was a rather frightful beast. It was much larger
than Piglet, but smaller than Pooh. It had upon the center
of its face a long and rubbery nose, not unlike that of a
heffalump, and above this a pair of dark beady eyes. On its
feet it had long and thick claws, not unlike those of Owl. It
was furless, much like Piglet, but upon its back grew strange
thick bristles, which seemed both stiff and fleshy at the same
time. Then there was of course the matter of color, which
again, Pooh could not name save that the term mushrum
seemed most appropriate, which was a kind of white, and
gray, and a vibrant pink, much the same color as Piglet. It
was without a doubt the beast that Piglet’s book had
described as an Edgog.

It came up out of the shallow pit, the pots and pans
jangling in alarm, and stared at Piglet for what seemed like a
very long time, and then shook its head with a kind of
rustling noise. Then it reached out one of its long claws
towards the very small animal.

But before anything else could happen, there came a very
loud POP! “You l-l-l-leave him alone,” said Pooh trying
desperately to reload his gun.

The Edgog turned and made a curious sound, a sound
that had never been heard in the Hundred Aker Wood
before, and from the darkness beyond the hedgerow yet
more Edgogs emerged, and they too made that sound as
they walked towards the friends, Pooh and Piglet.

Then, just as Pooh finished reloading his gun, there
came again a very loud POP! This time it was Piglet who
had fired his gun. Now it was his turn to reload, which he
was having trouble doing as he was also trying to keep his
jumper on.

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75

The Edgog from the pit then lifted his long nose and
barred his teeth in a kind of smile and called to his fellows.

At what he said, the other Edgogs stopped, stared at Piglet,
and then turned away. It was something that Pooh did not
understand. But that didn’t matter, for the remaining Edgog
blew its horn and released that horrific howl. Once more
the fluff between Pooh’s ears went queer, and Piglet’s back
went strange. All the two friends could do was watch as the
last Edgog retreated back to the break in the hedgerow.

When Pooh recovered he picked his friend up and
carried him back to his house. Piglet was very sad, and
seemed to be desperate to keep his jumper on. Pooh looked
and he saw the small fleshy bristles on Piglet’s back and the
strange patch of color that wasn’t white or gray or pink, but
rather some combination of all three that was best described
as mushrum.

He wanted to ask Piglet a question. He wanted to know
what the Edgog meant when he had spoken.

“Leave him,” the beast had said. “It is only a matter of time.

This world shall fall.” And then he had turned back and
glanced at Piglet. “Of Hogson’s bloodline, he is, one of us.”

It made no sense to Pooh, but he could see that it had
made his friend sad, and so he did not ask. And being a
bear of very little brain, he mostly forgot, except when he
remembered, and eventually he even forgot to do that.

And perhaps that was for the best.

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76

77
HEAD LIKE A JAR
BY EDWARD M. ERDELAC

It had all begun with a disagreement over an old Book
at Billy Moon’s bookshop in Dartmouth. It was about to
end behind the black doors of a little domestic chapel
painted all red inside from top to bottom.

The life-sized crucifix, the candles, the altar, even the
stained-glass windows were all over red, as though the
chapel had been hastily painted by a lazy renovator in
anticipation of a new tenant. When Billy charged through
the broken doors waving a fire axe, he was unsure whether
the thick coat of scarlet covering everything was actually
paint or not. It reeked of iron, and the smell brought him
briefly back to the shell holes outside Salerno, the bodies
ravaged by German artillery fire, lying in shallow pools of
blood like the dregs of half-eaten stew.

The Book in question was a grimoire, obscure to most
but quite infamous to the few that knew of its existence; The

Infernalius, or so-called ‘hidden book.’ It was supposedly
culled together from excerpts from six other terrible rare
works, The Liber Ivonis, The Book of Karnak, The Testament of

Carnamagos, the Ponape Scripture, de Vermiss Mysteriis, and the

Scroll of Thoth-Amon; an altogether impossible book,
hidden throughout a bevy of works separated by leagues and

THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU

78
ages. Nicknamed the Liber Libris, the specific instructions
for its assembly and binding were itself hidden in the pages
of the unexpurgated Kitab al-Azif. Billy was familiar with
some of those books, and knew that The Infernalius was Very

Dangerous and Not To Be Trifled With.

A wild-haired customer named Glazier had come in
asking about it.

“I understand you’ve acquired a very rare book as part
of a recent estate liquidation,” Glazier had said, drumming
his ink-stained fingers on the counter impatiently and
hungrily scanning the shelves over Billy’s shoulder, as if it
were a stocked cupboard. “It has a pale cover,” he went on,

“mottled leather. Binding is quite irregular. Mismatched
pages. Lotka and rag paper. Some papyrus. Bit of an eyesore,
really.”

“How could you know that?” Billy had said warily.

“Were you acquainted with the previous owner?”

“Only by reputation.”

Billy had known the previous owner, Mrs. Morgan,
widow of an American professor of some renown in the
occult community who had retired to the countryside. She
had died quite suddenly, struck down in a hit and run
accident while out walking her Pomeranian. Mrs. Morgan
had willed her late husband’s library to Billy, and left specific
instructions about the Infernalius, that it never be resold,
particularly not to anybody who might come asking about
it

.

“I’m sorry, that Book isn’t for sale,” Billy had said,
glancing involuntarily at where it sat in the locked case
behind the counter along with his first editions.

“Mr. Milne,” Glazier had said, his eyes fixing on the
mottled spine of The Book like it was a thing made of gold.

“I can make you a very, very wealthy man….”

“Moon,” said Billy. “My name is Moon. And I don’t
need money, Mr. Glazier.”

“Of course. Because of your father’s books. Perhaps we
can come to some other arrangement.”

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79

That had annoyed him. After all these years, those
damnable books of his father’s still dogged him. He had
gone by another name to avoid their legions of fans, refused
to stock the books in the shop, and burned any copies that
came across his counter in a rubbish barrel out back.

“I don’t take a red cent from my father’s books, Mr.

Glazier,” he snapped. “And the Book is not for sale.”

Glazier had left, Angry and Disappointed.

That night there had been a break-in at the shop. Only

The Book had gone missing.

Billy had spent the better part of a fortnight tracking

Glazier to this neglected estate outside Blackawton with its
red-painted chapel and the green Bristol saloon with the
suspiciously damaged grille parked in the driveway. He
knew well the kind of mischief Glazier could get into with

The Book, and how Important it was that he be Stopped.

Glazier did not turn as the black doors burst open, but
remained kneeling before the red altar, his arms
outstretched, reciting a long and complicated sounding
speech in a language that hurt Billy’s ears. Nailed over the
face of the red-painted Christ on the cross and to each of
the figure’s extremities, were pages torn from the Infernalius.

Billy wasn’t sure if Glazier was reading from them or
reciting from memory, but at his entrance, the man
accelerated his enunciation like someone surprised in the
midst of an incriminating telephone conversation.

One whisk of the flat side of the axe knocked Glazier to
the floor and put an end to the Very Dangerous Ritual.

There was nothing left but to gather up The Book, which,
except for the torn out pages, Billy found set in a missal
stand on the altar on a ragged leather corporax, along with
a big stone bowl, a brush, a hammer, and a keen, two
handled blade.

Billy laid aside his axe and put his foot on the altar to
boost himself. He pried the long red nail from the nose of
the Christ with his fingertips to retrieve the page fastened
there. That was when he got a Very Nasty Surprise.

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80

As Billy took the page of The Book away from the livid,
ghastly face beneath, the figure’s eyes bulged and screwed
up. He began to shriek hoarsely through his leering teeth
and quiver on the cross. He was no statue, but a flayed man,
out of his mind with agony.

Billy had seen bloodshed in the last war as a sapper with
the Black Cats in Italy, but this was a shock even to him. He
fell backwards onto the floor, landed awkwardly, and felt his
ankle snap beneath him.

That was when Glazier, bleeding from the blow Billy had
dealt him, wheezed out the last few words of his incantation.

The man on the cross continued to scream. Billy
watched as the black ink from the pages of the Infernalius
melted and streamed off the yellowed paper, coating the
tortured figure in oily darkness, wetly drowning out his
tortured shrieking. The man lost all consistency; his form
stretched and ran like molten licorice. Affixed to the cross
by the red nails, he strained like a Rorschach blot trying to
escape a paper tacked to a bulletin board. Where Billy had
removed the nail in its face, the head and neck elongated
into a slick, black, elephantine proboscis from which a sharp
red thorny appendage like a scorpion’s stinger emerged.

“O Heth-Fah-Loomf’th!” Glazier croaked. “Great

Dream-feaster conceived by the Sleeper of R’lyeh!

Favor….your servant with….!”

The stinger struck Glazier, punching through the center
of his forehead. It lingered there, and Billy saw the length of
the proboscis undulate like a vacuum tube coming to life.

There was a wrenching sound as the nails began to pull free.

Billy scrambled backwards on his hands out into the hall.

All around the thing pulling itself from the cross, the very
air seemed to bend and swirl like clear water disturbed by a
dollop of black paint; fragile reality conforming to the
superior density of an alien substance. Billy felt his own
sense of stability shudder and creak like a ramshackle house
in a windstorm. His face was wet with tears and his muscles
shook uncontrollably, as though he were back in Italy,

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81
diving for cover under a rain of artillery fire.

Glazier’s body bent and flowed as though he had no
bones, and was snorted up into the trunk of the thing
pulling itself off the cross.

With a lurch it tore free of two of the nails and flopped
over the altar to the floor of the red chapel. Its proboscis
waved about, snuffling, seeking, and it sprouted two more
long, curling snouts from its straining forelimbs. It stretched
hungrily towards Billy, only a single nail pinning it to the
wall now.

Billy only wanted to retreat from it, but where on earth
was safe? He was a fragile windowpane and the thing
reaching for him was an oncoming brick. He put his back
to a green door in the hall. He reached up and fumbled with
the brass knob, somehow familiar in his hand. The thing
lunged towards him, the red stinger streaking for the space
between his eyes. He felt it connect, a hot pop of agony like
a sewing needle piercing his third eye.

In his grievously wounded mind he heard the little boy’s
voice he knew all too well, reciting his father’s poetry as his
ears flushed and his little hands clenched into fists;

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,

Droops on the little hands little gold head.

Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!

Christopher Robin is saying his prayers…

It was uncanny. Every pop and hiss of the little
gramophone recording the schoolboys had played over and
over at Stowe School to mock him. Even though he’d
smashed it into a thousand pieces and scattered the shards
of wax and plastic in a field.

No, Billy thought. No, that’s not me anymore. I’m Billy Moon.

Billy Moon.

Noooooo…..

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82

Piglet tumbled head-over-heels down from the top of
the Forest, over the close-set grass, and didn’t stop tumbling
until one of the sixty something trees that surrounded the
clearing kindly stepped in his way.

He lay that way for a little bit, looking up and waiting for
the grass and the darkening sky to decide which was on top.

The sky was very cloudy and cross, so eventually it won out.

The grass stooped and apologized for having given offense.

Then the sky cracked a bit of strange, red lightning like a
coach whip which told Piglet he had better get on his way.

So he did, though he wasn’t sure just where he was going.

It got very stormy and dark, like an inkwell spilling across
a sky-blue sheet, but it did not rain. That was something, at
least.

As he scurried along through the larch spinneys Piglet
heard a Very Loud Sound behind him, like a large animal

Sniffling and Snuffling. He remembered just then that he
had been going Away, and so he continued going there with
all haste.

Piglet could not recall a Dark So Total in the Forest,

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83
though admittedly he spent most nights fast asleep,
dreaming of what he would do the next day or what he had
done the previous day, or things he might never do however
many days he had. He wished he were dreaming now in his
warm bed instead of running through the trees, for he had
quite forgotten the way and it was getting so very dark it was
hard to see by.

If he could not be asleep, then he wished at least that he
were not Alone.

Eventually he came to a place he half-recognized,
though it was not a place he frequented and not the one he
had been wishing to get to, it being particularly Gloomy and
wet here. However, it was Away from the Very Loud Sound,
and so he supposed he mustn’t be ungrateful.

“Hullo, who is that?” came a sad voice that he knew
somehow belonged to this place (or was it the other way
around?).

“P-p-piglet,” Piglet answered, hugging himself because
being Alone there was no one else to hold onto.

“Good morning P-p-piglet,” said the voice, belonging to
a low gray something standing with its neck bowed in the
gloom. “If it is a good morning, or morning at all, which I
doubt.”

Piglet thought hard. It was as if the Dark So Total had
leaked into his thinker, and he had to strike a match to see
his own memories by, and the match was all wet and soggy.

“Eeyore!” he said at last, and toddled over to find the
gray donkey standing to up his knees in the bog, nosing at a
thistle. “Oh Eeyore!” Piglet said, and threw his arms
excitedly around Eeyore’s neck. “I am so happy to see you!”

“You are?”

“Yes!”

“Me, Eeyore?”

“Yes! I was so scared, running through the Forest. I was
just wishing I could find anybody at all.”

“Oh. Well. I suppose being anybody is better than being

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84
nobody.”

“Eeyore, there’s a Very Loud Sound back there,” Piglet
said, nervously pointing back the way he’d come.

“What sort of a sound?” Eeyore said, cocking one of his
ears in the direction Piglet had pointed.

“It’s like a sort of…Sniffling and Snuffling. I don’t want
to stay here.”

“Not many do.”

“I mean, it’s so Very Loud, it hurts my ears. I’m trying
to get Away, do you understand?”

“I understand wanting to be Away. Some can afford the
luxury. Some can’t. But there it is.”

“There what is?”

Eeyore sighed, very long and very loud.

“Nothing.”

Then, craning his neck, he balanced on three legs,
bringing his fourth leg slowly up to his ear. He fell over three
times before he managed to direct his ear with his hoof.

“I think I hear your Sound, Little Piglet. It’s coming
closer. My, all this Unexpected Company in the middle of
the night.”

“I thought it was the middle of the morning,” said Piglet,
nervously looking back the way he’d come.

“It may be,” said Eeyore, considering it. “One middle
can look much like the other in a Dark So Total.”

Piglet shifted from his left foot to his right foot and back
again.

“Eeyore, I’m very sorry, but I really feel I have to go.”

“Don’t be sorry. No need. Few who come here ever stay.

Only one, really, and confidentially, he loathes the place and
only remains because he has little choice. Unlike some.

Some are Fortunate to wander to and fro, welcome most
anywhere they go. Some aren’t. Where are you off to, Little

Piglet?”

“Why, I don’t know,” said Piglet, hopping a little in place
now. “Away.”

Piglet could hear the Snuffling and Sniffling coming now

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85
through the Dark, and he shivered.

“You go on, Piglet. I’ll just wait here.”

“You can’t mean you want to stay here Alone!”

“Are you staying, Piglet?”

“No, I don’t think I can!” said Piglet, shuffling his feet,
eager to go.

“Then Alone it is,” said Eeyore, gloomily, chewing a
thistle. It seemed he had sunk a little deeper into the bog. “I
understand. I won’t be Alone much longer, by the Sound of

It
.
”

“Are you sure you won’t come?” Piglet said, half
trotting, half-skipping away.

Eeyore stopped chewing.

“Well,” he said uncertainly, “That is, if you’re asking me
to come….,” he said, and began to pull himself out of the
bog.

Piglet was happy for the company, even though it was

Eeyore, but the slow way the old grey donkey walked made
him Anxious, and he was already something of an Anxious

Animal, being Very Small.

The Sound got Louder, and the Dark got Darker, so they
had to speak louder to be heard and open their eyes wider
to let what little light there was in so as to keep from tripping
over roots and stones as they went along. Eventually they
got far enough ahead of the Sound to find some quiet, but
they found the Dark had gotten ahead of them now. It was
much like the day it had rained and rained and rained, only
instead of rain, it was shadows flooding the Forest and
spilling over everywhere they went. They were wading in

Darkness as deep and sticky as Eeyore’s bog.

The problem with familiar places was, they were only
familiar in the daytime. In the Dark So Total, everything
seemed very un-familiar. Fortunately though, they came to
a place where someone recognized them.

“Piglet! Eeyore!” the Someone called down to them.

The voice had come so suddenly out of the Dark that

Piglet jumped onto Eeyore’s back in surprise. Eeyore

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86
discouraged this behavior by sitting down, so Piglet slid
down his back and landed in a little heap in the grass.

“Is that you?” the Someone said.

“No it isn’t!” Piglet blurted.

“It isn’t?” said the Someone, confused.

“Yes it is,” called Eeyore. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Not at all not at all!” said the Someone, and he came
down from the hard-to-see tree branches, all big yellow eyes
and wide spread wings that made Piglet crawl under Eeyore
shivering. “I’m quite delighted to see you.”

“Oh. You mean Piglet,” Eeyore said, booting Piglet out
from underneath him and out in the open so that the

Someone could be wholly delighted. Piglet crouched
quivering until he realized he knew the Someone and that
the Someone was Owl.

“Oh hello, Owl!” Piglet squeaked. This was not quite
who he had been hoping to see either. “What are you doing
here?”

“Why, don’t you know where you are? This is my
residence, Piglet,” he said, indicating a sign beside the tree
they hadn’t seen.

Piglet sort of recognized it, but he couldn’t read the
letters in the Dark.

“I was over in the Enchanted Wood hunting Woozles
for supper,” Owl went on, “but all I caught was a Zoog, and
they’re terribly unappetizing. But what are you two doing
out in the middle of the night? I didn’t think you and Eeyore
were nocturnal animals.”

“I didn’t think we were either,” Piglet admitted, and he
still wasn’t sure he was. He was even less sure about Eeyore.

“We’re only running Away from the Very Loud Noise.

Can’t you hear it?”

“I thought I perceived some sort of Auditory

Disturbance,” said Owl.

“And then you heard the noise?” Eeyore asked.

“What do you think’s making it?” Piglet asked,
frightened. “It’s a kind of Snuffling and Sniffling and it’s

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87
getting closer all the time!”

Owl cocked his head and squinted his eyes, as if that
would help somehow.

“A Snuffling and Sniffling you say?” said Owl. “Well, it’s
certainly not a Woozle. I believe they are more given over
to Snaggling and Sniggling, generally. I dare say it may
possibly be….a Heffalump.”

Piglet swooned, for although he had never yet been
properly introduced to a Heffalump, he thought that they
were Very Fierce towards Small Animals. Eeyore was not
inclined to catch him, and Piglet fell in a little heap again.

“That is what I told you,” croaked a little old sounding
voice up in the tree.

“Who is that?” Piglet whined, for all he saw was a pair
of big red round eyes staring down from the branches.

“Oh him,” Owl said testily. “That’s only the Zoog I
caught. Pay him no mind. He’s inedible.”

“Oh, is he?” Piglet said, for the Zoog seemed perfectly
well-spoken to him.

“It’s no use running,” said the Zoog, skittering down the
tree trunk like a squirrel and hanging there to watch them in
an upside-down way that Piglet didn’t like. “It will find you
wherever you go. You may as well have stayed in the Bog
with the donkey.”

“No one listens to me,” said Eeyore.

Piglet wondered how the Zoog had known they had
been in the Bog, but just then it said;

“It is Heth-Fah-Loomf’th. The Dream-feaster.”

“That is what I said,” said Owl testily. Then, to Eeyore
and Piglet he whispered behind his pinions, so as not to
offend the Zoog, “They all speak that way in the Enchanted

Wood, you see. It is the vernacular.”

“Where?” said Piglet, looking around. He didn’t see any
sign of a vernacular anywhere; not even so much as a pram.

“Eeyore,” Owl said, ignoring Piglet, “have you ever met
a Heffalump?”

“No,” said Eeyore. “But I expect I will soon.”

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88

“There is no reasoning with them,” Owl said studiously.

“They are known to be overbearing and obstinate. It is well
documented in the literature.”

Piglet didn’t doubt Owl, for he knew how to spell his
name, W-O-L, and ‘Tuesday.’ He was ashamed to admit he
didn’t know what obstinate meant, but he thought it had
something to do with one’s eating habits.

“What will it do, Owl?” Piglet asked. “If it catches up
with us?”

“Heth-Fah-Loomf’th devours all,” said the Zoog.

“D-d-devours?”

“It means ‘Eats Totally And Very Hungrily,’” Owl
explained.

“I knew that,” scoffed Eeyore.

“All? What about Very Small Animals?” Piglet asked,
realizing that obstinate must mean the same as Devour, or
at least that the two words were related, perhaps by
marriage.

“All,” said the Zoog. “First the dreams, then the
dreamers.”

“Oh then I expect we should be moving on, Owl. Thank
you, Zoog!” Piglet said quickly and hurried off even quicker.

“What about trees?” Eeyore asked curiously, eyeing

Owl’s house (or rather the shape of it in the Dark) as he
trudged behind Piglet.

“All,” said the Zoog, blinking his huge red eyes. “The

Dream-feaster nourishes The Sleeper of R’yleh, whose
hunger is without end.”

“Er,” Owl said, as if he hadn’t ever thought about trees
being included in the everything Heffalumps eat. “Where
are you and Piglet going?”

“Away,” said Eeyore, helpfully.

“Ah,” said Owl, jumping in place and beating his wings
until he was flapping alongside them. “Then perhaps I shall
go with you, as I know the way.” And then he dipped
sharply to the left to avoid a beech tree that seemed to come
out of nowhere in the Dark and nearly crashed into Eeyore.

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89

“There is no way,” said the Zoog, in a voice even
gloomier than the donkey’s. “No escape. Listen.”

The Snuffling and Sniffling grew very loud, and it
seemed that they could hear a child’s voice speaking amid
hissing like snakes and strange pops like oil in a hot pan;

And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,

And nobody knows that I'm there at all.

The sound of the poem wasn’t like the cheery songs

Piglet liked to hear, somehow, even though there didn’t
seem to be anything wrong with the words. There was
something about the way they were said that made him
shudder deep down. He felt smaller and weaker and more
anxious than ever.

“It comes,” said the Zoog.

“Well, please give it our regards!” called Piglet, scurrying
off into the dark Forest with Owl flapping to keep up and
dodging trees and Eeyore lagging behind.

They went on in a hurry until the Sound grew smaller
again, but the Dark was now so big it was everywhere. It
was hard to fly by, and after running into several trees and
bushes Owl wisely decided he should flutter and hop along
on the ground with them so as to avoid taxing his wings in
case the Heffalump should suddenly gain on them and he
should be required to summon a Burst of Speed.

Piglet wished he had wings like Owl so that he could fly
above the trees entirely, and said so, but Owl said with a hint
of nervousness that the sky wasn’t safe just now.

“There is something in it,” he said, and Piglet shuddered
and went on, not really wanting to know what Owl meant
by that.

It was Very Dark behind them and Very Dark in front
of them, and so Piglet should not have been at all surprised
at the Dark that suddenly appeared beneath his feet.

Nevertheless, he was surprised, and squeaked as he fell down
into it, and squeaked again when Eeyore landed on top of

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90
him.

Owl, because of his wings, marked it a very careless day
indeed if he managed to fall into a hole. His yellow eyes
peered down at them.

“You have found an empty hole,” he observed.

But it seemed to Piglet that the hole had found them.

“You have also found me,” grumbled a muffled voice

Piglet immediately recognized as Rabbit’s.

Rabbit was lying flat on his back beneath Piglet, and

Piglet was greatly startled for what felt like the umpteenth
time.

“And me,” cried another, smaller voice from beneath,
that was not quite so startling. Piglet thought it sounded like

Alexander Beetle and very likely was.

“And me.”

“And me.”

“And me.”

“And me.”

“And me.”

And a great many other voices Piglet had no hope of
recognizing and remembering in the Dark So Total said the
same thing until Piglet worried that Owl would have to
summon his Burst of Speed because the Heffalump would
come upon them before the last of Rabbit’s Friends-and

Relations had their turn to say, ‘and me.’

In short, the hole wasn’t empty at all. It was quite the
opposite.

“Oh excuse me. I thought you lived in a sort of sideways
hole, not an up and down hole, Rabbit,” said Piglet,
struggling to get out from under Eeyore so that he might
get off of Rabbit.

“This isn’t my hole,” Rabbit said, annoyed. “You’re at the

Six Pine Trees and it’s your Very Deep Pit, Piglet. We are
waiting down here to catch the Heffalump when it comes.”

“A clever plan,” said Owl, admiringly.

“Yes,” Rabbit agreed. “My plan. There is only one

Heffalump after all, and there is strength in numbers.”

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91

“Not against Heth-Fah-Loomf’th,” said the Zoog,
startling everyone because he hadn’t informed anyone he’d
decided to join their expotition. “Heth-Fhah-Loomf’th
devours all. First the dreams and then the dreamer. Next the
schemes and then the schemer. However many there are.”

“Whatever is Heth-Fhah-Loomf’th?” Rabbit asked.

“Heffalump,” said Owl. “In the vernacular.”

Piglet supposed that was why the Heffalump seemed to
catch up with them so quickly. Someone had told him
vernaculars could go very fast and without any pushing or
pedaling. He thought perhaps he had seen a very frightening
sort of vernacular once, all metal with belts on its squealing
wheels and a long nose that spit fire and noise and a black
cross on its side, but he couldn’t imagine where he had seen
such a thing.

He looked around, nervous. He seemed to recall this
trap not being Very Cunning the last time. But it was hard
to see in the Dark So Total, even more so at the bottom of
the Very Deep Pit. Maybe it had improved since the last
time.

And then Piglet puzzled over what the Zoog had said,
for there was someone else whose hunger never ended.

Someone he had been forgetting but trying to remember.

The wet match in the dark tunnels of his thinker still
wouldn’t light, and he went ‘round in circles a while. That
reminded him of the time he had walked around a spinney
of larch trees tracking a Woozle. Someone had been with
him. Was it Owl? No, he only hunted Woozles at night.

Piglet remembered that it had been cold, and the Woozle’s
footprints had stood out quite clearly in the snow.

That was when he heard the Heffalump again, Snuffling
and Sniffling and singing in its little popping and hissing
voice;

God bless Mummy. I know that's right.

Wasn't it fun in the bath to-night?

The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.

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92
Oh! God bless Daddy - I quite forgot.

“What fun did you have in the bath?” some older boy snickered.

“Was your nanny there too?” said another through his crooked
teeth, leering like an alligator.

“Nah wittiw wad was pwaying wiv ‘is stuffies,” mocked a third.

And then that laughter, like the braying of young horses.

“Say your prayers now….”

Daddy, why did you do this to me? You traded in our play for
money and celebrity. I’m not some nursery rhyme character, not some
forever child. I’m a man! I’ve seen and done things a man does and
sees.

I’m Lieutenant Moon!

Billy Moon!

But he wasn’t that either, and he pushed his paws deep
in his ears to shut out the voices and maybe poke himself in
a place in his head that would get it to work right and
remember just who he was.

He wasn’t a man or some loo-ten-ant. He was Henry

Pootell.

No. That was almost right, but not quite.

He was the Piglet.

Of course!

Piglet.

But he had other memories. Memories of dancing about
in a garden in Wellington boots with a tall, laughing woman,
of reading in a recording booth (whatever that was), of
being pushed down on the cricket field at Stowe School, of

Corporal Whalley clasping a hand to his throat and the hot
blood jetting all over him as the mortars whistled and
screamed and bullets scraped the dark sky, of having his bed
turned over by the Sixth Forms at Cobham House, having
his sheets and pillows torn up. They had said they were
looking for his famous teddy.

His teddy…teddy.

And then Piglet remembered a time when he had felt
very safe, almost as safe as he had felt when he thought

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93
about his grandfather, Trespassers William. It had been the
time Rabbit had stuffed him into a close, warm place. For
just an instant he had felt very secure, as if he were in a
pocket…

“Hullo everybody! What are you doing down there?”

cried a very young voice.

Before anyone could answer little Roo landed on top of
them.

“What are we doing down here?” he corrected himself.

“We are waiting to trap the Heffalump, Roo,” said

Rabbit, taking Roo off his shoulders and setting him down.

“It’s a stupid idea,” said the Zoog.

“It is Rabbit’s idea,” Eeyore said, as if in agreement.

“Roo, dear?” called a motherly voice, much like the
voice of the woman he remembered dancing with in the
garden. It was, of course, Kanga’s voice. She peered down
in to the hole with concern, “Are you alright?”

“Yes mother! We’re waiting for the Heffalump.”

“I don’t think that’s such a very good idea, Roo. Hop
out to me, please.”

“Oh, Mother.”

“Right now.”

Piglet thought that Kanga was correct. He was feeling
around for a way to get out of the Heffalump trap himself
when he felt something round and cool and found that it
was an empty jar.

A jar. Empty as his own foggy head. The Sniffling and
the Snuffling seemed to suck everything Important out of

Piglet’s brain, leaving Nothing except Fear and Noise and a

Dark So Total that he was bumping into other peoples’

memories.

This jar had been part of the Very Cunning Trap. An
important part. But something had gone wrong.

No

.

Someone had gone wrong. Someone like a big green
door that had not been carved or painted yet. Someone with
a head like a great big nothing.

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94

Like this jar. This faintly sweet-smelling jar. But not this
jar precisely. That jar had broken on a tree root and
something had been inside. Someone. Someone that Piglet
felt was slightly Wonderful and whom he wished were here
right now.

Who was that someone? Piglet just couldn’t think.

The Sniffling and Snuffling was so close now. It hurt

Piglet’s big ears. There were other sounds underneath it;
sounds of mocking children’s laughter, and the squealing
wheels of the vernacular and a harsh sound like metal dogs
barking, and heavy things dropping from the sky.

“Steady,” said Rabbit to his Friends-and-Relations, who
were milling about with nervous concern. “Steady! Now,
where is the honey jar for the Heffalump?”

“We still only have the empty one,” Alexander Beetle
reported.

“I thought I asked for a replacement,” Rabbit said,
annoyed.

“I sent someone to fetch it, but they haven’t returned,”

said Alexander Beetle.

“Of course not,” Eeyore said.

“But when the Heffalump gets here what will we give it
to eat, then?” Rabbit wondered.

“I don’t know,” said Alexander Beetle.

“I don’t know,” said someone else.

“I suspect,” said Eeyore with a sigh.

The Zoog just laughed, a hissing, ugly laugh.

“OK, Mother,” Roo said reluctantly. “Here I come!”

Roo sprang, and Piglet got the idea to grab onto his tail
and so he did.

Roo did not quite make the lip of the hole because of
the added weight of Piglet, but Kanga stooped over and
pulled him up and took Piglet along with, and stuffed them
both into her pocket and buttoned it.

Then they were bouncing along at a fast clip, the dark

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95
trees rushing by like anything.

“Where we please,
are going Kanga?”

Piglet cried from the bottom of the pocket.

Kanga stopped and unbuttoned.

Piglet poked his head out and waited for his eyes to stop
bouncing.

They were in a sandy pit. The sandy pit. Where Roo liked
to jump about, of course. He remembered that now.

“Oh dear. I didn’t see you there, Piglet,” said Kanga.

“Do you think the others are all right?” Roo asked,
poking his head out of Kanga’s pocket and looking back the
way they had bounced.

It was all black and all quiet back there, but for the

Sniffling and the Snuffling a little way off. Even the Six Pine

Trees, which should have stood out against the night sky,
were gone.

“I’m sure they’ll be along,” said Piglet.

“Maybe we should go back and look,” Roo said, pulling
himself out of the pocket.

But Kanga gently pushed his head back down.

“Is there someplace I can take you, Piglet, dear?” Kanga
asked. “Someplace you would like to go?”

And Piglet understood from Kanga’s tone that this had
better be a Very Special Place, because it was the last place
she would take him. He thought about going home, but they
had likely passed it somewhere in the Dark So Total, and
anyway, home meant he would be alone and he didn’t think
he wanted that.

“Well,” said Piglet, thinking hard. “I have been trying to
go Away, but I don’t know where that is. Owl said he knew,
but all he found was the Not-So Cunning Trap, and as

Clever as Rabbit is, I don’t think the trap is going to work
this time because well, it never worked before. And Eeyore
was no help, and the Zoog even less. Kanga, I feel as if I

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96
haven’t been trying to get somewhere so much as I have been
trying to get to someone.”

“Oh!” Roo piped up. “Is it someone very bouncy?”

“No,” said Piglet, thinking hard. “Not very bouncy at
all….”

Roo went back to thinking, but not for very long.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Then I know who it is!”

“Who, Roo, dear?” Kanga asked.

“Don’t you remember?” said Roo. “He lives under the
name of Sanders.”

Piglet did not quite remember, but he clearly saw a
picture in his head of the door with the name Sanders in
gold letters over it, and said that if that was not quite what
he was trying hard to remember it was at least in the right
neighborhood, if not the very address.

“I think I remember the way,” Kanga said.

So Kanga buttoned Piglet and Roo back into her pocket
and after a bit more tumbling about at the bottom in which

Piglet cried “Ooooooooh!” and then “Ow!” more times
than he could count, they came to the door with the name

Sanders in gold letters above it and Piglet slipped out and
felt for sure that yes, he was in the right place, for it was the
brightest place he’d seen all day (or night, if it was night).

There was a faint warm glow all around the seams of the
door, and behind it, they could hear a very growly voice
singing;

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,

A fly can’t bird, but a bird can fly.

Ask me a riddle and I reply:

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.

And this song was the right sort of song. It filled Piglet
with a great warm swelling feeling inside such as a loaf of
baking bread must feel to an oven. He fairly ran to the door
and beat on it with both his paws. Roo, thinking it was a
game, jumped over and joined in.

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97

Finally the door opened up, and out stepped a stout,
furry bear with his arm stuffed to his elbow in a jar marked

HUNNY.

“Oh why hullo, Piglet! Hullo, Roo! Is Kanga with you?”

“I am!” She said, hopping over into the light.

“Hullo, Kanga! Have you all stopped by a for a little
something?” he said in a worried voice. “I’m afraid I don’t
have very much left. You see, I was sent to bring some
honey back to Rabbit and his Friends-and-Relations, but I
wanted to make sure I brought the right sort of honey, and
so I tasted the first pot in the larder….and well…you know
how that goes.”

Piglet was fairly bursting with happiness at the sight of
his friend, and the whole time the bear had been speaking

Piglet had had his mouth open so that when the right name
finally made it to his tongue, nothing would get in the way
of it.

Finally, it tumbled out.

“Edward Bear!” he managed, though when it was out,
he wasn’t quite sure that was right.

“Why so formal, Piglet? What’s the occasion? Are we
having another expotition? Or a party? Will there be little
cakes with pink sugar icing?”

“It is the last day of the Hundred Acre Wood,” said the

Zoog, his red eyes shining in the dark. By now Piglet wasn’t
quite as surprised that the Zoog had managed to come along
again, though he inched closer to the bear and into the light
spilling from the house.

“I don’t see how it can be the last day,” said the bear,
looking up at the dark sky, “when it’s clearly still night out.”

“Oh Pooh!” Piglet cried, hugging his leg. For that was
who he was. Pooh Bear. Winnie-the-Pooh. F.O.P. (Friend
of Piglet’s), R.C. (Rabbit’s Companion), P.D. (Pole

Discoverer), E.C. and T.F. (Eeyore’s Comforter and Tail

Finder).

The light from Pooh’s house was pouring into his

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98
thinker now, lighting up all the dark rooms. So many happy
memories came rushing all in a bunch that the bad were
pushed aside; of the North Pole and of The Brain of Pooh and
of giving wet rags that used to be red balloons as birthday
presents. There were so many he felt they would wash him
away, like the time Roo fell in the stream and so he held on
ever tighter to Pooh’s leg. And just then he remembered
why he had been wishing to see Pooh so dearly, because
unlike Eeyore, Pooh didn’t push Piglet away, but placed a
hand gently on the top of his head and drew him close. “A
horrible hungry Heffalump is coming and he’s Devouring
everything!” Piglet sobbed.

“That’s why Rabbit wanted honey,” Pooh said, and if
he’d had fingers to snap and known how to do it, he
probably would have. “It was for the Heffalump. Oh, I’m
afraid I don’t have any left for him….”

“Foolish little dream,” said the Zoog, snickering
wheezily. “Heth-Fah-Loomf’th has already consumed your
friends. First the dream and then the dreamer. Next the
scheme and next the schemer. Finally….”

“The cream and then the creamer?” Pooh finished for
him. “Unfortunately I had that for breakfast, or I’d share it
with the Heffalump. It sounds as hungry as I am.”

“Pooh didn’t you hear him?” Piglet said sorrowfully.

“Rabbit and Eeyore and Owl and all of Rabbit’s Friends
and-Relations….they’re all gone.”

Pooh scratched his head thoughtfully.

“You mean they left the Very Deep Pit? Have they gone
on to the party? We should hurry or there won’t be any cake
left!”

“There is no Very Deep Pit anymore,” said the Zoog.

“Your friends, the Six Pine Trees, The Hundred Acre

Wood, The Bog….all have been devoured.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re all still there,” said Pooh. “They’re
probably just lost. Rabbit does tend to get turned around,
doesn’t he, Piglet? Let’s go and find them.”

Piglet buried his face in Pooh’s fur and sobbed pitifully.

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99

“W-w-we can’t go back there, Pooh. There’s nothing but
the Dark So Total. There’s no light to even see by.”

“Well,” said Pooh, “I suppose we will have to take the
light with us.”

And he hobbled into his kitchen with Piglet hanging on
his leg, and hobbled back out with a tarnished old
chamberstick with a stubby little candle and a wavering
yellow flame that shone brighter than it had any right to.

“This should be enough to see by,” said Pooh.

The Zoog stood in the light for a moment, but backed
away, and Piglet saw that its eyes were the biggest things
about it, and it was not much bigger than Roo. It had ratty
sort of hair and a long pink tail and funny little hands and
droopy pink whiskers. Not so frightening as when it was
only a croaky voice and big red eyes in the Dark.

Then they heard the Very Loud Sound; the Snuffling and
the Sniffling and all the other noises. Piglet squeezed Pooh
very tightly, and Roo crawled into Kanga’s pocket without
a word and didn’t look out, and the Zoog turned to watch

Doom come with its red eyes, and waited.

The cheery little flame flickered dangerously in the
blowing wind kicked up by the approach of the Heffalump,
but it did not go out, being too curious to see what it could
see.

“Come along, Piglet, and Kanga and Roo,” said Pooh

Bear, walking off into the Dark So Total with his little light
as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“You walk to Hefth-Fah-Loomf’th, Bear?” the Zoog said
in disbelief.

“Heff-a-lump,” Pooh corrected him. “I’m going back to
find Rabbit and Eeyore and Owl and the rest, but if the

Heffalump is this way, then I suppose I shall find it too.

Maybe I can explain to it that there isn’t any honey to be
found here and that it will have to look elsewhere. Maybe it
will even bring a little something for us….”

“B-b-but Owl said Heffalumps can’t be reasoned with,”

said Piglet.

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100

“Some can and some can’t,” said Pooh thoughtfully.

“You never can tell with Heffalumps. It may be that this is
the right sort of Heffalump.”

“It is not,” said the Zoog, trotting along behind in the
dark. “Look at the sky. There are no stars, no moon.”

“No, not the right sort of stars anyway. Tut-tut it looks
like rain,” said Pooh.

“Hefth-Fah-Loomf’th is all that can be seen,” said the

Zoog. “It is become the everlasting sky. It will cover the

Dreamlands. It will glut itself on dreams and suck the minds
of sleepers free to feed its Dead and Dreaming Master. It
will grow and grow and….”

“What if it turns out to be the wrong sort of Heffalump,

Pooh?” Piglet asked nervously, squeezing Pooh’s hand as
they walked.

“You are just a dream, Bear,” said the Zoog on his other
side. “A morsel to Hefth-Fah-Loomf’th. First the dream
and then the dreamer….”

“Winnie-ther-Pooh, if you please,” said Pooh. Then he
screwed up his face and whispered down to Piglet, “He does
talk, doesn’t he, Piglet?”

The Dark So Total seemed to swirl all around them, the
shadows like eddies in the stream, but they didn’t overtake

Pooh’s chamberstick, melting away like butter when they
got too close. Below their feet, the grass and the gorse
bushes seemed to sprout in the light only to be swallowed
again by the dark as they passed, only existing for the brief
time the candle shone on them, as if its light were a pencil
drawing them and the Dark a busy eraser going behind.

Kanga and Piglet kept very close to Pooh, afraid they too
would disappear if they strayed from the light. Even the

Zoog stayed on the barest edge of it. And Pooh sang as he
went;
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
Why does a chicken? I don't know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply

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101
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

After a bit Pooh and Piglet and Kanga and the Zoog
stopped walking and Pooh stooped over a little and shined
his light downwards and called;
“Hullo Rabbit! Hullo Eeyore! Hullo Owl! Hullo
Alexander Beetle! Hullo…”

And he would have greeted every one of Rabbit’s

Friends-and-Relations by name if he hadn’t been
interrupted.

“Pooh!” shouted Rabbit from the bottom of the Very

Deep Pit. “Did you bring the honey?”

“I’m afraid I mislaid it, Rabbit,” said Pooh.

“Mislaid it where?” Rabbit demanded, stepping into the
light, looking cross.

“Ah, in my stomach,” Pooh admitted sheepishly.

“It won’t do us any good there,” Eeyore grumbled,
coming up alongside Rabbit.

Piglet leaned over the lip of the Very Deep Pit, so far

Pooh had to grab hold of his little tail to keep him from
tumbling in. He was overjoyed to see his friends.

“I thought the Heffalump had devoured you all!”

“Perhaps next time, Piglet,” Eeyore said hopefully, “with
a little luck.”

“It’s a very strange thing,” said Owl, flapping down to
land beside them, “but after you departed, the noise seemed
all around us, and the Dark So Total seemed to swallow us
and everything just stopped. I don’t recall anything else until

I saw your candlelight just now. Piglet, did you find your
way to Away? Why did you come back?”

“I don’t think I was looking for that, Owl, I think I was
looking for Pooh.”

“For me? Whatever for, Piglet?” said Pooh.

Piglet shrugged.

“I just knew that if anybody could stop the Heffalump
you could.”

“I don’t know how to stop it,” Pooh said with a shrug.

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102
“Who does? No one, that’s who,” said Eeyore.

Then Hefth-Fah-Loomf’th seemed closer, in all his
terrible Snuffling and Sniffling, and all his mocking, loud
noises, and Piglet clung to Pooh and looked up into the
black sky and saw awful snaky things with big red stingers
whirling like willow branches on a blustery day, and he hid
his face.

“Hmmm,” said Pooh, not looking up, “I think I know
someone who does know. Come along everyone,” and he
started marching off.

And Rabbit and his Friends-and-Relations made a sort
of chain such as when Pooh had been stuck in Rabbit’s
doorway, and they pulled themselves and Eeyore out with

Kanga and Owl’s help, and they all of them followed Pooh’s
candle, for it was all they could see of him in the Dark So

Total.

“How can this be?” the Zoog muttered. “The Dream
feaster Devoured you all. First the dreams and then….”

“I had a funny thought about dreams just now,” said

Pooh. “I once dreamed of five hundred and eighty-seven

Heffalumps.”

“Were they like this one, Pooh?” Piglet asked.

“No, they were much worse,” Pooh said, “because they
were eating up all my honey. But you see, Piglet, however
many I dreamed, I always dreamed one more. And however
many honey pots they licked up, I always had more. You
have seen my larder, Piglet. Do I have five hundred and
eighty-seven jars of honey?”

“No.”

“If I did, I should never leave the house. I should invite
all of my friends to come over and I would have a little
smackerel while I waited for you to arrive….”

“What does this have to do with dreams?” the Zoog
interrupted.

“What does it have to do with dreams?” said Pooh
thoughtfully, and then he remembered. “Oh! Simply that
there are always more dreams to be had. And you can always

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103
dream up enough good things to keep the bad things busy,
and quick as anything. As quick as saying ‘pooh.’”

All above and all below and all around them Hefth-Fah

Loomf’th Sniffled and Snuffled and blew and sucked like a
great noisy windstorm, until they came back to the ring of
pine trees at the top of the forest, and Pooh’s light shined
on a familiar green door with a brass handle and he knocked.

An old man, maybe thirty, answered the door,
bewildered.

Piglet stared. He didn’t like the look of this man. He was
thin and narrow with a pitted chin and a sparse brown hair
shot with frost, and he had frightened eyes. Piglet did not
care overly for baths, but this man was very dirty too. He
wore a soldier’s uniform with a red patch with a black cat
on it. He looked rather silly under his cooking pot helmet,
and he hugged a gun to him like a stuffed toy.

The man opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes went
up to the Heffalump raging in the dark sky and his lips
trembled and whatever words came out, they fell all over
themselves as if were too afraid to venture past his
chattering teeth. Only a few frustrated soap bubbles poured
out and popped.

“Excuse me,” said Pooh, clearing his throat. “Is

Christopher Robin at home, please?”

The man looked down at Pooh.

“I’m B-b-b-b-b-b-b-billy. Billy Muh-muh-muh-moon.”

This made Piglet feel slightly better about his own
stammering.

“Hello, Billy Moon,” said Pooh. “I’m Winnie-the-Pooh,
and this is my great friend Piglet. And this is Eeyore, and

Owl, and that’s Kanga (Roo is sleeping in her pocket) and

Rabbit, and his Friends-and-Relations. Oh and that is a

Zoog. Is Christopher Robin at home, if you please?”

“No,” said Billy Moon, very firmly at first, but then his
words shook that firmness all to pieces. “That is…I d-d-d
duh-duh-don’t know. I d-d-duh-don’t think so. I d-d-don’t
know.”

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104

“Can you please check, very sweetly? We don’t mind
waiting. And when you find him, can you ask him please if
he will bring his pop gun?”

“I have a guh-guh-gun,” said Billy Moon, holding out his
gun.

“I’m sorry but that’s the wrong sort of gun,” Pooh said,
not unkindly

Billy Moon nodded and turned slowly like a ghost and
disappeared into the shadows behind the green door.

Above, the wide black sky shrieked out from dozens of
swirling, Sniffling, Snuffling Heffalump noses with red bee
stingers, all in the sing song, mocking voices of children;

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,

Droops on the little hands little gold head.

Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!

Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

And in a moment, out stepped Christopher Robin in his
blue smock and shorts and his Wellington boots, as bright
and proud and golden haired as anything, and he had his
pop gun over his shoulder.

And Piglet just stared, because he had forgotten all about

Christopher Robin. He felt very Foolish indeed, because of
all the friends he had misremembered the little boy was the
most important.

“Hullo, Bear,” Christopher Robin said, smiling.

“Hullo, Christopher Robin,” said Pooh, smiling back,
for he was very fond of Christopher Robin indeed.

“The Princeling Dreamer,” the Zoog whispered in awe,
for he recognized this little boy of old. Countless dreamers
had visited this Hundred Acre Wood, making it as vivid and
permanent a country as any that existed, more real than
many that had come and gone, but this boy and his kingly
father were the pioneers who had discovered it. They were
as legend as Randolph Carter. Dreamers whose dreams had
also been dreamed by innumerable others, and this boy,

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105
even more, a dreamer made dream himself. Neither the
father nor the son had been seen in the Forest in many,
many slumbers.

“Why, what’s that in the sky?” Christopher Robin said,
frowning up at the whirling Dark and all the red stingers.

And the Zoog opened his mouth to speak of the Dream
feasters and how they gathered the dreams for the Great

Sleeper and brought them to His maw to be consumed, how
the Sleeper slurped at the dreams like noodles and so drew
in and consumed the very dreamer in the end, and how the

Sleeper would rouse when the stars of the waking world
were bright enough to see by, how He would rise out of
deep R’lyeh and go forth.

And Piglet opened his mouth to say that the Heffalump
was fast as a vernacular and Overbearing and Obstinate and
how it Devoured everything it saw, with no regard for trees
or Very Small Animals at all.

And in the shadows behind Christopher Robin Billy

Moon wanted to say it was all the daydreams he had made
in play with his mother and father and his nanny cheapened
and sold as commerce, how it was a thing that had plagued
him in his burgeoning manhood, a source of ridicule and
mockery the meaner boys rubbed in his face, and how the
weight of it all settled on his back, heavier than his pack on
the beach at Salerno, a silly thing that made him feel silly
inside when there was so much important stuff to be done,
so many battles and so much dying and bridge building and
shopkeeping and how he had done it in the name of Right
but also because he was not some boy in a nursery rhyme.

He couldn’t be his whole life. He wanted to say these things,
but he only stammered.

But Pooh just said;

“It’s just a Heffalump. But do you remember the time

Rabbit had me over for a little something and I found his
doorway was too small?”

“Because you had gotten rather too large for it?” said

Rabbit, and Christopher Robin giggled.

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106

“Anyway,” said Pooh, “this particular Heffalump has
gotten rather too large for the Forest, owing to the fact that
he has Devoured so very much.”

“And we can’t even see the sun,” Piglet ventured.

“Hm,” said Christopher Robin. “Then I suppose he is
like the blue balloon you hung on to when you tried to get
the honey from the wrong sort of bees, Pooh.”

“I suppose he is,” said Pooh.

“Well then, I know what to do,” said Christopher Robin,
lifting his pop gun to his cheek and aiming up at the Dark

So Total.

He paused.

“You don’t think I shall hurt him?”

“Not very much at all,” said a voice behind him, and it
was not Billy Moon, but his father, whom he called Blue.

He laid a hand on Christopher Robin’s shoulder. “Steady.”

Christopher Robin was steady, and his aim was true.

And from the pop gun there came a little orange ball of
light, and it streaked up into the sky, roaring a tigerish roar,
and it burst in the center of the Heffalump like a bright
firework that shed bouncy sparks all across the Dark So

Total.

And Piglet (and Roo, who had woken up and poked his
face out of Kanga’s pocket, rubbing his eyes sleepily) said;

“Oooo!”

And Rabbit and Kanga and Owl and all of Rabbit’s

Friends-and-Relations said;

“Aaaah!”

And Pooh and Blue, standing behind Christopher Robin
said;

“Good shot!”

And the Zoog merely stared in wonder.

And the bright bouncing sparks melted away the shadow
fat of the Heffalump so that the blue sky poked through and
the sun too, and the Sniffling and the Snuffling and the Very

Loud Sound of the squealing, thundering vernacular and the
words of the mean boys made way for the chirping of birds

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107
and the chittering of bugs, and the rustle of the wind playing
tag in the branches of the beech trees.

The wind was so playful the mood settled on the animals
and on Christopher Robin, and they played and played,
games you may know and games that were only known in
this certain special corner of the Dreamlands.

Roo swung from Eeyore’s tail until it came loose and
then he bounced off with it so the others would chase him
and when Kanga finally brought him back and apologized
to Eeyore, the old grey donkey said it was fine and Roo
could hold onto it a little longer if he liked.

Owl and the Zoog talked of Heffalumps and pop guns
and of Pooh too, though the Zoog did most of the talking,
saying something about the Taoist principle of nothingness
being at work in the subconscious, and how the Dream

Princeling meeting Hefth-Fah-Loomf’th’s hunger with that
boundlessly optimistic childlike simplicity must have
poisoned or perhaps starved it.

“Indubitably,” said Owl.

“Quite right,” said Owl.

“Do you know what nothingness is called by the Taoists,

Owl?” the Zoog asked, grinning as though he were about to
tell a joke.

“Certainly!” said Owl. “But ah….you should say it
anyway. I shouldn’t presume to steal your thunder.”

“Pu,” said the Zoog, chuckling.

“Yes of course,” said Owl, forcing a laugh. “Very good,
that.”

Christopher Robin’s father Blue and Billy Moon leaned
in the doorway and shared a pipe and spoke of war and
more important things, things that sons and fathers who
have not spoken in a long time out of misunderstandings
and bad feelings must eventually say to each other before it
is too late.

Soon the sun grew sleepy and left an orange smudge
across the sky as it slid down drowsily towards its bed, the

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108
natural dark of nighttime kicking off its covers.

Piglet dozed beside Roo in a lazy puddle among all the

Friends-and-Relations, and Rabbit tried to pull Eeyore’s tail
out of Roo’s arms, but Eeyore said it was alright, that he
would get it back another day.

Christopher Robin and Pooh held hands and walked
back to the green door.

“I think you left your pop gun laying out in the Forest
somewhere when we were playing.”

“It’s alright, I’ll come back for it sometime.”

“Oh I hope you do,” said Winnie The Pooh, shuffling
his feet. “I’ll find it, or Piglet will, and we’ll have it waiting
for you.”

“I do still love you, Pooh,” said Christopher Robin,
throwing his arms around his Bear.

“And I love you,” said Pooh.

Christopher Robin went back through the green door
where his father and Billy Moon waited. The three of them
turned and waved goodbye.

Pooh and the others were singing as he closed the door;

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,

A fish can't whistle and neither can I.

Ask me a riddle and I reply

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

Billy Moon was singing it himself lowly to himself when
he opened his eyes and found himself lying in a puddle of
black ink in the hallway outside the red chapel.

But he was not quite Billy Moon anymore was he? It was
a silly, childish name.

He got stiffly to his feet, rubbing the sore, but unmarked
spot on his forehead. He went back inside the bloody room
and retrieved the Infernalius and its pages from the altar, and
walked back out into the hallway, tracking red footprints.

The morning sun was creeping through the broken
casements.

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109

He must give his father a ring, he decided. It had been
too long since Christopher Robin had visited home.

110
IN WHICH WE DISCOVER
THE 101ST ACRE
BY ROBERT P. OTTONE

In all of the Hundred Acre Wood, no one desired
knowledge more than Owl. During the day, he would rest,
read, and enjoy the natural world of his domain, taking in
the changing sights of the seasons, observing his friends
going about their business in their tireless search for honey,
adventure, or a way to escape their Gloomies.

Each evening, Owl soared. He flew high above his
friends’ homes, keeping a watchful eye on the Wood while
also getting much-needed exercise at the end of less
strenuous activities in the comforts of his spacious
treehouse, marked with the remembrances of adventures
that seemed to occur just yesterday but had in fact occurred
longer ago than he cared to admit.

Under cover of night, stretching far along the perimeter
of the Hundred Acre Wood, charting in his memory the
expanse of land that seemed to stretch on for eternity
beyond the bounds of verdant hills and thick, dark trees,

Owl recalled the adventures with a boy named Christopher

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111
Robin.

His friends remained unaware of his nightly routine. Owl
was proud of himself that no one knew, certainly not a bear
named Pooh. This went on nightly, for years. Christopher

Robin, Pooh, and others enjoyed adventures and playing in
the sunlight and sometimes even in the rising gloom of the
fading day, but no one paid much attention to the dark take
offs and returns of a lone creature fluttering above their
heads, charting, mapping and observing with near-absurd
passion and commitment to his unheralded mission.

Over time, Christopher Robin had cut short his visits to
the Hundred Acre Wood. The daily ritual of play and
misadventure turned into weekly celebrations, which then
shifted into bi-weekly parties and eventually, painfully, to
strained monthly visits.

That is, until finally, Christopher Robin seemingly
disappeared. The Wood changed after that. Slowly at first,
the blue sky losing its luster. The sun, its shine.

Pausing for a rest in the high branches of the forest at
the eastern expanse of the Wood, Owl stared into the dark,
his sharp eyes adjusting, making note of the rolling hills,
fields of wheat, corn and more that littered the hills and
valleys beyond the trees. There had been, in recent weeks,
an approaching fog that appeared along the edge of the

Hundred Acre Wood. While fog was certainly not an
uncommon sight, a lingering mist that remained clutching
the leaves of the trees that grew so high only Owl had truly
mapped their splendor, well, that was certainly something
different.

In this rising gloom of night, Owl soared. With the child
gone and at the end of a long day spent talking about

Christopher Robin with his friends and enjoying the
remaining fellowship of their bonds, Owl kept his nightly
charting of their shared pastoral domain, carefully watching
the encroaching fog with a watchful eye. He never spoke of
the fog, for Owl did not wish to alert the others to a
potential danger lurking in the distant reaches of the Wood.

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112

Perhaps, thought Owl, there was a very good explanation for it.

Perhaps the trees require a steaming! Perhaps the leaves, a good
pressing!

As much as Owl hoped for the best, the depths of his
knowledge met their match with the fog. At times, Owl
could pick up faint stale, acrid scents from the furthest part
of the Wood where the fog lingered not far in the distance.

He kept watch. And waited. But nothing ever came to poor

Owl in his nightly vigilance. Nothing at all.

In his usual reverie for an evening of flying, Owl sat atop
a high branch, his head peering out just above the tree line,
scoping the furthest reaches of the Hundred Acre Wood.

This was the furthest he had flown in his time of exploring
the outer rim of the territory and yet the land that stretched
before him was largely the same as he had expected. A light
mist hung around him, coating the trees and pale fields of
wheat and grain that grew obscured by the thick gray
blanket before him.

The mist, he determined, it has grown bigger! A great living
fog that seemed to crawl along treetops, stretching like
tendrils among the greenery, moving slowly, silently as
though on cat’s feet. Even little Roo, in all his
rambunctiousness, could never match the stealth of this
gray, almost luminescent cotton that had slowly begun
encroaching deeper into the stretches of Owl and his
friends’ domain.

Beyond the darkness of night, Owl could see flickering
of light, not unlike the great windstorms, rain and lightning
that sometimes hammered the Hundred Acre Wood. Yet
there was a stillness in the riot of mayhem that tore through
the blackness of the world beyond the Wood. Shapes,
illuminated for only an instant, shifted about under cover of
heavenly shadow, their forms long, thicker than any tree

Owl had seen and stretched alarmingly high into the sky.

Shapeless voids of darkness that seemed to slither and creep
along the fields beyond.

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113

Owl knew he could not match the heights of whatever it
was that rose beyond the clouds above. His short wings
were powerful, yes, but not so much that he may challenge
the heights of whatever nightmare lurked in the sky.

“How could this be?” Owl whispered to himself,
desperate for the sound of a comforting voice even if it were
his own.

Beyond the cacophony of thunder, Owl noticed a
hissing. A great, terrible Sssssssss that penetrated his ears. As
the sound washed over him, he thought, for an instant, that
he could make out words. Language. Something guttural,
ugly and filled with what Owl could only perceive as hate.

He stared and let his powerful eyes adjust further to the
frightening choreography of flashing light. Shadows made
of flesh and other nocturnal nightmares the likes of which
he had never seen before seemed to shift and writhe in the
dark. Owl paused, fluttering to a nearby branch to refocus
and make an attempt at rational thought. He could make out
distant shapes, foreign, thick, skittering in the dark. His

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114
mind struggled to piece together what he was seeing, and he
found himself woozy.

There was panic, yes, but more importantly, there was
paralysis. Owl found himself unable to move, unable to
even think. He could merely witness. There was nothing
more his body would allow him, and he found himself
confused, totally unable to grasp the scene before him. As
though thoughts that weren’t his own had somehow taken
root deep within his mind.

Is this madness? he thought to himself, attempting to
rationalize a confusion he had never experienced in his days
prior.

Vast explosions of lightning shook the trance but did
little beyond that. In those moments, Owl cast his gaze
further skyward and could just barely glimpse the slender
tree-like form of darkness stretching high into the clouds.

As they flickered in the intensity of the lightning strikes, he
could see little definition beyond the crinkling of dark flesh
with smoky tendrils pouring forth from its body.

“Must … fly …” Owl whispered to himself, feeling his
small frame once more regain feeling. His mind, once
clouded with images of wet, dark writhing tentacles, filled
again with thoughts of his friends. “Must … return … warn
the others …

”

And fly he did. Pushing himself from his station upon
the tallest branches of the trees overlooking the foggy
invasion of the Hundred Acre Wood, Owl caught a breeze,
outstretched his wings, and prayed. He prayed that the wind
would be enough to carry him, to float him along and he
could somehow dance on the breeze as he did as a young
owlet, fresh from the nest.

The breeze carried with it a scent. Acrid and pungent,
almost poisonous. The smell was certainly not familiar to

Owl, and he gagged slightly, his eyes watering as he breathed
it in deeper.

He felt the wind ripple through his brown and tan
feathers, and he felt his talons regain their feeling. He

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115
wiggled them with all of his might and tilted his head up,
pointing his beak west, toward his tree house. Toward

Eeyore’s Gloomy Place and beyond.

Owl hoped he wouldn’t be too late. And hoped, for once,
his friends took his information at face value and with the
maturity to know that something terrible was afoot.

By the time Owl got back to his friends, they had all gone
to bed. He screeched, flying above their homes, calling them
to a meeting near Eeyore’s home. Once assembled, Owl
explained, to the best of his ability, what he had seen, and
why he had been taking nightly flights around the Wood.

“None of that sounds right,” Kanga said, leaning against
a willow tree overlooking the bog that surrounded Eeyore’s
home. “There’s no such thing as a fog that moves or a fog
that does nothing other than being a fog. And fogs don’t
linger, either!”

“You’re not listening,” Owl said. “I don’t think it’s a fog.

I think it’s something more. Something … worse.”

“Why are you flying around so late at night, anyway?”

Rabbit asked, his brow furrowed. “We know all about the

Wood. We don’t need to know what lies beyond its
boundaries.”

Maybe he’s right, Owl thought. He certainly regretted
going as far as he did in the first place, so Rabbit made sense.

He didn’t often agree with his quick-footed friend, but his
words rung true for him this one time.

“What could possibly be worse than a fog that rolls in
with a mind of its own?” Eeyore asked, his snout hung low,
eyes half-open. He picked at a small piece of grass that was
sticking up from the dirt near his hooves. The other citizens
of the Hundred Acre Wood were scattered around in a loose
circle. Rabbit, his hands on his hips, stood beside Kanga,
while Pooh sat next to Eeyore, rolling an empty jar of honey
back and forth between his soft paws.

Piglet sat behind Pooh, and Owl thought for the faintest
of moments that his tiny friend was shaking as he recounted

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116
his tale.

Pooh sat calmly, his hands on the ground beside Eeyore
and listened. “Eeyore, it’s rude to interrupt. Owl, please
continue.”

“You didn’t say anything to Kanga, now I feel bad …

”

Eeyore sighed, resting on his haunches.

“Thank you,” Owl said. “The things in the fog. This is
what I’m worried about. The voices. The things they were
saying –

”

“This is folly!” Rabbit cried. “This is all mumbo-jumbo;

I say we go out there and see it for ourselves!”

A squeak of a voice rose above the others. “If Owl is
telling the truth,” Piglet began. “Then that fog and whatever
is inside it will be here soon.” Piglet looked up at Pooh with
wide, wet eyes. “I’m scared.”

“I know, my friend,” Pooh whispered, placing a hand on

Piglet’s shoulder. “We all are. It’s okay to be afraid.”

“I ain’t scared!” Roo shouted, bouncing on his legs. Owl
rolled his eyes and smiled at the child as he bounced
excitedly around.

Owl swooped from his perch on a high branch and held

Roo by the shoulders. “Silly Roo. You should stay here with
your mother. Safer that way. Keep an eye on our homes and
scare away any of the mist that might make its way here”

Roo sighed, dejected. “Alright.”

“Can you explain exactly what you saw, Owl?” Rabbit
asked.

Owl looked around, confused. He worried that his tale
did little to shed light on what he saw, and worried that his
closest friends simply didn’t believe him.

Owl searched for the words, any kind of description of
what it was that he saw in the darkness. He even thought of
the words that echoed in his mind, things he could never
understand, but vaguely English, vaguely human, the
language and words of Christopher Robin.

“They were big. The biggest things I’ve ever seen. I …

”

he felt betrayed by his own wise mind. Beyond the

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117
description of size, Owl had nothing else to rely on. “The
enormity of these things. You could never believe it.”

“Sounds like an adventure,” Pooh said.

“Sounds like a lot of work and we’ve barely even had
time to think about what we’re having for breakfast,” Rabbit
said.

“I don’t want to go,” Piglet said. “I don’t want to see
what’s in the fog.”

“You are the only sensible one here, Piglet,” Owl said.

“I don’t know what we should do. I really don’t. But, truly,
going toward the fog is a bad idea.”

“Maybe we should all go,” Kanga said. “See for
ourselves. Owl, too. Even you, Piglet. If it concerns the

Wood, it concerns you.”

“It certainly does not,” Piglet shouted. “I’m going to stay
here and prepare our breakfast with Roo. You all may go
and have yourselves a fabulous time, but this is one little
piggy who will not be going to market today!”

Pooh placed his hand on Piglet’s shoulder. “You stay
here, friend. I’m going to go with them. Maybe I’ll find some
honey to bring back for lunch.”

“I don’t think you should go,” Piglet whispered. “I
believe Owl. He doesn’t lie. Does he? I’m so confused.”

Owl smiled. “Piglet, you should stay. We’ll just go, I’ll
show these goofs what I saw, and we’ll come back. Easy as
pie.”

“Pie certainly sounds delightful,” Pooh said with a warm
smile. “We’ll be back soon, old friend.”

Owl watched as Pooh and Rabbit took the lead into the
darkness of the Wood that lay beyond Eeyore’s Gloomy

Place. He sighed to himself, knowing full-well the darkness
that awaited them further east.

Turning and taking a last look at Piglet, Owl thought for
a moment he saw the tiny creature wipe a tear from his eye.

“Christopher Robin would know what’s happening,”

Pooh said as the group made their way through the dark

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118
thicket of trees and branches along the cool, shady Wood.

“He certainly would,” Rabbit said. “He’d explain what it
all was. What the fog was, what those whatever-you-call-

‘ems are.”

“I wish Christopher Robin was here, too,” Owl said. He
thought often of the boy and hoped that he was alright. He
knew that the child loved his friends in the Hundred Acre

Wood dearly, and yet he had vanished with a good-bye that
was neither satisfying or explanatory.

Owl supposed that in his nocturnal explorations that he
was, in some way, searching for Christopher Robin. Over
time, though, he cast thoughts of finding the boy in a small
cabin deep in the woods, playing and inventing some new
game to share with his friends.

But the boy was nowhere to be found. And deep down,

Owl worried he’d never see the child again.

As they walked, the trees rustled with a light wind.

“Do you hear that?” Eeyore asked, one of his large ears
rising to meet the breeze.

“What do you hear, Eeyore?” Rabbit asked. “Owl, can
you get a better look?”

Still exhausted and feeling the effects of the paralysis
from earlier, Owl nodded and did his best to flutter higher
into the trees. The trees along the outskirts didn’t grow
nearly as tall or thick as they did further into the Wood, so

Owl was able to flit branch to branch to get a better visual
of the land that lay before them.

Owl watched and listened to the rustling of the leaves.

He saw nothing. He heard nothing. The crinkling of the
greenery around them fell silent and for a moment, even the
sound of crickets and birds vanished.

“I don’t hear anything,” Pooh said, breaking the silence.

Eeyore raised his other ear and listened carefully. He
furrowed his brow and Owl noted the look of confusion
that came across the donkey’s face.

“It’s a hissing sound,” Eeyore said. “Like a snake.”

Owl’s eyes went wide and as Eeyore finished his

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119
sentence, the fog emerged from the Wood, snaking along
the ground, through the trees, dancing along the branches
after Owl as he fluttered further down back to his friends.

“Oh, bother!” Pooh shouted, as the group turned and
began running back the way they came.

“I told you! I told you!” Owl screeched, fluttering above
his friends’ heads, the mist rolling quickly behind them. A
great humming noise, not unlike what Owl heard earlier,
rose above the sound of the hissing, and Rabbit grabbed his
ears in pain.

“What is that?” he shouted as he hopped.

“It’s the sound I told you about!” Owl screeched.

“H-he…” Kanga began behind them. Owl turned his
head and watched as the fog enveloped the kangaroo, as
though a great mouth had swallowed his friend. He heard

Kanga coughing, shouting, her voice distant-sounding and
confused. “Where…”

The coughing was drowned out by the rising sound of
the hum and hiss that followed after the group. Pooh ran
faster than Owl had ever seen before, but lost his footing,
falling face down in a mud puddle.

The explosions of lightning kept up their ferocity, and
the Wood around them cracked and spewed black-gray
tendrils of mist all over.

Owl swooped low and clutched Pooh in his talons,
helping him to his feet, which ran in place even as Owl
continued fluttering above the group. Eventually, Owl
dropped Pooh down on Eeyore’s back, and the donkey
surged forward, running hard on his thick hooves.

Rabbit wasn’t so lucky. The fog surrounded him and
with another crack of lightning, his coughs were drowned
out. The Wood had seemingly come alive and begun
erupting around them, casting explosions of wood, leaves
and vines in a torrential flurry.

Eventually, Pooh, Eeyore and Owl made it back to

Eeyore’s Gloomy Place, where Piglet sat cooking a pot of

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120
soup over a small fire.

“Well, that was certainly fast,” Piglet began.

Eeyore charged by, nearly knocking the tiny Piglet to the
ground, but Owl again swooped low and scooped his small
body up in his talons.

“Is that it? Is that the fog?” Piglet shouted, pointing with
his teeny hoof toward the devouring wall of gray blue
behind them.

“Yes, that’s it!” Owl cried; his mind ravaged by images
of slick black creatures that surely lurked behind them.

“We must get to my house!” Pooh shouted, holding
onto Eeyore’s neck as they charged over hills and streams
and past tall trees and the farmland of Rabbit’s yard.

Eeyore surged forward, and Owl did, too, gliding on
wings tinged with gray fog. Piglet was crying, wiping his eyes
with his tiny mitts, and as much as Owl wanted to scold him
for it, he knew it best to let the tiny creature get his emotions
out.

There would be time for scolding later, Owl thought. If we are
to make it to Pooh’s in time.

Pooh’s home was well-stocked with provisions. The
group could see, in the distance, that the fog had stopped
just east of Piglet’s house. The tiny creature wished to go
home, and expressed his desire over and over, but it was

Eeyore who convinced Piglet to remain with the group.

“It is best for us to remain together, Piglet,” Eeyore said.

“Owl, do you think you can make it to Kanga’s home?

Someone should check on little Roo.”

Owl nodded.

“Here,” Pooh said, handing a spoon slick with golden
honey to Owl. “You must eat and keep your strength up,
friend.”

Owl smiled. “Thank you, Pooh.”

He devoured the honey quickly and stepped out the
door. He was exhausted, yet he knew, deep down, that
checking on Roo was the most important thing. He only

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121
wished he had thought of it earlier, but losing the child’s
mother in the gloom of the woods would not be a
conversation Owl was looking forward to.

Please be safe, Owl thought to himself as he took a few
tentative hops forward and began soaring north, making a
beeline for Kanga’s house.

Though the fog had completely enveloped the Six Pine

Trees, it had yet to continue its dark invasion of the area,
and Owl wondered whether or not the terror was over. He
landed near Kanga’s home, and stepped closer the ground
soft, grassy, and slick with morning dew.

Owl kept one eye on the fog and saw shapes shifting
about, hither and dither, as he stepped closer to her front
door. He thought, for an instant, that he saw something
bouncing in the glowing mist.

Something perhaps bouncing on two strong legs.

“Roo?” Owl shouted. “Roo, dear, are you home?”

Owl knocked, and the door creaked open. Inside, Roo
stood by the window, watching the fog. “What is
happening, wise Owl?” he asked, doing his best to keep his
voice steady.

“Come with me to Pooh’s. Piglet, Eeyore and I are set
up there.”

“What about Mama?” Roo asked, his little voice causing
a stir of emotion in Owl’s heart.

“She’s coming along shortly,” Owl lied. “She’s with

Rabbit across the river.”

Roo began gathering items from their home while Owl
kept his eye on the window. The little joey gathered up
books, one of Christopher Robin’s old baseballs, two sketch
books, a wool cap and a heavy coat. Finally, he took the
picture of himself and his mother off the mantle and tucked
it into a bag.

“Hop quickly, now,” Owl said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

He did. Owl kept his eyes on the mist, making out forms
obscured by thick gray blankets of smoggy confusion. He

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122
heard cracks of thunder, distant, further east and yet the fog
remained. The smell was altogether too powerful, and Owl
found himself gagging on the acrid scent that lingered in his
nostrils.

“It smells bad,” Roo said, clutching his sketch books to
his chest.

Owl continued watching, scanning the velvety wall of
fog that sat not far from Roo and himself. Why did it stop? he
thought. Why isn’t it taking us like it did Kanga and Rabbit?

Then he heard it. The voices. The language. Whatever it
was saying was deep in the fog, and Owl guessed, not far
from the lightning strikes he kept hearing. There was a
frantic eruption of commotion as the voices screamed,
followed by another enormous lightning strike.

This one, however; was different. It shook the very earth
beneath Kanga and Roo’s feet and sent a shockwave
through the air, knocking both of them to the ground.

“Run!” Owl shouted as the fog began to spill closer,
moving slowly. Figures moved about in the mist, and Owl
saw again the enormity of shape that stretched high into the
sky. The voices continued, roaring and screaming, making

Owl’s blood curdle as they raced toward Pooh’s.

“Let us in!” Roo’s little voice called once they arrived at

Pooh’s front door. Roo and Owl stood at the door, petrified
to see that inside, Pooh and Piglet were gone. The home
was completely barren, with the exception of a pot of soup
still steaming on the hearth.

“My god, where …” Owl began, his voice trailing off.

And then he saw it. The fog, sour-scented and vile, creeping
its way through the windows and ceiling of Pooh’s home.

Owl and the rest were so preoccupied with the approaching
terror of the east, they didn’t stop to think that maybe, just
maybe something had also been on its way from the west.

“Pooh? Piglet? Mama?” Roo called; his voice strained.

He was holding back tears, but it did little good. They
formed in the corners of his eyes and spilled out. Owl put
his wing around the little joey and held him tightly.

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123

“It’s alright, Roo,” he whispered as the fog began rolling
closer to their position. Owl cast his gaze east, west, north,
south, and noted that the crawling wall of cottony terror was
inching its way toward them.

“I’m sorry,” Owl said. “I am so very sorry.”

The shapes in the fog moved quickly, darting all over.

Roo and Owl watched as shapeless nightmares inched their
way closer and closer, sowing confusion and terror in their
wake.

“It’s burning my eyes,” Roo said softly.

Owl closed his eyes as the wall of gray washed over him.

A soldier stood in the ruin of what was once his
childhood home. Air raid sirens roared in the distance and
the once-boy, now a man, wore the fatigues of many men
his age. He knelt down in the rubble of what was once a
lovely manor home.

His bolt-action Enfield rifle was slung over his shoulder
and his Brodie helmet was coated in soot and filth as he used
the sharp edges to sift and carve through the demolished
ruin around him.

Private Christopher Robin dug through the dirt and ruin
of his once-lovely home and pulled out something soft from
beneath piles of wreckage. Still smoldering and stinking of
tear gas, fire, and petrol, he held a stuffed Owl in his hands.

He cradled the doll softly and felt a rush of memory tear
through him. Adventures in a verdant and lush landscape.

Animals.

Friends.

Scattered at the boy’s boots were the other denizens of
the Hundred Acre Wood, some burnt almost beyond
recognition, some in relatively good shape.

The young Private dug them out, brushed the stuffed
creatures off and smiled to himself. He tucked them one by
one into the sack hanging on his hip, saying their names to
himself as though uncovering an ancient secret buried too
long in the sands of his memory.

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124

“Owl!” the young Private exclaimed with a smile.

“Eeyore … Rabbit … Piglet, yes, that was your name.

Kanga and Roo. And you … my silly old bear. Pooh. My
dear Pooh.”

He checked to see if anyone was watching, Christopher

Robin kissed Pooh softly on the bear’s slightly stained
forehead and tucked him in his jacket, right over his heart.

The whistle of his commanding officer shook the young
man’s reverie and he continued, rejoining his platoon as they
combed for survivors in a bombed London.

125
EEYORE MAKES A FRIEND
BY JACKSON PARKER

It was a cool, quiet autumn evening in the Hundred Acre

Wood. The sun was setting over the hills to the west and the
rosy pink hue of the fading day gave way to the deep blue
twilight overhead. Night would be falling soon. The full
moon hung in the sky bold and bright, the air was still and
fragrant, and little pinpoints of starlight were beginning to
dot the fabric of night. It truly was perfect for a picnic.

Four friends were climbing a hill, following the sun as it
sank below the horizon, with the intention of partaking in
exactly that, a picnic. Rabbit, Kanga, Piglet, and Winnie-the

Pooh trudged through the cool, damp grass toward the top
of the hill. Kanga spread the blanket and Rabbit distributed
the plates. Piglet, who had insisted on carrying the basket
but being so small, had needed to drag it, plopped the
hamper down on one side of the gingham blanket and began
to retrieve sandwiches and fruits from it. Pooh gave a happy
little sigh and sat down.

“I’m so glad we decided to picnic tonight, Piglet,” Pooh
said, taking a sandwich from his friend.

“Me too, Pooh,” said Piglet, still panting slightly. “It is
such a - beautiful night. I - really am glad we could all - find

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126
the time.”

“I agree,” said Kanga, “wholeheartedly. It’s been too
long since we’ve been able to have everyone meet up for an
outing. Not since Christopher Robin’s last visit, I believe.”

“Not everyone,” came Rabbit's voice. He was cutting up
his sandwich with a knife and fork he had packed along with
the plates. Knowing he would be the only one to use them,

Rabbit only brought along the one set. “There is someone
missing.”

“Oh?” said Piglet. “Who is it? No, no wait. Don’t tell
me
.
”

Piglet began to think, and while he thought he closed his
eyes and kicked his feet up and down on the checkerboard
blanket. He found that it helped him to remember some of
the many things he had forgotten while thinking of other
things.

“Oh, I know!” He said, “Owl! He’s not here.”

Rabbit shook his head.

“No, I stopped by his house this afternoon,” Rabbit said.

“I’m afraid my knocking woke him as he came to the door
with his feathers all a mess. When I asked him if he wanted
to accompany us he told me it would be too early for him,
and he’d be far too tired to be good company.”

“Too early?” Piglet said, before shaking his head and
going back to his thinking and his leg shaking.

He grumbled and moaned a little in frustration. He was
sure he hadn’t forgotten anyone, not anyone important
anyway. He, once again, started thinking. His nervous foot
shake had become something like a fit, as Piglet searched
his mind for the answer. There were only so many people
in the Hundred Acre Wood; Pooh, Rabbit, Kanga, and
himself, but they were here. There was Owl and Roo, who

Kanga had mentioned putting to bed early so she’d be able
to join the picnic. As he racked his brain, Piglet finally struck
paydirt and the name came to him.

“Eeyore!” he yelled, nearly laughing. “How could I
forget old Eeyore? Pooh, what did he say when you gave

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127
him the invitation?”
Winnie-the-Pooh thought back to the previous
afternoon when he had approached Eeyore about attending
their picnic. Eeyore had been napping in his little house
made of sticks just on the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood.

When Pooh told him about the picnic, Eeyore barely lifted
his head and let out a small sound somewhere between a
cough and a short laugh.

“He said, it sounds like fun,” Pooh began, “but he’d
probably just ruin everyone’s good time. I told him that we
all would like it if he came but he insisted on staying in his
home by himself.”

“That’s a shame,” said Piglet.

“Yes truly,” said Kanga, “I’m sorry he feels that way.”

“Indeed,” said Rabbit, slicing a tomato from the basket,

“that donkey is really missing out.”

As the friends finished eating their supper, each laid back
and looked up to the darkening sky. The rosy pink had fully
succumbed to the oppressive and cold deep blue of night.

An infinite number of stars had become visible through the
ink of night. Galaxies, nebulae, constellations all hung above

Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, and Kanga though none of them knew
the names of these celestial spheres and formations. Nor did
they comprehend the scale involved with what they were
witnessing. Infinite seas of abyssal space loom overhead,
unknowable and indifferent, and four little animals lay
staring up into the void brazenly content.

Piglet was the first to speak when he noticed Pooh
muttering to himself.

“What are you doing, Pooh?”

“I am trying to count the little lights in the sky. I can only
get to about ten…” Pooh yawned, “before I start to doze
off.”

Piglet looked up into the sky where Pooh had been
looking. He started counting. First the big blue one, second
the tiny red dot right next to it. Three, four, five. Pooh was

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128
right, this was making him sleepy. As Piglet counted, there
was one very bright white one which he was sure he had
already seen but it wasn’t in the same place it was before.

He watched it as it slowly drifted across the sky.

“Look at that one, Pooh. It’s moving.” Piglet pointed up
toward the wandering star.

As Pooh, then Kanga, then Rabbit turned to look at the
light, it began to increase its speed. What was a dot when

Piglet first saw it had become a streak of white light.

“It’s a shooting star,” said Rabbit, “maybe we should
wish on it?”

“Those things are good for free wishes?” said Piglet, as
he closed his eyes and thought of all the things he could
wish for.

“Just one wish per star I think, Piglet.” Pooh chuckled.

All of the friends shut their eyes and focused on the wish
that they were going to make. What was the most important
to them at that moment? Who knew when the next shooting
star would come around? This needed to be just right.

“I wish Roo would be more thoughtful and listen to
me,” said Kanga, “he always wants to adventure and explore
but I know how dangerous the world can be.”

“I have always wanted to see what it’s like to be a bird,”

said Piglet, “flying around, up high, off the ground.”

Rabbit thought for a while. He was a very practical
creature and most of his needs were being met. His garden
was growing well, his home was in good repair, perhaps
there was one thing.

“I did lose my best wooden spoon recently,” he said, “I’ll
wish for a new one, or at least to find the old one.”

Winnie-the-Pooh didn’t speak, he kept his eyes closed
and hummed happily to himself. A few minutes passed and

Piglet poked him in the arm.

“Pooh? Didn’t you want to wish for something?”

“I did,” Pooh said to Piglet, “but I would like to keep it
to myself until it comes true, just in case it won’t come true
if I do say it.”

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129

“Oh,” said Piglet, “now, I wish I hadn’t said mine out
loud.”

The friends laughed and packed up their picnic basket.

It was getting quite late, and it was time to go home. On the
way back down the hill, Kanga carried the basket, Rabbit
carried the blanket and plates, and Pooh carried Piglet who
had fallen asleep.

Behind them, up in the sky, the shooting star grew
brighter and faster as it flew. The flaming object fell through
the air, rushing toward the ground somewhere near the
vicinity of the Hundred Acre Wood, where there stood a
little stick house. Under the sticks, a gray donkey was
mumbling to himself in the dark.

“Another night,” said Eeyore, “another
disappointment.”

He huffed and tried to quiet his mind and fall asleep. It
was no use, there was just too much to complain about.

Standing up in the center of his house, Eeyore’s head stuck
out of the front end, his tail out of the back, and the gray
fur on his back brushed gently against the stick roof.

“I imagine they had a nice time without me,” Eeyore
said, thinking of the picnic invitation he declined. “I know
the bear was just asking to be polite. If I had gone, I would
have brought everyone’s night down.”

In frustration, he kicked at one of the sticks that formed
the corner of his house. It shifted and fell, hitting him on
the head. Eeyore groaned. Grumbling quietly to himself
about his rotten luck, Eeyore picked up the stick in his
mouth and replaced it.

“I wanted to go,” he said quietly, looking out toward the
hill in front of his house. This wasn’t the hill that the friends
had chosen for their picnic, but it was close enough that

Eeyore could just imagine the four of them sitting, eating,
and laughing. The image was clear in his mind’s eye; the four
friends looked transparent and flickering like ghosts in

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130
candlelight.

Eeyore watched them having fun without him. Piglet
was running from Kanga who was giving chase trying to tag
him. Rabbit was fixing himself a large, delicious looking
sandwich. Pooh wasn’t doing much of anything, just sitting
there happily. Eeyore never could understand just how that
bear was happy all the time, when he was miserable all the
time.

Eeyore was beginning to get annoyed.

“Yeah?” he called to the phantom friends on the hill.

“You think you can have a nice picnic and leave old Eeyore
out of it?”

Nothing happened. His visions continued doing what
they were doing, paying him no notice.

“I guess you can,” Eeyore said quietly to himself as he
laid down and tried once more to go to sleep.

He tossed and turned for a while before giving up and
looking again at the hill. The phantoms were gone and that
gave him some peace of mind. But the growing pit in his
stomach told Eeyore that even though he tried to ignore it,
the loneliness was eating at him. His gaze drifted up into the
night sky where he saw the same shooting star that his
friends had.

Eeyore, being familiar with the old stories of wishing on
stars, closed his eyes and wished the wish that was foremost
in his thoughts.

“I wish I wasn’t so lonesome.”

He opened his eyes to see the star again. It had stopped
moving, right where he had seen it. It just hung there in the
sky like all the rest.

“Great,” said Eeyore, resignedly, “as soon as it heard my
wish, it stopped being a shooting star and went back to
being a regular one. Even it wants nothing to do with me.”

He grunted and stared at it in defiance. It seemed to be
getting brighter, or perhaps bigger. Eeyore didn’t know
what to make of this, and it took him until the star was
almost the size of the moon before he realized what exactly

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131
was happening.

It was shooting right toward him.

With a little yell, Eeyore ducked his head down and
heard the roar of the star passing directly over followed by
a loud thud somewhere in the Hundred Acre Wood behind
him. When he had determined that it was probably safe
enough to pick his head up, the world had become still
again. He looked out of the back of his house and saw a trail
of smoldering tree branches leading into the woods. He
stood up, and when his fur touched the roof of the house it
felt hot on his back. He lunged forward to get away from
the pain and out into the open. Turning, he saw his roof
glowing red, one or two of the sticks had tiny little fires on
them.

The thing had come that close to destroying his home,
but just missed.

“Some luck at last,” he said.

Normally when something strange such as a star falling
from the sky and nearly destroying his home happened,

Eeyore was the type of donkey who figured it was best to
simply not get involved. He would curl up under his stick
house and ignore the problem, or adventure, or whatever it
was and get on with his day of moping and grumbling. Many
curious and wonderful things had passed him by before
simply because he took no notice. Usually Winnie-the-Pooh
and the rest of the gang would come along and acknowledge
the thing anyway, so why should Eeyore bother.

This night, however, staring deep into the dark area of
the Hundred Acre Wood where the shooting star had
plummeted, leaving a trail of smoldering branches and
smoke in its wake, Eeyore felt a strange urge. It was an
itching in his feet and a twinge in the back of his mind that
told him to follow the path and find the star. He did not
know why he should do this, but the will of his deeper
senses became too great to ignore. He set off into the

Hundred Acre Wood cautiously but with a determination

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132
that was almost foreign to the old donkey.

The path stretched for nearly a mile, and Eeyore walked
for what felt like ages. He made note of the branches that
had been knocked off of the trees by the fireball. He saw
mud and dirt kicked up into forming a trench almost like a
dry riverbed. When Eeyore’s feet were sore and his bones
were aching and he had just about resolved to give up and
go home, he saw the crater.

Great dirt walls had been raised in a circle with a small
passageway made by the shooting star. As he walked into
the strange ring of earth, Eeyore felt far more frightened
than he had in a long time.

The forest was dark, yes, but it was his area of the

Hundred Acre Wood. He knew it well and did not believe
in the stories of Heffalumps and Woozles, so even at night
it did not scare him. This pit, dug out by a falling star, felt
hot and evil. Eeyore’s gray fur stood on end and deep chills
ran down his spine. For a moment he was paralyzed with
fear, then as he studied the slopes of the crater which were
about fifty feet across, he became ever so slightly braver.

Eeyore treaded carefully so as to not step on any hot
splinters of wood or ash as he examined the place. On one
side of the crater, across from the passage he had taken to
come in, Eeyore found a strange length of material. It was
thin and flexible, like a sheet. The surface seemed rough,
almost like grass, almost like fur. He shuddered and walked
away, wishing to learn no more about the substance, for the
moment.

As he approached the center of the crater, he could feel
the heat growing. It was as if there were some invisible fire
right in the exact middle of the hole. But instead, there was
only a small pile of dirt and rocks and all around it, Eeyore
saw little bits of white, fuzzy, fluffy stuff. He could not
identify what exactly it all was, but it gave him such a feeling
of dread and alarm he could feel his knees wobbling and it

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was everything he could do to not fall over and weep there
and then.

Just then the other feeling came back, the twinge in his
mind, the itch in his feet, and now a voice in his head all
telling him to dig up the small mound of dirt and stones in
the exact center of the horrid crater. When every fiber of
your being is compelling you to do something, it can be
nearly impossible to resist, and even Eeyore as stubborn as
he was, could not act against this force.

He dug with his front legs, and when they got tired he
switched to his rear. When he was so exhausted he had to
lie flat on his stomach, Eeyore nudged and prodded the now
much smaller mound with his nose. All the while, the voice
in his head grew louder. It was strange to him, and he
couldn’t tell if the words being spoken were actually any that
he understood or if he only caught the meaning through
some other bizarre method of comprehension. After half an
hour of constant digging, the voice was now yelling at

Eeyore, something along the lines of “Save me! Help! I
don’t want to die…”. He turned over a final stone and there
he saw it.

A black sphere, completely smooth and darker than any
moonless night, sat in the ground in the center of the crater.

It was only a couple of inches across and did not seem, at
least to Eeyore, to be made of any stone he had ever seen.

“So that’s what a falling star looks like,” Eeyore said.

“This is what I look like,” said the voice in Eeyore’s
head. He now realized that it had been coming from the
little black ball, all along. He jumped back in terror. He had
known many animals that could speak but this was no
animal, no plant, it was something that wasn’t from the

Hundred Acre Wood.

“Do not be alarmed,” said the sphere, its voice now soft
and humming, like a cat’s purr. “I cannot hurt you, nor do I
desire to. I heard your wish.”

Eeyore could not believe his ears.

“You actually heard that?” he asked, “...from all the way

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134
up there?” Eeyore looked up into the sky where the other
stars hung still and quiet.

“Yes, Eeyore,” it said, “I heard your wish, and I heard
your thoughts, just as clearly as you hear me now.”

Eeyore was nervous. He hated the idea of this thing, this
little black ball, hearing what he was thinking. Such as he
hated the idea, he hated the thing.

“I am going to go back to my house and go to sleep,”

Eeyore said, turning to go. “If I hear you in my thoughts, I
will find a way to throw you back up into the sky where you
came from.” It wasn’t much of a threat, and Eeyore had no
idea how he would accomplish it, but it was the best he
could come up with.

“You are going to abandon me?” came the voice, “Like
your friends abandoned you?’

Eeyore froze, the thing really had been listening to him.

“That’s right, Eeyore. I know they abandoned you,” it
said. “They went off to have a nice picnic and you were left
home alone, again.”

Eeyore stared at the black sphere, lying in the crater deep
in the Hundred Acre Wood. As soon as his eye met it, he
was transfixed. The voice in his head seemed to now be
coming from all around and even out of his own mouth.

“My friends abandoned me…” he repeated after the
sphere, “...alone.”

These words echoed loudly within the crater, bouncing
off each other growing stronger with each reverberation.

“Friends, Abandoned, Alone, Friends, Abandoned, Alone.”

It grew to a cacophony of Eeyore’s voice and the voice
of the sphere, screaming at each other back and forth.

Eeyore then the sphere, repeating each other, escalating
until the sounds began to merge in the air. The sphere
sounding more like Eeyore. Eeyore sounding more like the
sphere. The voices melted and mixed until in one new
amalgamated voice came the words, “Make a new one.”

The trance was broken, and Eeyore was now suddenly

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135
conscious again of the fact that he was standing on his own
in the middle of a crater deep in the Hundred Acre Wood.

He looked down and saw the sphere. It was dead silent. The
voice had disappeared, and all seemed normal. Eeyore,
however, had been changed. He took the voice's words to
heart and picked up the sphere in his mouth. It was
surprisingly cool considering the heat that had surrounded
it. He walked out of the crater.

As he went, Eeyore looked at the debris he had seen in
a new perspective. The sticks, the mud, the fluffy white
stuff, and ultimately the rough material that was almost like
fur, these were not just bits of junk thrown around by a
shooting star. These were the makings of a new friend.

The following morning, Eeyore stood at the edge of the
wood. The branches were still smoking from the events of
the previous night. With a look back at the small, perfectly
round, black sphere which he had placed atop his home for
safe-keeping, Eeyore set out to collect the materials he
would need to accomplish his task..

From the grove of trees, he found branches that the
shooting star had snapped off of their trunks. Various
lengths and thicknesses, Eeyore pinned them down with his
foot and chewed the smaller offshoots until they were
smooth and about the correct length for what he had in
mind. He carried them back to his home and laid them in
front of the black sphere as if he were making an offering at
some profane altar. The thing hummed quietly in Eeyore’s
head, almost as if it was purring. It was pleased with the
work that Eeyore was doing.

He returned to the woods several times that day,
gathering materials. The white fluff from the crater, the
sheet of ersatz fur, and some of the muddy earth to hold it
all together.

With all of the ingredients collected and a small space

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136
cleared of grass just out of the back of Eeyore’s house, he
envisioned what he was about to create. It would be a
donkey just like himself. The sticks assembled just so would
form its skeleton. The mud and fluff would help fill it out.

Make him round about the middle and give him a soft face
just like Eeyore’s. Finally once he was almost complete

Eeyore tossed the sheet of fur over the back of the thing. It
almost looked like a donkey, though it did not have feet and
the fur was pale beige and brittle like rough dry grass. Mostly
what made him look uncanny and unsettling, Eeyore
thought, was his lack of eyes.

Eeyore looked around, searching for something he could
give his new friend that could act like an eye. On the floor
of his home, Eeyore spotted something. It was small, jet
black, and round. It was a button. Picking it up in his mouth,

Eeyore carefully placed it onto the right side of his creations
face. For the left eye he could think of nothing more fitting
than the little black sphere which gave him the idea in the
first place. He was astonished he hadn’t thought of that
before. With a quick movement, Eeyore popped the sphere
into what would be his friend's left eye socket.

From the moment Eeyore stepped back from his
construct and stared into that deep black hole of an eye, the
friend began to look more real to him. It was clearly still a
creation of sticks, mud, and other things Eeyore had found
on the forest floor in the area inside of and around the
strange crater. Yet the false fur seemed to fit more tightly
now, less like a sheet just thrown over an object. And the
face looked to be more like his own, though Eeyore was a
terrible sculptor and the earthen face that had been there
prior was more of a lump than an effigy.

Now he might almost believe it was meant to be a
donkey.

Standing there, studying his new friend, his golem,

Eeyore heard the voice muttering in his head again. It was
hard to make out and seemed to talk over itself at times.

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137

Eeyore felt he got the gist of the message. The voice was
proud of him, and grateful. His eyes found the black sphere
again, it was difficult not to look into that abyssal hole which
seemed like a drain in the fabric of reality with Eeyore’s
world slowly and silently spilling out into whatever was
beyond.

He snapped out of the trance as a thought hit him.

“You need a name, don’t you,” he said. The voice
happily hummed in his head.

“I’ll call you,” Eeyore thought hard, searching for the
best name he could give his new best friend. “Eeyore Too!”

He proclaimed, and it was so.

Eeyore laid his head against his new friend in a tender
embrace. Eeyore Too simply stood there and hummed.

The week that followed consisted of routine. As far as
anyone else in the Hundred Acre Wood could tell, life was
pretty normal. Neither Rabbit, Kanga, Piglet, nor Winnie
the-Pooh ever ventured into the area of the wood where the
shooting star had crashed in the night. In fact, none of them
had spent a moment’s thought on the events of their picnic
or the wishes they had made. Kanga went about taking care

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138
of her son Roo and occasionally having to chase him down.

Rabbit cleaned and kept his house as he had always done.

And Piglet and Pooh went on their quiet everyday sort of
adventures, as was their way.

For Eeyore, the seven days after he had discovered the
small black star in the crater deep in the wood, had been
inspired by a profane voice digging through his thoughts
and whispering in his ear, and constructed the golem he
would use as an ersatz friend to replace the other residents
of the Hundred Acre Wood were filled with a
companionship he had not felt since Christopher Robin’s
last visit to the animals. Every morning when he awoke,

Eeyore would greet his friend with an uncharacteristically
cheery, “Good Day, Eeyore Too.” And each night when he
would lie down to sleep, “Sweet Dreams, Eeyore Too.”

As the days passed and Eeyore became more attached to
his friend and their one-sided conversations, he felt a
strange and nagging illness plaguing him. Coughs, fatigue,
and stiff joints kept him from venturing far from his home
and from Eeyore Too. Though having his favorite
conversation partner standing just outside of his house day
in and day-out did wonders to keep his spirits high as he
dealt with this new hurdle.

During their hours-long conversations, Eeyore noticed
that the voice in his head was speaking quieter and less
often. He thought perhaps that the loneliness that had
fueled the anger and frustration that came out in the words
and phrases circling through his mind, had finally been
satiated by Eeyore Too. He also noticed that sometimes
when he believed himself to be speaking with Eeyore Too,
he was not speaking at all. All he was doing was staring deep
into the sinister eye, feeling himself fall through the black
hole into cold and all-encompassing darkness. It was an
unpleasant sensation, like a sudden chill whenever Eeyore
felt himself coming back up from the numb trance. Yet he

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139
found his gaze falling again and again on that eye.

Sunday morning, Eeyore awoke feeling possibly more
exhausted than when he went to bed. The illness was taking
a serious toll on him. His fur had become brittle and a little
faded from the disease and his lack of appetite. When he
lifted his head, his neck creaking and cracking and his eyes
straining to open, he saw the sun hanging there high in the
sky. It was much later than he was used to waking.

Assuredly, that must have been the sickness causing his
body to require more sleep.

He turned to greet his friend and perhaps beg some
sympathy from the inanimate donkey when he saw that

Eeyore Too had fallen over in the night. There he lay, face
down in the cold morning dew and mud. Eeyore leapt into
action as quickly as his aching bones and joints would allow,
which was not very fast. He dug his head under the neck of

Eeyore Too and hoisted him up.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” he said, grunting under the strain.

“I’ve gotcha.”

As soon as Eeyore Too’s hind legs touched the ground,

Eeyore felt something strange he had never noticed about
his friend. He seemed almost warm. Like Pooh or Rabbit
felt on the rare occasion Eeyore had ever touched either of
them. The night had not been freezing but certainly it was
colder than Eeyore Too now felt to Eeyore. Perhaps, he
thought, it was the false fur that had been keeping Eeyore

Too warm, like a good blanket or coat. Then he noticed the
fur.

The layer of false fur which Eeyore had thrown over

Eeyore Too’s back on the day he had constructed the thing,
which then was brittle and faded beige akin to grass after a
drought, seemed now to be lush, soft, healthy fur of a cool
gray color much like Eeyore’s. This struck Eeyore as a
sudden change, though when he thought back perhaps he
had noticed Eeyore Too’s fur had been looking better. Deep
in his mind, he attributed this to his friend getting over the

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same illness that now afflicted him much like diseases tear
through any two people who live together. To his more
rational thoughts, Eeyore believed his senses must be
fooling him.

It was becoming tougher to separate reality from the
fantasy of Eeyore Too.

As the sun rose higher into the sky that morning, Eeyore
decided that he had remained at home feeling poorly for too
long. He gathered his resolve and, despite his creaking
joints, set out for a tour of the Hundred Acre Wood.

Leaving Eeyore Too behind to guard the house, Eeyore
walked past the area of the wood where the shooting star
had crashed, now cold and quiet. He thought he would first
visit Winnie-the-Pooh.

A short time later, Eeyore approached the door in the
tree under the name “Mr. Sanderz”, took the bell rope in his
hand and gave it a gentle ring. Winnie-the-Pooh opened the
door after just a few seconds and welcomed the donkey
inside.

“Oh Eeyore, good morning!” Pooh said, ushering

Eeyore to a small couch inside his home. “I’m so glad
you’ve come to visit.”

Eeyore stretched on the small couch. He was enjoying
the softness beneath him and for the first time in a week he
felt comfortable. Eyes drooping but with a smile on his face
he replied to Pooh.

“It’s nice to stop by. I wasn’t sure if you’d be interested
in seeing me.”

“Nonsense,” Pooh said. “I’m always happy to welcome
friends into my house.”

Eeyore felt a combination of emotions, both foreign to
him. He felt a sense of belonging and friendship with
something more than a crudely assembled bunch of sticks
and mud under false fur, this was also the first time since

Eeyore Too had been built that Eeyore considered him as

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merely an inanimate object. The other emotion flooding

Eeyore’s mind was confidence. Talking with Eeyore Too all
week, practicing so to speak to interact with the other
animals of the Hundred Acre Wood had given Eeyore a
boost in his belief in himself.

The two talked about everything and nothing for quite a
while. Pooh offered Eeyore a cup of tea with honey, which
he politely declined but thanked the bear for offering
anyway. They spoke about what had been happening in the
forest and how everyone seemed to be getting on fine. Then

Pooh, without a moment’s thought or hesitation, said
something which landed like a brick in the center of

Eeyore’s mind.

“I’m so happy you have been stopping by more often
these days. I do love our chats and jokes and laughs,” he
said, happily sipping on his tea which to be honest was more
honey than tea.

Eeyore was confused. As far back as he could remember,
which admittedly was not very far, perhaps a few months,
he had only visited Pooh’s home once. It was one of the
times when Christopher Robin had come into the Hundred

Acre Wood to have an adventure and couldn’t find Winnie
the-Pooh. He had gathered the other animals and wanted to
search Pooh’s house for clues. Though, eventually they did
find the bear sitting out back with his head stuck in a honey
pot, unable to hear their calls. But apart from that instance,

Eeyore had mostly kept to himself.

“Pooh,” Eeyore said, with a deep gravity to his voice,

“When was the last time I came to visit you? I’m having
trouble recalling.”

“Oh Friday evening, and Thursday morning. And

Tuesday afternoon, we had sandwiches and cakes. They
were pleasant times.” Pooh said, not registering the alarm in

Eeyore’s tone.

Eeyore pondered. He had been sleeping, or so he
assumed, much more lately due to feeling sick. Perhaps he
had been sleepwalking and just wound up at Pooh’s house

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too tired to question or remember it. But Tuesday
afternoon? What was he doing Tuesday afternoon? He
remembered speaking with Eeyore Too then trudging off to
the small pond nearby for a drink of water and becoming
distracted when Roo ran by trying to hide from Kanga who
wanted him to help tidy the house. In his foggy, once more
ill-feeling mind Eeyore couldn’t remember exactly what had
happened that day but he was certain he hadn’t visited

Winnie-the-Pooh. Perhaps the bear was imagining it all.

“I almost forgot,” Pooh said, with a start. Eeyore
snapped out of his thoughts. “Piglet wanted me to thank
you and let you know that we are excited you accepted our
invitation to our next picnic tonight.”

“Invitation? What invitation?” Eeyore said, utterly
perplexed.

“Oh Eeyore, how forgetful you seem today,” Pooh said.

“Friday evening, I mentioned we were planning another
picnic, like last week’s. When I asked if you wanted to come,
you said you’d be delighted. You even picked out the spot
for it, that nice grassy hill right next to your house.”

Eeyore was more confused than ever. Had Pooh simply
imagined all this? Did he agree to something and not
remember? Was there even a picnic tonight? He had always
considered the brains of the small bear to be somewhat
lacking but he had never seemed to say things that were
outright untrue, until today. Eeyore felt rather ill.

“Well, it’s been nice Pooh. But I should go and, er, get
ready for tonight,” Eeyore lied.

Pooh tried to stop Eeyore with polite requests to join
him for lunch but the donkey headed straight out the door
with an involuntary and not entirely thought-out, “I’ll see
you tonight.” And he was out into the woods again, trying
to find his bearings.

The rest of the morning and the early part of the
afternoon went on much as the day began. On his way
through the Hundred Acre Wood, Eeyore first came to

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143

Rabbit’s house. He could not explain what compelled him
to knock on the door, but before long he was welcomed
into the small dugout home.

Rabbit did most of the work holding the conversation,
as Eeyore was still reeling from his discussion from Pooh.

Though he heard enough of what was said to understand.

Eeyore had also been visiting Rabbit, apparently.

“What happened when I came by?” asked Eeyore, “I
haven’t been feeling myself and I seem to be forgetting.”

“Well we talked for a while,” began Rabbit, “then you
commented on my missing spoon. I don’t know how you
knew it was missing but you went out and after a short while
came back with a new wooden spoon for me. I mean, I’m
not too keen on how you told me you made it, chewing a
piece of wood until it was vaguely spoon-shaped.”

“I did that?”

Rabbit laughed, “Yes, of course you did. You mentioned
you had been forgetting things, but I figured gnawing a
piece of wood into a spoon would be memorable. Is that
something you do often?”

Eeyore rushed out of the house much as he had done
with Pooh, confused and growing increasingly alarmed. He
found it very difficult to believe that he had forgotten this
much time over the past week and if he had, something was
seriously wrong with him. The thought occurred to him for
only a moment that perhaps the other animals were playing
a trick on him for not being around more. But he didn’t
believe that Rabbit and certainly not Pooh would do
anything so mean-spirited.

Shortly afterward, Eeyore ran into Kanga. She hopped
through the Hundred Acre Wood with a youthful ease and
a carefree smile, which Eeyore had not seen her wear in
quite some time. Typically she was so stressed and
preoccupied with Roo.

“Hey there, Eeyore!” said Kanga, sliding to a halt in
front of him. “What are you doing out here?”

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144

Finally, Eeyore thought, someone who recognizes just
how abnormal it was that he had come to this part of the

Wood. With all the talk of Eeyore visiting people in their
homes, which no matter how much he thought he could not
recall doing, was wearing his patience thin. But here Kanga
seemed utterly surprised, and perhaps pleasantly so, to see
him. This was expected. This was normal. Perhaps it was
the comfort of normality, with the addition of Kanga’s
youthful and rather attractive demeanor, that put Eeyore in
a slightly better mood than only moments before.

“Afternoon, Kanga,” he said, his voice dropping into its
normal low drone but with a hint of a happy hum. “I was
out for a walk, but I think it’s time I headed home.”

Kanga looked up at the sky peeking through the canopy
of the trees. She took in a deep breath and slowly let the air
slip from her lips in total relaxation. It was the kind of sigh
which one engages in as they look out from the summit of
some mountain at the beauty of the rolling hills and small
lakes of the world. Eeyore found the feeling infectious.

“It is such a wonderful day for that sort of thing,” said

Kanga, “as you can tell, I am out with much the same
intentions.”

Eeyore and Kanga laughed and chatted for some time.

He had nearly forgotten all about his earlier frustrations.

With her lightened heart, Kanga reminded Eeyore so much
of herself years ago before Roo was born. He had been so
infatuated with her in those days though a depressed donkey
had no business with a bright young thing like herself, as he
believed, so he set his mind to ignoring her. Before long, the
animals of the Hundred Acre Wood were introduced to

Roo. Eeyore had felt his distance was then justified. Kanga
would be far too busy now for any courtship.

“I must say, Kanga,” started Eeyore, “you seem so
jubilant today. I am happy to see you so, but I’m curious
what has lifted your spirits.”

Kanga blushed and gave Eeyore a playful shove. Eeyore
was confused as to what she meant by this behavior.

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145

“There you go,” she said, “fishing for compliments. You
should know that I am happy because when you stopped by
the other day, you said something to Roo, I don’t know
what. And ever since he has been saying nothing but, ‘yes
ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am’. It is almost as if he is afraid of me
but my son would never be fearful of me. You must have
said something to make him show me respect.”

Eeyore’s mood collapsed. They had been doing so well,
and then Kanga suddenly began playing the same game with
him that all the rest had. Lying to his face about his own
activities. They couldn’t have expected him to believe them.

They must just be having a good laugh at his expense. It was
a shame, he never thought of Kanga to be so cruel.

“So if you must hear it with your own ears,” Kanga said,

“Thank you.”

Eeyore grumbled and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah well…” he said, “it was nothing.” Eeyore thought
he was being clever and countering her false story with a
subtle accusation.

Kanga just smiled and hopped away, continuing her
midday stroll. Eeyore sighed heavily, not the majestic deeply
satisfying sigh which he had shared with Kanga before, but
a hard sigh which took the place of crude words. His mind
was full of cleverly cruel phrases describing the ignorance of
ditsy, overly exuberant, girls. Eeyore’s worst traits were
taking hold of his thoughts.

Eeyore set off again, this time with the direct intent of
going home and going to bed and not speaking to anyone,
perhaps not even Eeyore Too. Unfortunately, Piglet got in
his way.

“Eeyore!” Piglet said, hustling to get in front of him,

“Eeyore, I’m glad I caught you.”

“What do you want?” Eeyore asked, harshly. He hardly
even looked at the little pig, just kept stomping and storming
on his way home. He had grown very irritated with the other
animals in the Hundred Acre Wood, and longed to be back

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146
home with Eeyore Too and even if he didn’t want to talk,

Eeyore would be completely happy to sit there quietly and
mope. Eeyore found he was again thinking of Eeyore Too
like a living thing. He tried to shake the fog and cobwebs
from his head and get some clarity.

“Well,” said Piglet, “It’s about yesterday. I know I said I
wanted to see what it's like to be a bird, and you boosted me
up in that tree so I could see like they do, but once I got to
the top it was really high. And I was so frightened. And
well… you kind of left me up there. Or, at least, I think you
did. It was really hard to see all the way down to the
ground.”

Eeyore stopped and stared at Piglet, he was angry with
all the accusations everyone had been throwing at him all
day. He was pretty sure he hadn’t left Piglet up in a tree
yesterday, but given the day he had had Eeyore wouldn’t be
opposed to leaving him up in one today.

“So?” said Eeyore, with as much venom as he could
muster.

“Well,” Piglet said. He was nervous at the best of times
but found it very difficult to speak when someone was
clearly annoyed with him. “I just wanted to say that I don’t
want to be a bird anymore. Maybe they don’t have it as good
as I thought. So, I won’t be asking you to help me get in any
more trees.”

“Fine,” said Eeyore, and he stomped off again.

“But,” shouted Piglet, nervously from beyond Eeyore’s
back. “But I’m still happy you’re coming to our picnic!”

Eeyore couldn’t believe it. You yell at these people and
they are still happy to see you. How are you supposed to
express your displeasure if they just take it with a smile? It
only made him angrier. Without another word, and hardly
another thought, Eeyore pushed on toward home.

Evening was falling. The pink and orange clouds floated
over the horizon and the sun sank slowly behind the hills
near Eeyore’s house. He had just arrived, exhausted from

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147
the day he had had. Eeyore could think of nothing beyond
laying down in his house and sleeping the rest of the day
away. Yet there was something, amiss.

He looked and saw a dark, shadowy something inside his
house. As he approached, Eeyore realized that Eeyore Too
had fallen over again. Somehow, his friend had toppled and
landed on top of where Eeyore slept.

“Oh dear,” Eeyore said, moving to help Eeyore Too. He
was perhaps twenty feet away. “I’ve got ya, buddy.”

Eeyore found his progress slowed. All the excitement
had kicked up his illness again. He coughed and felt his
joints stiffen. Each successive step seemed to be more
difficult than the last.

“I’m on my way!” He tried to call out, his voice barely
above a hoarse muttering. “I’ll get you up in no time.”

Mere feet away from his home, Eeyore found himself
unable to take another step. He was exhausted but that was
not the only reason. His joints had completely locked. His
voice had left him. He simply stood there just outside of his
house looking down at Eeyore Too.

Then something happened that sent a chill deep into

Eeyore’s core. It shocked him so badly that he would have
screamed so loud that the entire forest would have heard
him, if only he could open his mouth. Eeyore Too’s tail
flicked. Eeyore didn’t even recall giving his friend a tail but
there it was. Flipping from side to side gently like his did
when he slept. Then it stirred.

Eeyore watched in profound horror as the shape of

Eeyore Too shifted and turned, finally standing up and
stepping out of the little house made of sticks.

“Good evening, Eeyore Too,” it said, with a foul and evil
smirk on its face. The thing that Eeyore had built out of
sticks and mud and false fur was now walking and talking.

Eeyore felt his mind shattering. The thing’s mouth moved,
and Eeyore’s voice came out. Its false fur was now a perfect
match for the cool gray of Eeyore’s fur, while his own had

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148
been steadily fading and becoming brittle as the week went
on

.

“I hope you will be okay here, by yourself,” it said,
strolling around Eeyore looking him over. “I agreed to go
on a picnic with my friends, so I won’t be home until later.”

It laughed slightly as it said this and moved back around to
stare Eeyore in the face.

Eeyore saw that the thing’s right eye, which had
previously been a little round button that Eeyore had
plucked from the floor of his house, looked now to be a real
eye that moved and actually saw. Although, the left eye
remained the deep blacker-than-black hole of the sphere
which had fallen from the sky that night. He looked and felt
the bottomless abyss of that sphere swallow him once more.

Eeyore Too blinked with eyelids that Eeyore did not know
he had and suddenly the sphere was gone. In its place, a new
genuine eye just like the other. The thing now looked and
sounded exactly like Eeyore.

The false Eeyore patted the now frozen-in-place original

Eeyore on the haunches and strolled off with a quiet whistle
toward the area of the Hundred Acre Wood where the rest
of the animals lived. He left Eeyore, the first Eeyore, alone
in the silence.

It was about an hour before Eeyore heard a voice again.

He expected it to be the imposter’s, but it wasn’t. It was

Rabbit. Unable to turn his head, Eeyore could only listen.

“I must say, Eeyore, I certainly wasn’t expecting this.”

Eeyore tried to speak, his mouth would not open. His
mouth no longer existed. With all his might he struggled to
make even a single sound. Then he heard it. His own voice!

“Yes, well I figured it was time I joined you for some of
these outings.”

It was the imposter! The group of animals walked into

Eeyore’s view some distance away. They were climbing the
hill with picnic baskets and a blanket. It was just as Pooh
had said. Eeyore had picked out the spot for the picnic. At

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149
least, the Eeyore that had been visiting him. Who had been
visiting Rabbit, Kanga, and Piglet. It chose the hill right
behind Eeyore’s home to taunt him because it knew that he
would be forced to watch what it was doing.

Their voices were still somewhat audible as they reached
the crest of the hill and laid out the blanket.

Eeyore felt his bones change and become brittle like
sticks. His fur crinkled and slipped off him into a pile of the
strange false fur he had found in the crater.

“You know, Pooh,” said Piglet, his voice growing fainter
in Eeyore’s mind. “You never told us what you wished for
last week.”

“Well, Piglet, I think I can tell you now,” Pooh said.

Eeyore’s right eye had turned into the shiny black button
he found a week ago on the floor of this house. And his
vision was fading from the left eye.

“When we were all making wishes, I closed my eyes and
simply thought to myself…”

Eeyore’s vision had gone entirely. The only thing that
remained was his hearing and that was faint and quiet, and
soon would be gone as well. The last voice Eeyore ever
heard was Winnie-the-Pooh’s…

“I wish Eeyore was here.”

150
WHEN SHE WAS VERY TIRED
BY LISA CUNNINGHAM

The sunset was pretty, Kanga paused and noted, in the
way she knew one was supposed to appreciate natural
phenomena. But she had seen so many, they were all just
variations on a theme now. Roo was practicing his very
small jumps in the sand, falling down mouse-holes and
climbing out of them – carefully, as he had long since
memorized the layout of this part of the Forest. They stood
next to one another, complementary-sized versions of the
same being, as in so many of the paintings that illustrated
their Stories.

Kanga gave Pooh his cue, telling Roo a little too loudly

“Just one more jump, dear, and then we must go home.”

Pooh came stumbling up the hill to them, breathlessly
squeaking out the response from their Story, “Good
afternoon, Kanga.”

The Ancient Whispers exhaled their sibilant approvals.

A short time later, Kanga and Roo hopped through a
thistly corner of the forest, looking for a quiet spot where
they might rest. It was almost lunch time, and they would

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151
need to find water soon. They spotted Eeyore among the
grey thicket at the same time, but not until he was mere feet
away. He and Pooh were rooting through the underbrush.

“Somebody must have taken it,” Eeyore tossed his head
over his shoulder to look at Pooh, but saw Kanga and Roo
first.

Eeyore waved his head to Kanga, beckoning her over.

She really didn’t mind the days that replayed the named

Stories, though she knew some of the other Characters did.

Eeyore seemed to have a hard time with “In Which Eeyore

Loses a Tail and Pooh Finds One” being the standard
lunchtime Ritual. Piglet was actually quite good in a crisis,
calm and practical; his character’s histrionics annoyed him
almost as much as they did everyone else. Owl enjoyed
extemporizing on boring subjects, like the chemical
composition of different drywall, but since the Authors
never punished him for it, the rest of the Characters allowed
themselves to enjoy the unscriptedness of his droning.

There were almost no places where any of the Christopher

Robins could actively disrupt their Stories – his Character
mostly served as a Witness, or a Protector.

One time, a Christopher Robin was terrified of bears.

Rather than helping Pooh get the honeypot off his head,
that Christopher Robin ran for the Hundred Acre Woods.

When he reached the tree line, the entire Forest shuddered
and spasmed once, then slowly expanded back to its proper
size.

There was so much honey that Summer.

Kanga knew better than to insert herself in a Story that
wasn’t hers, unless the Authors suggested otherwise. She
paused. Only birds, and breathing. She smiled at Eeyore and
nodded politely, then hopped along home.

From behind her, Kanga heard Eeyore’s pointed “How

Like Them.”

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152

Luckily, this was often a part of her Character – but
coming up with calm and measured responses to constant
antics was made so much more difficult by the constant
whispering of the voices in her head. They were constant
editorial notes, making tiny changes or suggestions, but
not even in their final form. She was listening to the review
sessions. The round tables. The brainstorming contribu
tions of insane, inhuman minds.

It was a constant, subaural meeting where every
attendee felt the need to make their baseless opinions
heard.

“What if Piglet turned into honey? What of Pooh’s
dilemma then?”

And then countless, clamoring angry responses, the
rough side of Velcro dragging across her brain for hours,
voicing dissent, or agreement, or tweaks, or words that she
did not recognize but that branded the feeling of themselves
into her mind.

She thought of the first chant she ever remembered, the
very first memory she had – though she couldn’t remember
the voices of the Authors, or if it was even in a language she
recognized.

“Hand in hand we come

Christopher Robin and I

To lay this book in your lap.

Say you’re surprised?

Say you like it?

Say it’s just what you wanted?

Because it’s yours…

Because we love you.”

Kanga knew religions always said their gods were loving,
that anything they visit upon their worshippers is for their
own good. She knew she and Roo were part of the Authors’

plans, but did they love her? It had been so long, and she

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153
had done everything they ever whispered to her. She lived
her life for them, to keep them entertained and keep all their

Characters playing their right parts. She knew Roo’s life
would be lived for the Authors, too, because they whispered
to her about the power in her blood and the burden she had
already passed to him. And she loved Roo, so they must love
her in similar ways. Maybe she was special. The Authors
brought her their Books of Stories, their divinely mad scripts,
and whispered to her about their upkeep and enforcement.

She had tried asking the Authors questions before, but
they filled her heart with impressions of a hugeness beyond
knowing, and the pain of a starving thirst for time.

Kanga kept her questions very quiet after that.

Kanga and Roo hopped, side-by-side, to the small pond.

They both loved this place, and liked to wear their raincoats
when they played with the geese.

It was one of the Rituals that the Authors had made
changes to. Since there was no John Character – and not
enough whispers supported finding a new match – the
suggestion was made that Roo could be John, since John is
any child and Roo is the Forever-Child.

The Ritual was named “Happiness.” Kanga was pleased
with the kindness this showed her son, but she was aware
that kindness was not intentional. The Authors being
concerned with the feelings of their Characters was an
absurd proposal on its face – how would a Story get
anywhere if no conflict ever occurred? If the Authors
wanted their Characters to only be happy?

“And that,” said Roo, splashing around in the pond,
nuzzling, and being nuzzled by, the white ducks, “Is That.”

the FOREVER CHILD is your other half we want closure

ALWAYS THE SAME PLEASE ‘
fhalma gof’nn ‘bthnk
ch
’

ftaghu we should make changes sameness changes sameness

SUNSHINE ilyaa

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154

The newest Christopher Robin appeared over the crest
of the hill. He noticed the pair and excitedly broke into a
trot towards them.

Kanga waved to Christopher Robin and smiled,
wordlessly. Roo sneezed into the pond, blowing water
droplets all over the ducks. The ducks reacted by shaking
the water off – even though they were all sitting in water –
and all three Characters laughed with their whole bodies,
until their bellies and throats were sore.

Kanga woke up where she and Roo had fallen asleep on
the soft grass bank by the pond.

A blizzard raged around them. If Roo had not been in
her pouch, Kanga realized, the snow would have covered
him by the time she woke up. The entire top layer of her
body was already only able to feel pinpricks. When she tried
to stand, she realized her legs were numb – she couldn’t
stand fully on either leg without her knees buckling. She
couldn’t see the pond, though they had fallen asleep no
more than four feet from the bank.

All the whispers happened at once, in one voice.

not snow not snow
cloud cloud cloud
fhtagn, ee.
ftaghu ehye.
listen
r’luh
hafh’drn, stell’bsna ph’r’luh.

Confused and panicked, Kanga pawed at the snow
around her. If she dragged herself forward, she’d drive the
snow right into her pouch, where Roo seemed safe for the
moment. She couldn’t kick to dig or push backwards
without control of her legs. This was an entirely new

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155
experience. Kanga had learned all the Stories, even the ones
she wasn’t a part of, and this wasn’t in any of them. ‘If I
freeze to death,’ she thought, ‘I should wake Roo up before

I fall asleep. He would love to see such a new thing.’

A Black Goat walked slowly out of the snow – which
put it about four inches from Kanga’s nose when she saw
it. She froze. Two new things. What could this mean?

Would she get to find out?

They knew from experience that the spring in the woods
didn’t do anything after a Character died, only if they were
very, very wounded. Poor Rabbit. She missed him so.

The Goat licked a frozen tear from her face, taking a tiny
strip of frozen skin with it. The Black Goat dipped its head
and picked up a basket at its feet, lifting its head to offer

Kanga a yellow hat and green dress. She was so relieved to
see something familiar that she laughed as she grabbed the
clothing.

She put on a yellow sun-bonnet
and her greenest gown.

She pushed up on her hands and struggled to her feet,
then turned to the south wind,
and curtsied deeply, down and up. Nglui.
She turned to the eastern sunlight,
and shook her yellow head, begging, tharanak grah’n.

She turned her head down to her always-neighbor, Roo,
and whispered, “Winter is dead.” Uaaah.

The swirling wind and snow stopped immediately.

In the few minutes it took Kanga and Roo to get to the
edge of the meadow, the snow was melted, and the
temperature had risen to that of a mildly chilly Spring day.

The feeling was rushing back to her entire body, pins and
needles underneath the swaths of burning patches of skin.

She kicked her legs out to shake and stretch them. A bleat

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156
from the pond’s direction turned Kanga around.

The pond was ringed with meters and meters of poppies
and dog roses in glorious bloom. Kanga paused her exit, and
they all three breathed deeply, appreciating the sweetness of
the air with all those perfumes and particulates. She was
grateful that the Great Old Author herself saved her, even
if it was from a predicament the Authors created.

“Daffodowndilly” had always been Shub-Niggurath’s
favorite Ritual.

But Kanga did not understand the embrace of the All

Mother, who had her own two sons.

And whose womb is monstrously cold.

Kanga was disoriented as she headed back toward the
other characters. When she passed Owl’s Tree, she realized
it must be lunch time.

Pooh was up there, looking at Owl’s bell-rope: “It
reminds me of something, but I can’t think what. Where did
you get it?”

Good. Normalcy was good. Pooh even sounded
genuinely perplexed, and the Story was more entertaining to
the Authors if they could suspend their disbelief, if the

Characters were doing a good job. Sometimes, the Authors
even approved of ad libs that the Characters added, if they
were in-character enough, and added the changes into new
versions of the Book of Stories.

“Owl,” Kanga heard from above, “you made a mistake.

Somebody did want it.”

Arriving home with Roo, Kanga noticed a note on her
door inviting her to join Christopher Robin’s “Expotition.”

She hurried to the top of the Forest – with Roo in her
pocket, as dictated – not knowing how long the group had
been waiting. Authors hate when the Characters get the
arrival orders wrong after they’ve bothered to list it all out.

She’d have to listen to their whispering scorn for hours if
she arrived after Rabbit’s friends-and-relations.

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157

They arrived before Eeyore, and she listened while the
group gathered to set out to the North Pole. The Characters
made excellent small talk, everyone was asking each other
what an “Expotition” was and manufacturing descriptions
that would make sense from their Characters’ respective
points of view.

static changes CHANGES shifting r’luh wanting soon SOON
soon stell’bsna syha’h soon

Kanga was a little concerned about the North Pole being
more close-at-hand than usual, given the snowstorm earlier.

But everything went according to the normal flow of the

Ritual. The characters swam in the northern part of the
river, and they made a sign with Christopher Robin that read

“North Pole, Discovered By Pooh, Pooh and Christopher

Robin found it” to attach to a pole they found and
designated North.

Since “In Which Christopher Robin Leads an

Expotition to the North Pole” is a longer Story, spanning
the map and a musical number, it was dark by the time

Kanga and Roo got home. She asked him if he’d had his
medicine yet – he had – then tucked him in and kissed his
forehead. Kanga fell asleep beside Roo, dreaming that

Christopher Robin’s boat The Brain of Pooh could carry them
beyond the borders of the Sanders Forest, out of this
beleaguered place and somewhere they could live normal

Animal Lives instead of performing their Characters.

This Christopher Robin was lovely. He was kind and not
afraid of any of them, and he sometimes hugged Kanga
around the neck and hung on for a while, which she never
minded. She wished suddenly that any of the Christopher

Robins could have stayed, that there didn’t have to be a

Character whose purpose was to be impermanent. She

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158
would make sure everyone was very careful with this one.

Sometimes, there were accidents. Characters went off
script, and their actions had unanticipated consequences, or
their punishments for changing the Story without
permission affected more than just one Character, as with
explosions. And Christopher Robins couldn’t be brought
back – the Characters had tried. Their oil-black restorative
spring didn’t work on the humans that entered the Sanders

Forest, and Kanga had not yet been given a way to save a

Christopher Robin. Perhaps being fixed would make them
less innocent, having experienced being broken. All the

Characters knew that feeling in their bones.

Sometimes, a new Christopher Robin just walked in one
day. They only knew it was him because he was young, and
male, and human. There was never more than one at a time.

Kanga wondered if any of them ever spoke with the

Authors, if any of the Christopher Robins were told they
were going to be written into the fabric of time and power.

They whispered to Roo sometimes, but he was the Forever

Child. Christopher Robins were replaceable, their narrative
value in their innocent observation.

She heard a bell, then a cacophony of buzzing,
whispering, stabbing flutters – the notice that one of her
stories was about to begin.

Kanga, with Roo in her pouch, hopped up to a clearing
in the Hundred Acre Wood – the clanging alarms in her
head subsided as she approached the Six Pine Trees, and a
hole dug in the ground. Piglet was peering over the edge of
the hole.

It was a Heffalump Trap.

Wait.

Kanga wasn’t part of “In Which Piglet Meets a

Heffalump.”

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159

Piglet’s first shout of “Help, help! A Heffalump, a

Horrible Heffalump!” was less enthusiastic than someone
scared of a monster would scream, but he had seen Pooh
with his head stuck in that honey jar so, so many times now.

Arms raised in the air, he slowly turned, leading with his hip
like a petulant teenager, in a low-energy performance of
panic.

Until his eyes landed on Kanga.

Piglet’s eyes widened and he began screaming and
panicking in earnest, trying to finish his full lament as
quickly as he could and close the Story before anything
could go wrong. “Help, help, a Herrible Hoffalump! Hoff,
hoff, a Hellible Hor—”

He flailed his arms and whirled in circles, trying to please
the Authors with renewed vigor. But they always already
knew that Piglet would fail to entertain them this time.

And they whispered to Roo.

Roo had never seen a Heffalump, and he wondered what
it was. There were so few surprises left for him in this world,
after all this time and all this sameness. The flowers earlier
were beautiful and new. That was amazing. How lucky was
he – two new things in one day? But the Heffalump was
down in the Very Deep Pit that Pooh dug as a Cunning

Trap, and he couldn’t see it from here. His mother wasn’t
moving.

Roo was suddenly filled with worry that the monster
would disappear before he could see it, like the ones that
some of the Christopher Robins told him live under his bed
and in his closet. His heart started beating harder, and he
slightly flexed his knees in time with his heartbeat.

Run you can make it WHAT IS IT is there a new thing
y’ai’ng’ngah Run Run Run k’yarnak phlegethor l’ebumna syha’h
n
’
ghft RUN

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160

Roo grabbed the edge of Kanga’s pouch and threw
himself out of it, bounding for the edge of the Heffalump

Trap where Piglet stood. He was determined to see this new
monster for himself. Maybe it was one of the Authors – they
all had odd names, and his Mother said they looked scary.

Piglet was spinning in circles, so Roo only had a moment
to stop and remark “Hey, that’s just…” before Piglet’s right
arm hooked around his back and propelled him into the

Very Deep Pit.

The Forever-Child landed directly on Pooh, shattering
the base of the honeypot on top of the bear’s head – but the
sides were sturdy. Those tore into Roo, ripping open the left
side of his face across his cheekbone and down his torso
until his ribs stopped them, curving a slice inches deep in
his abdomen as his whole bodyweight landed on the circle
of shards around Pooh’s face. His head bounced once and
thunked down, then stayed, conformed to the shape of the
pointed fragment it impacted.

Blood leaked out of the rim of the pot around Pooh’s
neck as the remaining half of the honeypot quickly filled up
with Roo’s blood. He pawed desperately at the slapstick
prop, trying to reach air.

Piglet, finally silent, grabbed a branch and shattered the
pot. Pooh’s head rang like it did every time a Christopher

Robin held his foot and dragged him up the stairs, his head
making a rhythmic bump all the way up.
bump
bump

Roo dropped to the ground to the right of Pooh with a
wet, surprisingly light thunk – his blood had muddied the
ground beneath them.

Bees buzzed loudly nearby, knowing that Blood and

Honey have always been sacred on their own.

Running back to the Six Pine Trees, Piglet gently
dropped Roo’s broken body into Kanga’s outstretched

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161
hands. There was so much yelling, but she could only hear
her blood pounding in her ears.

“Kanga! Kanga!” “Run!” Abholos cf’tagn “Get him to the
pond!”

They had done it before, when someone made too large
a change and the punishment that followed was too much
for a body to bear. When Pooh had decided he didn’t want
to find Eeyore’s tail anymore and pretended he didn’t
recognize Owl’s door “bell-rope,” he was stung by
thousands of bees until his face was entirely swollen shut;

Kanga had carried him to the once-still spring in the woods,
then, with Eeyore. They barely got Pooh into the viscous
black pool in time, but he was healed, and learned his lesson
for a while not to veer too far off the prescribed path.

She thought all this without moving her eyes from the
ragged little body in her hands. The left side of Roo’s head
was caved in, like a rough, shallow bowl, and his cheek was
torn from lip to ear. His tongue lolled out against his

Mother’s bicep. His chest was ripped open – every breath
visibly flapped ragged sections of lung hanging out from
between his ribs. His eyes stared blankly into the sky.

Why? Why not let him die? She remembered all the times
she had to be healed – why had she just assumed that,
because he never talked about it, he didn’t remember?

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162

Kanga’s eyes widened, and she realized his remaining
eyebrow was curved up in a pleading expression. This was
too much. What had she been doing? Why had she ignored
her own nagging worries that it wasn’t idyllic for Roo?

No. She was done. She had done this too many times,
had been doing this for too long. She’d seen his head ripped
clean off, his legs degloved – monstrous things – and she’d
seen him almost die so many times she could never have
kept count.

And she knew.

She brought Roo to her lips and kissed him on the
forehead, then whispered, “Goodnight.” She wiggled his
faintly squeaking, failing body gently into her pouch. Roo
clutched up at her hand as she withdrew it from underneath
his head, and she let him grab onto her thumb for a
moment, like when he was only hours old and crawled, his
own tough little way, into her pouch for the first time.

Nestled in the first place he ever sought for comfort,

Roo stopped struggling to breathe and calmed his twitching.

He knew his Mother loved him, the Forever-Child, and that
was the only thought there was space for in his head. He
was warm and with his Mother. This was his birthright. He
began to feel fuzzy and see grey static, though he knew there
was no light in her pouch. He knew his body was dying, and
he was so very glad that she was finally going to let it.

All four of Kanga’s nipples snaked out in slivery tendrils.

As Roo exhaled fully, the fleshy vines pulsed forward like
earthworms, pushing slowly into him – one through the
still-intact right eye and into his brain, one into the hole in
the left of his head and down through his spine, one into
and through his belly button, and one through his neck
from left to right. The tendrils lifted him to Kanga’s throat
as they became one being, as the boundary of Roo melded
with the boundaries of his mother.

They were only ever always one being. Two halves of a
single whole, of a single word. Kanga-Roo burned to make
themselves free, to abandon the binding and distracting

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163

Rituals that Aylith, servant of Shub-Niggurath, had handed
to them when she taught Kanga the Dedication, the earliest
chant taught to the first Character, and when she used her
blood to write “To Her” for Kanga above the prayer. She
was the yellow-green voices who loved Kanga, who once
delivered the Mother a way to protect her son. But that was
no longer what Kanga wanted. She was so tired of keeping
everyone and everything in line, trying to hold things at bay
in the hopes that her son might be allowed to enjoy a
fragment of his life. She was so very tired. When was the
last time she wasn’t tired?

Why was this worth all their suffering?

Kanga raised her right leg to her own stomach, below
where Roo was a part of her now, and kicked violently and
quickly – like a dog scratching, but as if the fleas were inside
her. The moment her abdomen ripped open through her
pouch and her intestines dropped on the grass, everyone
else started screaming. Eeyore, Owl, Piglet, the trees, Pooh,
the honey on his hand, the air, Kanga and Roo and the third
thing they had now become.

The sky ripped open with Kanga’s anguish, her grief for
her own lost possibilities, her anger at the Authors and at
herself for being a Character, and her utter, bone-deep
exhaustion. Thousands of fiery maggots poured from the
fissure, and everywhere they touched, they burned infernal
knowledge into the landscape.

Kanga decided to stop being The Mother and to be
another thing entirely. The All-Mother used acid thoughts
to etch the path in her mind.

Uaaah.

And the world began to chant, red and pulsing and
sticky, celebrating its new existence as an afterbirth, as a lure
to so many predators.

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164

And she smiled, and was glad, and closed their
thousands of eyes to sleep.

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart so long. If we’re in
each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”

~ A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

165
THE STATEMENT OF
EEYORE CARTER
BY KEVIN WETMORE

I repeat to you, Detective Robin, that your inquisition is
fruitless. Detain me here forever if you will; confine me,
execute me, remove my tail or some of my stuffing, and my
story shall not change, and I can say no more than I
remember. Of my friend, Edward Bear, I do not know what
has happened to him, save only I think – no, I hope - that he
is in peaceful oblivion. Probably not. Nobody ever is. And
nobody cares. Pathetic.

The poet and occultist Edward Bear, my friend, my best
friend of the last five years, vanished last night as a result of
a set of very particular circumstances. I am, or was, a partial
sharer of his Terrible Researches into the Unknown. Many
is the night we would sit up late, discussing Heffalumps,

Woozles, Shoggoths, Shantak Birds, or other things-that
should-not-be-but-probably-are, or reading forgotten
poetry. He favored the Baudelairean strains of Justin

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166

Geoffrey; I preferred a poem I wrote called “POEM.”

Would you like to hear it?

No?

You’re probably right – no point in it. Where was I?

Oh, yes, what happened to Edward.

That night, after losing several games of Poohsticks (I
usually win more than anyone else – I am unnaturally good
at Poohsticks), Edward proposed we visit the Cypress

Swamp at the other end of Pooh Corner, near the Floody

Place, as Pooh has learned of some great treasure buried
there. At first I thought he meant the boggy sad area where

I have my gloomy place, which is rather boggy and sad and

I go there when I want to feel sad or sometimes work Dark

Magicks. But mostly just feel sad. There is no treasure there,
and I told him so. Then he told me he meant the place past

Piglet’s house, beyond where the Woozle wasn’t (but might
have been). So it wasn’t my gloomy place he wanted to go
to. Typical.

Mind you, I have never seen a Woozle. Edward says he
and Piglet encountered a number of mysterious tracks that
could not have been made by feet found anywhere in the

Hundred Acre Wood, I only know they exist, and they are
terrifying and have been known to drive Piglet past the
point of sanity, unable to correlate the contents of his brain,
which is a mercy.

Telling this tale is somewhat exhausting. Is it possible we
might have a spot of lunch while I share the events?

No?

Oh well, I didn’t expect to get lunch anyway.

Of Pooh’s vast collection of Strange, Rare Books on

Forbidden Subjects I have not read any, because those
letters mean learning. I want to learn, and I write poems,
like Pooh. Well, like Pooh used to. Would you like to hear
my poem? It is called “POEM,” and is very good.

No?

Fine.

Edward Bear is, was, the only one who can read Latin

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167
and Arabic, and the ancient language of Poohs that men
have forgot. The fiend-inspired book which brought on the
end—the book which he carried in his pocket out of the
world—was written in characters whose like I never saw
elsewhere. Not even Owl knew that they were. Of course
none of the others are smart like Pooh and I, no brain at all,
some of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads
by mistake. But it was that brain and his learning from the
ancient book of Poohs that led Pooh to most certain death
at the swamp next to Pooh Corner.

We sat in his library that night, around eleven. Or maybe
eight. Numbers are hard. Pooh looked up from the volume
of forbidden Pooh lore he had consulted and said, “When
you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of

Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very

Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into
the open and has other people looking at it.”

I found this profound. And confusing.

I asked, “What thing is inside you, Edward?”

He did not answer, and I started to worry about the thing
inside him which is very Thingish. That doesn’t sound good,

I thought. I wondered if there was a thingish thing inside
me. I don’t want a thing inside me. And then I wondered if
it was hungry. And then I was hungry.

Is it possible we might have a spot of lunch while I share
the events?

No? Oh well…

I asked Edward what the treasure is. He thought about
it and said he did not know specifically, but that he knew it
existed and was in the Floody Place and that its exact nature
was a riddle. As a Bear of Little Brain But Great Occult

Knowledge, he both loved and hated riddles. They made
his brain feel fuzzy, but the mystery of them drew him to
contemplate them, often through song.

He sat down on the table in his library and sang a song
instead:

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168
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie
Why does an Old One? I don’t know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh

The singing seemed to clear his head. He once told me
he was a sorcerer of Ancient Magicks, and I think he might
have been right.

“We must take supplies and go to the Floody Place,” he
said forcefully.

“Well then,” I responded, “Enjoy yourself.”

“I am,” said Pooh. “But you must come with me.’

“Why?” I asked, because it all seemed like a lot of work
for nothing.

But Edward is most convincing. He began to whisper
of lost knowledge, hidden treasure, and plans for a picnic
sometime this week, and my thoughts got all turned around
until I thought it was my thinky thought that we should go
to the ancient cemetery at the Floody Place. I told him I had
not had much luck with bodies of water. But you know

Edward. When he gets a thought in his head, it Must Be

Done.

He talked so incessantly of his theory, that a fly can’t bird
but a bird can fly, and those with knowledge, with Cunning,
will then understand why certain corpses never decay, but
rest firm and fat in their tombs for a thousand years. He
insisted we go that very night.

“These ideas don’t seem related,” I said.

“Grab that lantern, that rope, the small pot marked

‘Hunny’ and a pen,” he said, whilst flipping through that
ancient book of the Poohs. He then grabbed a number of
tools.

“All right,” I said, because why bother arguing when he
gets like this. Right?

What?

You want me to get to the point? I’m telling you what
happened. Now listen.

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169

Unless you have some thistles.

No?

Sigh.

It was slightly after midnight when we left Edward’s
house. Or maybe nine. Numbers are really hard. I thought
we had passed unnoticed from Pooh’s house to the Floody

Place, but since you are here asking me questions, Detective

Robin, it must be that someone saw. A Terrible Old Man,
perhaps. Or an Old Gossip. Or Rabbit. Yes. I think it
might be Rabbit.

I will not deny, though my memory is uncertain and
indistinct, that this witness of yours, who I think is Rabbit,
may have seen us together as he says, walking past the Six

Pine Trees, past the cunning Heffalump trap that Pooh had
made out of a Very Deep Pit, some sticks, and Ancient

Incantations and Lost Magicks that opened a link to the
nameless void, so any heffalumps would be blasted into the
sanity-destroying abyss. At least that’s what Pooh said it did.

He also said he used Weather Magicks so that when a

Heffalump fell in the Very Deep Pit, it would start to rain
and the Heffalump would drown. I thought it looked like a
hole covered with sticks, but Pooh was a sorcerer, so who
knows. But the only things it ever caught was Piglet (once)

and a Dimensional Shambler (twice). We had to get Owl to
help us banish the Dimensional Shambler from this plane
of existence the second time. Piglet was also once banished
to the void by accident where gibbering and piping servants
of Azathoth play their sanity-devouring music on flutes no

Piglet can hear. He has not been the same since we brought
him back. He was not the most stable of Piglets to begin
with.

Where was I? Oh, yes – I’m certain Rabbit saw us
carrying our supplies past Piglet’s house toward Big Cypress

Swamp in the Floody Place, at half past twelve on that awful
night. Or half past nine. I cannot tell time too well.

That we bore electric lanterns, spades, and a curious coil
of twine with two tin cans attached, I will even affirm; for

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170
these things all played a part in the single hideous scene
which remains burned into my shaken recollection.

Sometimes my head gets kind of fuzzy. And there are some
things I don’t want to remember, and things I can never
forget. I think a lot of thoughts, not all of them good ones.

The thinky thoughts that become things inside you. Those
are the ones that disturb my rest.

Any thoughts on lunch?

No?

Okay.

But of what followed, and of the reason I was found
alone and dazed in the Hundred Acre Wood the next
morning, I must insist that I know nothing save what I have
told you over and over again. You say to me that there is
nothing in the swamp or near it which could form the
setting of that frightful episode. I reply that I know nothing
beyond what I saw. Vision or nightmare it may have been.

Every day is a nightmare. Have you ever fallen in a stream?

No? You get wet. And you float. And nobody helps you.

I tried to help Edward Bear, but it did not do anything. Why

Edward Bear did not return, he or his shade—or some
nameless thing I cannot describe—alone can tell. You
should talk to them.

We entered the Floody Place by the light of the waning
gibbous moon. Long shadows were cast from its pallid,
yellowish light. As we moved through the boggy fen, the
brush gave way to a more open area, filled with broken
tombstones and overgrown with rank grass, moss, and
curious creeping weeds, and filled with a vague stench which
my idle fancy associated absurdly with Owl. I don’t know
why. I could distinguish a repellent array of antique slabs,
urns, cenotaphs, and mausoleum facades; all crumbling,
moss-grown, and moisture-stained, and partly concealed by
the gross luxuriance of the unhealthy vegetation. There was
nothing good there to eat – no thistles or hay or oats.

By any chance…

No?

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171

It was then that Edward Bear sat upon a broken
tombstone and removed from his shirt pocket the Terrible
and Ancient Book and began speaking to me in a low voice.

I cannot remember nor tell you the things he whispered. I
cannot tell because my memory of the words has faded in
some strange way for the mind to protect itself. Also, I
didn’t always listen to him – he said a lot and some of it was
not as interesting as other things. He spoke of creatures and
ancient gods beyond the knowledge of us all.

At one point I asked Edward Bear what a Heffalump
looks like. His eyes stared off in the distance with a hint of
madness and perhaps hunger. “Formless protoplasm able to
mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes -
viscous agglutinations of bubbling cells - rubbery fifteen
foot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductile,” he said in a
monotone voice not his own.

“Well, then,” I said.

Pooh hasn’t much Brain, but he never comes to any
harm. He does silly things, like bringing me to an ancient
and lost necropolis in the middle of the night, but they
usually turn out right. But because of the Book, Pooh

Knows Things. Not a Lot of Things, but Things. Dark

Things that Poohs were not meant to know. But I don’t
mind since everything is horrible all the time anyway.

Finally, Pooh put the Book away, stood up and picked
up a shovel. He carefully considered all of the many vaults
and graves among the dark undergrowth. No word was
uttered, for the spot and the task seemed known to him; and
without delay he commenced to clear away the grass, weeds,
and drifted earth from the flat, archaic mortuary. After
uncovering the entire surface, which consisted of an
immense granite slab. Written on it was the word “TOMB,”

which for some reason Edward pronounced as “Toom-by.”

Pooh appeared to make some mental calculations. Then he
returned to the sepulchre and sought to pry up the slab. He
did not succeed and motioned to me to come to his
assistance. I walked over, uncertain what he wanted me to

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172
do. We pushed and we pulled for quite a while. Finally our
combined strength loosened the stone, which we raised and
tipped to one side.

The removal of the slab revealed a black aperture. Our
lantern illuminated the top of a flight of stone steps,
dripping with some detestable ichor of the inner earth.

Pooh thought it might be honey and sniffed it.

It was not honey.

It gave off some miasmal gas that filled one with nausea.

“Oh, bother!” cried Edward Bear as he waved his paws in
front of his nose.

Edward addressed me at length in his mellow tenor
voice, seemingly unperturbed by our awesome
surroundings.

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173

“Eeyore – I’m sorry to have to ask you to stay on the
surface,” he said, “but it would be a crime to let someone
with your sense of gloom go down there. You cannot
imagine, even from what I have told you from the fearful

De Poohis Mysteriis of Ludvig Pooh, the things I shall have to
see and do. It’s fiendish work, Eeyore, and quite a bother.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said, “I wouldn’t want to go in
there with me either.”

“I don’t wish to offend you,” he continued, as if I had
not spoken, “and heaven knows I’d be glad enough to have
you with me; but the responsibility is in a certain sense mine,
and I couldn’t drag a bundle of nerves like you down to
probable death or madness.”

“That’s fine,” I told him. “I don’t like going down stairs
anyway.”

“But I promise to keep you informed over the telephone
of every move,” and he held out one of the tin cans to me.

“You see I’ve enough twine here to reach to the center of
the earth and back!”

“You don’t listen when I talk, do you?” I asked him.

“Keep the twine tight and we can use the phone to talk
to one another as you descend into the depths of the tomb.”

“Wait!” I said. “I thought I was staying out here and you
were descending into the depths of the tomb?”

Edward scratched his head. “So it is,” he concluded. “I
knew one of us was descending into the depths of the
tomb.”

He fumbled with his pockets and produced a key.

“I must descend into the depths of the tomb as I have
the key,” he announced happily.

I must admit, Detective Robin, he alone held the key to
the thing we sought. The treasure only found in the tomb
in the Floody Place. I still do not know what manner of
thing we sought. Knowing Edward it might have been a
particularly large amount of excellent honey. Or a
particularly useful Piece of String. I still do not know how
or from whom he had that key. I do not believe he knew

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174
how or from whom he had that key. He seemed confused
and happy when he found it. I, on the other hand, thought
it would bring nothing but misery. I was right.

All this I can still remember, though I do not know what
manner of thing we sought. After he had secured my
reluctant acquiescence in his design, Edward picked up the
other tin can and the lantern. At his nod I seated myself
upon an aged, discoloured gravestone close by the newly
uncovered aperture.

‘I’ll sit here,” I said.

“Good,” Pooh said.

“It’s not very comfortable,” I said.

“Good,” Pooh said. I think he was focused on his
preparations to descend into the tomb.

And here is Edward Bear, going down the stairs into the
crypt, bump,
bump,
bump.

That is, after all, the only way Edward Bear knows how
to go down stairs. I believe you know something of the
source of that, Detective Robin. I know sometimes he
thinks there is another way to go down stairs, if he could
only stop bumping his head and think of it. But he never
thinks of it. So we watch him go down the stairs on his head
every time. Why would this day be any different? Pathetic.

This seems like a good time to take a break in the story
and perhaps have a thistle or two to eat. Might you have a
handful of hay or…?

No. I didn’t expect you to.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. I listened to his head bump every step on the
way down. Then I saw the lantern light fade as he moved
underground, away from that terrible aperture towards I
know not what. I heard the rustle of the twine as he carried
his tin can telephone further away.

In the lone silence of that hoary and deserted city of the
dead, my mind conceived the most ghastly phantasies and

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175
illusions. Amorphous shadows seemed to lurk in the darker
recesses of the weed-choked hollow and to flit as in some
blasphemous ceremonial procession past the moldering
tombs in the Floody Place; shadows which could not have
been cast by that pallid, peering crescent moon. Not that it
matters.

There was not much to do without Edward Bear around.

I thought thoughts for a while, mostly about how awful it
would be if something happened to Pooh. Or how awful it
would be if something happened. Or how awful it is that
things happen. Most days are just horrible.

Then, something horrible did happen. I heard a strange
noise.

“Pooh?” I asked.

Silence greeted me back.

“Heffalump?”

More silence.

But in listening I realized the tin can at the edge of the
awful opening was buzzing. I picked it up with one hoof
and fell over. I picked it up with a different hoof and fell
over again. This happened several times until I pulled it tight
and placed it in the crook of a branch of a shrub so I could
listen to the can and then talk to it in turn.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Eeyore?” came a buzzing voice.

“Yes. Who is this?” I asked.

“It’s Pooh!” Which made sense, since he had the other
end of the tin can phone.

He who had so calmly left me a little while previously,
now called from below in a shaky whisper more portentous
than the loudest shriek:

“God! If you could see what I am seeing!”

“You told me to stay up here, so I cannot see what you
are seeing.”

“Oh, bother, you’re right. I knew one of us stayed up on
the surface. I’m down in the tomb,” he confirmed.

“I know,” I said, looking around, “Because I’m up here.”

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176

“So we both know where we are,” he said, contentedly,
then resumed his shaky whisper. “It’s terrible—
monstrous—unbelievable!”

“I believe it,” I told him, “Everything is horrible.

Nobody cares.”

“No,” he whispered. “In here.” A moment of silence
followed.

“Hello,” I called. “Is Edward Bear there?”

“Yes, I’m here,” he hissed back. “I can’t tell you, Eeyore!

It’s too utterly beyond thought—I dare not tell you—no

Pooh could know it and live—I never dreamed of THIS!”

Stillness again, save for my now incoherent torrent of
shuddering inquiry.

“Eeyore! For the love of Piglet, put back the slab and get
out of this if you can! Quick!—leave everything else and
make for the outside—it’s your only chance! Do as I say,
and don’t ask me to explain!”

“Can you please explain?” I asked.

Stillness again. Then, “No, I just said I cannot explain.”

“Well then, it took both of us to move the slab. I think

I might need your help to put back the slab. Can you come
back up here, and we’ll put back the slab and then you can
go back down, and I’ll make for outside.”

Pooh thought. He thought so hard I thought I could
hear him thinking through the phone.

“No,” he finally said. “You must do it. Go get help. Get

Rabbit or Piglet to help you move the slab.”

“You’re here,” I said, “why don’t you just help me move
it

.

”

“I don’t have time to explain.”

“Well then…” This was confusing and exhausting. But
my friend was in greater danger than I, and through my fear

I felt a vague resentment that he should deem me capable
of deserting him under such circumstances. But then I
remembered, nobody bothers, and nobody cares, so
naturally Pooh would think nobody would stay to help.

“I’m coming down,” I said.

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177

“No!” cried Edward. “Get help closing the slab. You
can’t understand! It’s too late—and my own fault. Put back
the slab and run—there’s nothing else you or anyone can do
now!”

I asked him if he wanted me to recite a poem entitled

“POEM” to comfort him, but he simply cried out in fear.

Then silence.

After a while there was a further clicking in the receiver,
and I strained my ears to listen. Again I called down, “Pooh,
are you there?”, and in answer heard the thing which has
brought this cloud over my mind. I do not try, Christopher

Robin, to account for that thing—that voice—nor can I
venture to describe it in detail, since the first words took
away my consciousness and created a mental blank which
reaches to the time of my awakening in the hospital. Shall I
say that the voice was deep; hollow; gelatinous; remote;
unearthly; disembodied, fuzzy? What shall I say? It was the
end of my experience and is the end of my story. I heard it,
and knew no more. Heard it as I sat petrified in that
unknown cemetery in the hollow, amidst the crumbling
stones and the falling tombs, the rank vegetation and the
miasmal vapours. Heard it well up from the innermost
depths of that damnable open sepulchre as I watched
amorphous, necrophagous shadows dance beneath an
accursed waning moon. And this is what it said:

“YOU FOOL, POOH IS DEAD!”

Silence

“Kanga?” I asked.

Silence.

“Is this Kanga?” I repeated.

“No,” rasped the hideous, unearthly voice.

“Roo?”

“No.”

“Rabbit?”

“NO!”

“Kanga?”

“YOU ALREADY ASKED THAT!”

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178
“Well, then,” I answered. “Is this Pooh?”

The voice at the other end sighed, and then said, “YOU

FOOL! I ALREADY TOLD YOU - POOH IS DEAD!”

“Bad enough I’m miserable in this ancient graveyard in
the Floody Place. If you’re going to be gloomy, too…”

With that the twine went slack. I waited for a few
moments, but nobody came out of the hole.

The thing that bothered me most was that Pooh took
the lantern with him. So I had to wander back through the
graveyard and out of the Floody Place in the dark, falling
down several times.

When I got to Piglet’s house, I knocked on the tree.

“Help, help!” cried Piglet. “A Huffalump! A Horrible

Heffalump! A Hoffible Herralump! A Herrible Hoffalump.

The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young! A

Youngalump!”

“No,” I said, “Just me.”

“That’s exactly what a Youngalump would say!” he cried
from behind the door.

“It’s Eeyore,” I said.

He considered a moment. “A Youngalump probably
would not say that.”

“True,” I said, “I doubt they’d want to be me.”

Piglet opened the door.

“What is it, Eeyore?”

“Pooh is dead. In the graveyard in the Floody Place.”

“Oh, dear!” said Piglet. “Oh, dear, oh dearie, dearie dear!

Pooh dead?”

“Well dead or transmorphed into some unspeakable
monster.”

“What kind of monster could he be?” asked Piglet in
shock and surprise.

“I don’t know,” I said, “It’s unspeakable. So I can’t speak
about it.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” said Piglet sadly.

“Can you help me push the slab back in place?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I am big enough or strong enough to

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179
move a slab,” fretted Piglet.

“You’re probably right,” I said. “Why bother?”

So I left him, went back to my gloomy place, and I guess
he went and got you, Detective Robin, But as I already told
you, your inquisition is fruitless. I saw what I saw, and it was
all miserable. If you tell me that you went to the Floody

Place and there was no graveyard there, well then, the

Heffalumps got him. Nobody ever bothers.

Now, what is for lunch?

180
ACREWOOD
BY JUDE REID

"Just fucking admit it, Jo, you’ve taken us the wrong
way."

Jo lifted her mobile from the dashboard and switched on
the screen, filling the car's dark interior with its harsh blue
glow. The satnav app was onscreen, the tiny blue dot of
their vehicle making its unsteady way down the single-lane
farm track. "I can put the postcode in again if you like. Shall

I do that?" she offered, keeping her voice down.

In the back, Christopher was sleeping, his cheek flushed
where it pressed against the headrest of the car seat, twin
trails of snot glistening on his upper lip. He had refused to
nap for most of the journey, only to succumb to sleep,
fractious and tearful, two hours after his usual bedtime.

She supposed that was her fault too.

Richard shrugged; his eyes fixed on the road. He was
driving so slowly that Jo could hear each individual spatter
of mud as it hit the side of the Audi, underscored by the
steady rumble of the tyres. "I don't know," he said. "Did you
get it right the first time?"

She opened her email again and searched for the

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181
booking confirmation.

Acrewood.

At the top of the phone screen a single bar wavered in
and out of existence, exactly as it had been doing since they
had passed through Black Heath an hour before. She tapped
the top email, opened it, and checked the postcode for the
fourth time that journey.

"I don't think I've got it wrong. But if you want I can
phone them to check…"

Something moved in the Audi’s headlights, and she
lurched forward into her seatbelt as Richard slammed on the
brakes. For a soul-shattering second they were skidding
towards the side of the road, then the car juddered to a halt.

"Shit!" Richard's hands were tight on the steering wheel,
his knuckles blanched.

"What happened?" Jo turned to check on Christopher,
but he hadn't stirred other than to turn his head, displaying
the cross-hatched print from the car seat on his right cheek.

"Something ran in front of the car." Richard's voice was
unsteady, and he was breathing heavily.

"A rabbit, maybe?"

"Bigger than that."

"Did you hit it?"

He turned to glare at her, a rusty coloured flush
spreading up his cheeks. "How the hell do you expect me to
know that?"

There was a soft grumbling noise from the back, and Jo
reached a hand to stroke Christopher's foot. "You sleep,
sweetheart." Then, to Richard. "Was it a dog?"

"I already told you I don't know." He took one hand
from the steering wheel, ran it though his hair, then put the
car in reverse. "You know what, Jo? Fuck this. I'm taking us
back to London. Stupid fucking idea from the start."

"Wait." She opened the door and undid her seatbelt, her
heart thudding.

"What are you doing?"

"If it was a dog you hit, we need to check. It might

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182
belong to a farmer; we'd need to report it."

"It's not like it's a kid, Jo. You can’t get done for a hit
and-run if it’s a dog."

"We’re in the country, Richard. They do things
differently here."

She swung her legs out of the car and stepped down. The
crust broke under her weight, and instantly cold water
soaked through the canvas of her shoes and her thin cotton
socks, probing its away between her toes. She took a sharp
breath, pulled her foot free of the mud and stepped towards
the harsh beams of the headlights.

There was something at the side of the road, almost the
same shade of brown as the mud it lay on. It could easily
have been a tree stump or a bundle of leaves, but as she took
another step it moved and made a soft, high-pitched wail.

Richard was leaning out of his window. "There's nothing
there, right?"

She shot a glance back towards him. "You hit something,

Richard. I don't know exactly what…"

"What is it? A dog?"

"I said I don’t know."

"There’s no need to be like that about it."

Whatever it was made another breathy moan, a half
familiar sound that closed a fist around her stomach and
squeezed. Richard's door opened. "Is that it making the
noise? Fuck's sake, Jo, what is it?" His voice was taking on
a strangled tone. "It's not a kid, is it?"

She pushed a handful of branches to one side, the wet
leaves clinging to her skin, thorns catching on the fabric of
her jacket. "I said I don't know."

The shape on the ground was moving, struggling weakly
to push itself away from her, each heavy drawing another
desperate gasp from its throat. The light glinted off
something wet, and she caught a glimpse of a wildly rolling
eye and a flash of muddy pink skin.

Recognition followed a second later, hand in hand with
relief. It wasn't a child.

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183
"It's a piglet, Richard."

She had no real idea of how big a pig should be, but this
one seemed small, the sort you might see in a child's picture
book or in a petting zoo. As she watched, its feeble
movements started to gain coordination and power, shaking
its head as though it were trying to wake itself up. It pushed
itself onto three legs, took a tottering step forward then fell
back to the ground. There was no blood that she could see,
but its left rear leg was hanging like a broken stick, with an
extra joint between hip and ankle.

"Hurry up, Jo."

"We can't leave it here." The piglet's eye was fixed on
her, wide with fear.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean it belongs to someone." Jo shot a wild look
around herself. Nothing but empty fields and blackthorn
hedges, the track winding into the darkness ahead, and a
sign by a fork in the road she had almost missed.

"Look. Acrewood Farm! The pig must have got out, we
can take it back to them when we check in."

"You're kidding me. You're not putting a pig in the car.

Just leave it, we can tell the farmer and they can come and
get it…"

"I'm not leaving it." The longer she looked, the smaller
and more vulnerable the piglet seemed. "What if another car
comes? It could be killed!"

"Fuck's sake, Jo." The familiar note of exasperation had
entered Richard's voice. "One, we haven't seen a car in
twenty miles. The chance of there being another one in the
space of time it takes for the farmer to come and pick it up
is close to zero. Two, it's a pig. it's livestock, tomorrow's
sausages. The first thing the farmer's probably going to do
is cut its throat and save himself the bother of the vet.

There's no point in getting sentimental about it."

Jo checked her phone, but the wavering signal bar was
gone. Richard was right, of course, the quickest way to sort
all of this out was to get back in the car and head straight

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184
for the farm. Someone could be down in a few minutes, and
the three of them could be settling down in their holiday
cottage. She could be drying her feet in front of a log
burning stove.

It whimpered again, the sound so like the noises Chris
made in his sleep, that a bewildering stab of love caught her
just beneath the breastbone. She squelched back to the car,
but instead of getting in, reached over and tugged

Christopher's blanket gently free from where it had tangled
around his leg.

"What are you…"

"Farm's straight ahead." She leaned through the open
passenger door and handed Richard her phone. "The
number's in the email from Airbnb and the postcode's in
the satnav, okay? I'll see you there, I won't take long."

Richard opened his mouth, and she slammed the door
and returned to the injured piglet. "All right, tiny," she said
softly, and tucked the blanket clumsily around it, doing her
best to capture the flailing limbs. When she touched the
broken hindleg it screamed, shrill and uncannily human,
then went rigid beneath her hands. "Sorry." She gathered it
into her arms like she would have lifted a sleeping baby,
supporting the slight weight against her chest and propping
it beneath its rounded bottom. To her surprise, it didn't
struggle, not even when she began to lurch and stumble
along the lane towards the farm.

The car still hadn't moved, but the engine note changed,
and as she turned, she saw it creeping forward, drawing
alongside and then past her, Richard staring hard-faced over
the steering wheel. Christopher had woken up, and was
pressing a white hand to the window, his eyes dark and
blurred with sleep. She could smell him on the blanket, baby
wipes, sour milk, the indefinable salt-sharpness of the scalp
beneath his downy fair hair that had been present from the
moment he was born; all of it mixed with the reek of the
animal wrapped against her.

Richard had been right, she thought again. She was being

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stupid and sentimental. Her place was with her family, not
trudging up a cold country lane close to midnight. A faint
drizzle was hanging in the air, glistening on the thick
blackthorn hedgerows, the late autumn haws and hips, the
air so thick with the smell of manure that it burned the back
of her throat. The piglet was a dead weight in her arms, so
still that she had to check more than once if it was still
breathing. That would be the icing on the cake; explaining
to an irate farmer exactly why she was on his doorstep after
midnight with a dead animal in her arms. How much did a
pig cost, anyway? Maybe they should just offer to pay for it,
though no doubt Richard would complain yet again about
how the whole trip had been a stupid idea, another excuse
for her to piss money away like water.

It had been expensive, that she would admit. When she
had first mentioned a trip away, Richard had waived all of
his right to involvement with a casual "Sure, you sort it all
out", and in a rare moment of pathetic defiance she had
taken him at his word. Besides, it wasn't like they didn't have
money to spare, but Richard's disapproval had become a
constant accompaniment to any spending she did. Taking
out a joint account had made so much sense when she
stopped work after Christopher was born -- Richard's salary
meant she wasn't even eligible for child benefit -- but even
four years on she couldn't quite shift the sense of
awkwardness that came from having all her financial
transactions under continual review. It wasn’t like Richard
was particularly frugal either, but somehow his expensive
gym membership, supplements and pre-packaged kale
smoothies all came under the heading of essential
expenditure in a way that her occasional coffee-and-cake
habit didn’t.

It wasn't like she'd spend the money without his input,
though. The trip had been her idea, and after he'd failed to
provide any suggestion of where he'd like to go, she'd gone
ahead and booked the first reasonable looking Airbnb she'd

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found. A sweet little cottage in rural East Sussex,
somewhere they could let Christopher roam muddy and
wild, somewhere with an open fire where they could sit
together after bedtime and watch the stars come out over
the fields together. Somewhere they could reconnect. She
knew Richard well enough not to expect enthusiasm, but at
least he had agreed to come.

Tonight wasn't exactly the best of starts, though.

A cold trickle of water snaked its way down the collar of
her flimsy cotton jacket, and a shiver crossed her skin. It was
still mild for October, but all of the day's heat had faded
from the air, and the soft mist rising from the fields held the
promise of the coming frost. The Audi's tail lights had faded
into nothingness, and the utter stillness of the countryside
pressed in on her. She might have been the only living thing
for a hundred miles.

Except for the piglet, of course. She heaved its weight
from one shoulder to the other and tried to pick up her pace,
but the chewed-up mud underfoot meant each step sent her
slithering back half the distance she had managed to cover.

Surely the farmhouse couldn't be much further now?

It took another ten minutes of uneasy slithering through
the dark before she saw light again. The mist had settled low
on the fields, clearing the sky, and lighting the countryside
in the silver glow of a gibbous moon. She had imagined the
land around her flat and smooth as a patchwork quilt, but
instead a hill rose up to her left, densely covered in trees, the
low, squat buildings of what had to be a farm huddled in
close at its base.

"There you go. Nearly home."

The piglet stirred at the sound of her voice, snuffled, and
nestled its head under her chin. It was curious how human
the little creature was, how already she was imbuing it with
a personality. Tomorrow's Sausages, Richard had called it. If
they hadn't hit it with the car, maybe it would have made its
triumphant escape to live wild and free — or, more likely,

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187
splattered under the wheels of a sixteen-wheeler if it made
it as far as an A road.

"You'd have been better to head for the woods," she told
it. "Lots of good foraging up there. You could be a proper
wild pig. Next time you go there, okay?"

As if there would be a next time.

Light moved in the corner of her eye. She looked up and
saw glowing specks flickering in and out of the tree line on
the horizon, golden and glowing in stark contrast to the
moon-silvered landscape. Four — maybe five — lights were
dancing between the trees, too far away for her to make out
any kind of pattern to their movement. The faint sound of
voices drifted down towards her on the still night air, the
distance lending whatever folksong they were singing an
eerie, echoing quality that put her in mind of medieval
monks.

"Maybe they're out looking for you?" she said, without
really believing it. It didn’t look like a particularly efficient
way of searching for a lost piglet.

A branch snapped behind her. She turned, searching the
empty road, but the darkness was too deep to make out any
movement. The rustling of branches grew louder, and she
had the sense that something large was pushing its way
through the undergrowth, something that smelled of wet
fur, raw meat, and a dank, heavy musk. Her breathing
quickened, and she broke into an uneasy jog, trying to force
down panic. They were in the countryside. Of course there
were animals. If she looked back, she would probably see a
cow on the other side of the hedgerow, staring back at her
in complete confusion.

"Or a pig, right?" she told the squirming bundle in her
arms.

It hadn’t smelled like a pig.

By the time she reached the next sign, the woods were
dark, and the fields were silent again. A laminated sign
pinned to a stone wall read ‘Airbnb this way’ with an arrow
pointing to the right; she walked left instead, into a wide

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stone courtyard bounded on two sides by corrugated iron
barns, with an older looking stone built farmhouse at the far
end. A glaring white security light burst into life, sending
wild green after-images dancing in front of her eyes.

Something huge and heavy clattered against the corrugated
iron of the barn, and the piglet lifted its head, answering the
noise with a grunt of its own.

"Cottage is that way," a man said, and she started so
violently she almost dropped the piglet. The harsh light cast
the courtyard into a violent chiaroscuro, hiding the man's
bulk in a pool of shadows so deep that anything might have
been hidden in the recesses.

"I know. I'm sorry, I…" She tried to gesture with her
chin at the bundle in her arms, then held it out at arm’s
length as if she was offering a gift. "We found this, I thought

I should bring it …

"

The man stepped out of the shadows. In the harsh light
he was unnaturally tall, an ogre from a fairy tale with a thick
full beard, long hair held back in a wiry ponytail that
vanished behind his broad shoulders. "Where did you find
it?"

His voice was so low that she felt the vibrations in her
chest, sending a thrill of fear through her. She stepped back,
holding the piglet out like a talisman, her arms shaking
under its weight.

"On the main road, just at the turn off for the farm." She
took a deep breath. No point in hiding the truth. "It ran out
in front of the car and my husband hit it before we could
stop. I think one of its back legs is broken."

The man covered the distance between them
unexpectedly quickly for a man of his size, taking the pig
from her outstretched arms and holding it up to the light.

The blanket was still caught around it, forming a bridge
between her hand and his, then it came loose, the corner
falling into the muddy ground.

"I'm so sorry."

The man's attention was fixed on the piglet, rotating the

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tiny, unresisting body to inspect every inch of its skin.

"I'm happy to pay for the vet's bill -- or anything else
you'd consider necessary?" she was babbling now, as if
filling the farmyard with her own chatter could make up for
the man's silent concentration. Heat rushed to her face, and
she bent down to retrieve the blanket, which was wet and
heavy with pig shit. Maybe the farmer was checking the
piglet for injuries, maybe that was the reason for his curious
focus.

"I think its leg is broken," she repeated, "I'm not an
expert but I think it's fairly obvious."

"It's fine," the man said. He tucked the pig under his arm
like a rugby ball. The creature didn't struggle, but it kept one
gleaming eye fixed on Jo. "These things happen."

Relief washed over her. "Like I said, I'm happy to pay…"

"No need." The farmer was watching her now, his eyes
glittering black in the harsh security light. A shiver traced a
line down her back. "I think your family's already up in the

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cottage. Man driving an Audi, little boy in the back?"

"Pig shaped dent in the bonnet?" She risked a smile, but
the farmer's expression was unreadable. "Sorry. Yes, that's
us." She wiped her hands on her jeans before offering her
right hand to shake. "Jo Robbins."

He inspected her hand for a moment before swallowing
it with his own. The back of his hand was covered in a thick
layer of wiry brown hair, so dense that she could almost
imagine it was a paw instead of a human hand.

"I remember. From the booking." The huge head tilted
to one side. "You been to Acrewood before?"

She shook her head. "One summer, I think. When I was
little. I don't really remember."

"Thought as much." The farmer nodded, as if he had
reached a sudden understanding. "You need anything, you
let me know. All right?"

"Yes, of course, thank you so…"

And he was gone, a heavy, slope-shouldered outline
vanishing back into the shadows, the piglet under his arm
like a hunting trophy.

The cottage was another two hundred yards at the end
of a winding lane, the door half-hidden by a thick climbing
rose, heavy with flowers even this late in the year. The Audi
was parked just beside it, the engine still gently steaming into
the night. Golden light traced a thin seam around the
curtains, and when she tried the door it opened smoothly.

She stepped inside, past Richard and Christopher's
haphazardly discarded shoes, past the sports bag and jacket,
into a tiny sitting room. A television, settee and beanbag
were cramped uncomfortably close together under the
watchful oversight of a mass-produced sign detailing exactly
what wholesome activities were done in this particular
house, all crisp, modern and entirely devoid of personality.

"Richard?" She went back into the hall, following the
sound of the shower up a precarious set of stairs to the
upper floor; two bedrooms, shower room, drying cupboard.

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The first bedroom was empty, but in the second she found

Christopher, still fully clothed, lying on top of the bed. She
kissed his head, wrangled him out of his coat and decided
the rest could wait until morning.

"Richard?" The bathroom door was open. She glanced
down at her clothes, at the thick animal-smelling muck
coating her chest and waist. She'd be lucky if her jacket was
ever clean again. Already her trudge through the darkness
was taking on a strange, dreamlike quality, as if the accident,
the piglet, the farmer were all figments of her imagination.

The hiss of the shower stopped.

"I'm back," she said. "I sorted it with the farmer. He
didn't seem to mind too much."

"Great." Richard emerged from the bathroom steaming
and red-faced, a towel wrapped around his waist. "He
probably makes enough from renting this place out to cover
a few extra pigs. Can you get the food in from the car?"

"Sure." It was too much to hope that he'd have done it
already. Besides, he'd carried Christopher in, got him settled.

It wouldn't take her long.

Jo turned to retrace her steps outside, wiping her hands
again on her ruined jacket. As soon as the food was in the
kitchen she'd shower; get rid of the pungent animal reek that
seemed to have worked its way into her skin. Her right hand
felt oddly sticky compared to the left, and when she held it
up to the light she could just make out a faint waxy gleam
on her palm. There was a different smell there, too, almost
sweet, that took her a moment to identify.

Honey. The farmer's hand had left a faint but
unmistakable trace of honey on her skin.

She had thought Christopher might sleep late after the
exhaustion of the trip, but by five thirty she was on the living
room sofa wrapped around a cup of tea, watching him flick
through a selection of cartoons on his tablet. Richard was
still asleep, his snoring only briefly interrupted by the
bedside apparition. Jo smothered her irritation with another

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192
mouthful of tea.

"Shall we go exploring outside?"

Christopher didn't look up. "It's still dark."

"Only for a little bit. We can go for a walk and see if we
can spot any animals if you like."

He frowned. On the screen, a pair of bobble-headed
animals were deep in animated conversation, their oversized
features streaked with concern. "What happened to the
piggy?"

Her stomach sank. He had seen everything, then. "The
piggy last night?"

"The one daddy hit with the car."

She nodded, trying to work out what to say. "It hurt its
leg, but I gave it back to the farmer to look after."

The cartoon animals had moved on from their heated
discussion, and one of them was piloting a brightly coloured
submarine through tropical waters. "And will he look after
it?"

Thoughts of bolt guns and carving knives flashed into
her head. "I'm sure he will."

"Good." Christopher put his tablet down. "Can we go
see?"

If it had been autumn the night before, it was winter by
the time they reached the farmyard. Christopher was
bundled up in so many layers that his arms stuck out at right
angles, but his nose and cheeks still glowed bright pink from
the bite of the air. Jo had stuffed an extra sweater on under
her flimsy cotton jacket -- still streaked with the pig shit of
the night before, despite all of her efforts at the sink -- but
her fingers and toes were nipping in a way that promised an
agony of rewarming later in the shower. She hadn't thought
to pack gloves, and her usual sports socks clearly were not
up to the task of retaining the slightest degree of body heat.

But the chill was part of the charm, wasn't it? London was
never properly cold, not like this, anyway. There were too
many people, too many buildings spewing hot carbon

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193
dioxide into the atmosphere. Already they had taken a step
closer to nature. A step closer to their roots.

There was no sign of the farmer from the night before,
but as they headed into the courtyard, she caught sight of a
pair of men working beside a tractor, knitted hats pulled
down low over sharp, weathered faces. She reached down
for Christopher's hand and pulled him closer to her leg, not
quite sure why. One of the men looked up.

"Help you with something?" His accent was the same as
the farmer's, soft and rich, roughened, she assumed, by the
same roll-ups that had stained his fingers sulphur yellow.

"Sorry to disturb you."

Christopher’s hand squirmed in hers, and she moved her
grip to his wrist. "I wondered if …" She swallowed, ran her
tongue over dry lips. "I was here last night. I brought back
a piglet that had been injured on the road. The man I spoke
to
…
"

She stopped. She had given the man her name but hadn't
thought to ask his. Last night it hadn't seemed relevant. He
could have been a complete stranger to the place — except
that couldn’t be right, because he'd known about the Airbnb
booking and had handled the pig with the ease of a lifetime.

"He was quite big? Long hair and a beard. I wondered if

I could have a quick word with him. just to see how the
animal's getting on."

The man grunted, then flicked his head to the far side of
the courtyard. "That way." His gaze moved up and down
her inadequately clothed body, and her toes curled, feeling
curiously exposed.

"Thank you. We won't take long."

"Watch your step."

Jo tucked her free hand into her jacket pocket, and
guided Christopher past the worst of the mud. The air was
sharp with ammonia despite the cold weather. In summer it
must be unbearable.

The courtyard dog-legged to the left, and the farmer she

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had seen the night before was hunched over by an animal
pen. As they approached, he straightened, and she was
struck again by the sheer size of the man, as if he was built
to a different scale than the rest of the world.

The farmer was big, but not in the way that Richard was
big. Richard was tall and broad, his perfect musculature
sculpted by the hours he spent working out, helped no
doubt by his expensive supplements and diet of endless lean
protein. This man would have looked staggeringly out of
place in the sort of city gym that Richard preferred, but he
also looked like he could have lifted a tractor one handed.

Richard could talk all he wanted about the benefits of
functional fitness, but this man was the real thing.

"Hello again," she began. Even in daylight his eyes were
almost black, only the faintest hint of colour tipping them
into a deep, rich brown. They made a curious striking
contrast to his thick golden hair and beard.

He nodded. Christopher pressed closer to her leg.

"My little boy was wondering how the piglet is this
morning."

“Was he now?”

A surge of warmth spread from her chest to cover her
cheeks. What had she been thinking, bringing Christopher
here? This wasn't a petting zoo; it was a working farm. The
piglet was probably already dead, hanging to wait for the
butcher, skewered on a spit to roast or tossed onto a midden
heap. "Though if I'm disturbing you…"

"See for yourself." The farmer took a step sideways, and
light fell on a low fence bounding a small animal pen. A
small pink shape was moving inside on three legs, the fourth
splinted with a plastic rod secured with elastic bandages and
gaffer tape. It was rooting delightedly at a pile of vegetable
scraps with its wrinkled pink snout.

"Doing fine."

Christopher edged closer. The piglet started at the
movement, gulped down another mouthful of carrot
peelings and trotted towards the fence.

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195

"Keep your fingers away from the wire," Jo said.

The farmer smiled, and webs of laughter lines creased
out from his dark eyes. He might have been any age from
twenty-five to fifty, weathered and worn, but his eyes were
still sharp as a newly whetted knife. The backs of his hands
were covered in a thatch of yellow hair, and his left little
finger was missing, ending in a neat stump at the first joint.

When he saw her attention had landed on it, he folded his
hand into a fist and tucked it into his coat pocket. "'S all
right. Might give you a suck, but it won't bite."

"It won't?"

"Not till its teeth come in. You’ve got a week or
thereabouts yet."

Christopher shot her a questioning look, and she
nodded. "Gentle." The same curious smell of honey that she
had noticed the night before was back, not unpleasant,
exactly, but incongruous. "Will the leg heal, do you think?"

"Reckon so. Clean break. Skin’s not broken."

"Will he still…" She faltered, suddenly unsure what she
was asking, and whether she wanted to know the little
animal's fate. The piglet was poking its snout through the
wires of the pen, eyes half-closed in apparent ecstasy as

Christopher tickled beneath its chin, apparently heedless of
the mud and the cold.

"Still?" The big man left the question hanging.

Jo flapped a useless hand. "I don't know. I mean, will he
go back in with the rest?"

Another shake of the huge head. "The rest'd tear it to
bits and eat it, most like."

"Even its mother?"

"'Specially the mother." The farmer's smile faded.

"Might keep it for farrowing. Now it's no use for…" It was
his turn to fall abruptly silent. Of course, a damaged animal
couldn't be sold for meat, Jo thought. Maybe Richard had
done the piglet a favour after all. Behind him, in the
farmhouse, a curtain twitched, and she caught a glimpse of
a wrinkled face — an old woman’s, she thought. She’d

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196
intruded on them for far too long.

"Well, we should be going." She fixed a smile on her face
and put a hand on Christopher's shoulder. "Come on, Chris,
let's let the piggy get on with his dinner."

"But I want to stay." He shot her a plaintive look.

"We can come back later. If that's all right?"

The farmer's head cocked on one side. "If you like. Long
as there's someone in the yard."

"There you are then!" She tugged Christopher upright.

"Thank you so much, Mr...?"

"Sanders." He offered his hand, and she took it, her
fingers instantly swallowed up in the wide, calloused paw.

A thought struck her. "Mr Sanders, when I was walking
up to the farm last night, I noticed lights in the wood. Was
there a.. I don’t know. A walk or something? Like a village
event?"

The man's expression closed off like the slamming of a
door. "No. Nothing you need to know about."

She dragged Christopher down the lane with difficulty,
retracing her steps of the night before, but neither of them
could muster much enthusiasm for empty fields under grey
skies. Whatever crops grew here the rest of the year had
been hacked back to stubble, and the grunts and whines of
the inhabitants of the pigsty providing a constant, eerie
accompaniment to their footsteps.

"Shall we go back to the cottage and see what Daddy's
up to?" Jo forced enthusiasm into her voice. She knew what

Richard would be up to without needing to check: watching
football, or reading his men’s’ health magazine, no doubt
lamenting the lost hours of muscle-building that this trip
was costing him.

Christopher tilted his head to one side. "Can I go back
and see the piggy?"

"Tomorrow, maybe. He's probably having a rest.

Remember he's got a poor sore leg."

A scowl crossed his face, making him look for a moment

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197
exactly like his father. "Not him. Her."

"What?"

"The piggy. She's a her."

"Sorry. We'll go back and see her tomorrow." By which
time you’ll probably have forgotten all about her.

But she was wrong about that, too.

Richard was watching Chelsea playing Everton on the
cottage's little TV when they returned, a bottled protein
shake opened on the carpet beside his feet. Jo picked it up
and put it on a coaster before Christopher had a chance to
blunder into it and stain the carpet. "How was your walk?"

"Nice. It's cold out there."

"We saw the piggy," Christopher added.

"You saw what?" Richard's attention finally left the
screen.

"The piggy. With the sore leg."

"You took him into the farmyard?" Richard's expression
was wide-eyed, as if no one in their right mind could
possibly have committed such an act of crass stupidity.

"He's five, Jo. It's a working farm, not a kid's playground."

"It was safe." She cast her mind back to the tractor, the
jutting claw of the hay-baler, the press of squealing bodies
in the pigpen, each of them representing a separate and
gruesome death for her son. "He was with me the whole
time."

"You're not to take him back there. Do you hear that,

Christopher? You're not to go back."

"But the piggy..."

"Forget about the piggy!" For one awful moment Jo
thought Richard was about to lash out at Christopher. She
braced herself, ready to throw herself in the way, but the
moment passed, and red-faced, he returned his attention to
the football match. "The sooner we're back in London the
better," he muttered.

"Did Daddy mean it?" Christopher asked that night, as

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198

Jo was tucking him into bed. They had spent a pleasant
enough afternoon together, exploring the gardens around
the cottage, always careful to keep its whitewashed walls and
their creeping roses in sight. "About not going back to see
the piggy?"

"He's just worried for you." She planted a soft kiss on
the top of his head. "Farms are dangerous places. He doesn't
want you to get hurt."

"Piglet wouldn’t hurt me," Christopher said with
absolute certainty. "She's my friend. I miss her."

"We're only here for the weekend, remember?"

Christopher closed his eyes and shook his head. "No,

Mummy. I love her."

"And I love you, tiny piglet." Jo squirmed her fingers into
his armpit and wiggled them, drawing a shriek of delight
from Christopher.

"Can we take her home with us?"

"She wouldn't be happy in a city. Better she stays here
with her piggy friends."

She could tell that he was almost asleep now, the space
stretching out between his words as drowsiness pulled him
down.

"Pigs get eaten. I don't want her to get eaten."

"Neither do I, sweetheart," Jo said, and was surprised to
realise she meant it.

"That's good," Christopher murmured, and then he was
fast asleep. Jo tucked the blanket around them both and lay
there, soaking up the warmth and closeness of him. In a few
minutes she'd go downstairs. Now Richard had had a
chance to calm down, she was sure he would relent on the
pig business, especially if she explained how much it meant
to Christopher. Just a few minutes more.

Jo jolted awake in an empty bed. The moon was shining
into the room between the open curtains, painting
everything in crude shades of black and white like a
photocopy of a photocopy. She reached out to pat the bed

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199
covers, knowing already that Christopher wasn't there.

When he slept next to her it was though he was trying to
climb inside her skin, clammy hands pressed to her face, legs
thrown across her torso at right angles. It wasn't uncommon
for him to wander in the night, either, though it was less
sleepwalking and more restlessness that would take him
between one bed and another despite all of Richard's efforts
to bribe him into staying put. Most likely the day's
excitement and the new surroundings had left him
disorientated, and he had taken himself through to tuck
himself up next to his sleeping father.

She was still wearing her clothes, one sock half escaped
like a long and flapping tentacle that threatened to trip her;
she tugged it free and padded softly across the parquet
flooring into the hall. The other bedroom door was open.

She paused on the threshold and listened for the softer
sounds of Christopher’s breathing, but it was impossible to
hear over Richard’s rasping snore.

"Is he in with you?" she whispered.

Richard grunted and rolled over, so that he was sprawled
face-down by the far edge of the bed. She studied the
pattern of folds and troughs in the space he had left, looking
for a small body curled beside the pillows or at the foot of
the bed, but Christopher’s shape refused to resolve out of
the darkness. A shiver passed across her skin, goose-over
grave.

"Christopher?"

Richard sat up abruptly. "What is it?" He fumbled for
the bedside lamp and clicked the switch, flooding the room
with harsh yellow light. "Fuck’s sake, Jo, it’s the middle of
the night."

"Christopher. Is he in with you?"

It was Richard’s turn to blink. The lamplight played over
the peaks and troughs of his perfect physique as he patted
down the empty sheets, searching as if Christopher could
somehow be concealed in a tiny fold of blanket. "He was
with you, Jo."

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200

Jo shook her head. "He’s not now."

"If he’s downstairs on that fucking pad…"

But he wasn’t. Jo knew that before she flicked the light
on in the living room, before she saw that his wellingtons
were missing from the little pile of shoes in the porch,
before she saw the front door sitting open, before she was
consciously aware of the freezing night air on her face.

Christopher wasn’t in the garden, either. Richard insisted
on searching the rose garden with the pathetic light of his
phone-torch while Jo searched the front of the house. It was
four in the morning, and the moon was hanging full and
heavy, like a clock-face marking out the wasted seconds.

"He isn’t there."

"Okay." Jo swallowed. "We need to think. Where could
he have gone?"

"I don’t know. Who knows what goes on the little
fucker’s head?" Richard ran a hand through his hair. "Right,
that’s it. I’m phoning the police."

A sudden vision of Christopher, lit up in the red-and
blue lights of an oncoming police car, flooded her mind's
eye. "What if he’s wandered down to the road?"

"Why would he do that?"

"I don’t know."

Richard was prodding at his phone screen. "Fucking
thing."

"Isn’t it working?"

"No, it isn’t. There’s no signal in this fucking dump!"

She stepped back on reflex, wondering if he was going
to throw the phone at her, but instead he took a deep,
controlled breath and put it back in his pocket. The trellis
pricked her back, and she felt a wave of unease pass over
her before her brain consciously registered what her nose
had detected. Unmistakable and rank, mixed with the scent
of the last of the roses, was the same bloody animal musk
she had smelled that first night in the woods.

"Look. We should split up." She forced calm into her

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201
voice. "You go down to the road, I’ll go to the farmyard.

Maybe he’s gone back to see the piglet. If either of us get a
signal, we phone the police straight away. When you find
him, phone me. Okay?"

"Fine."

She waited until Richard’s silhouette was lost in the night
before she checked the ground beneath her feet. Her own
footprints had rendered any tracks indistinct, but she had a
sense that the ground had been disturbed before her arrival.

There had been something here. Something that had left a
mark on the cottage’s white wall, something halfway
between a paw and a handprint, four times the size of her
own.

The farmyard was dark when she arrived. She paused on
the threshold, tuning her ears to the grunts of the pigs,
trying to make out any sound that could possibly have been
him.

"Christopher?"

She took a hesitant step forward and was instantly
dazzled by a sudden burst of light as the yard’s motion
activated sensors registered her presence. It was enough to
unsettle the pigs, who set up a furious squealing and
clattering as she passed the sty. She caught a glimpse of a
massive fleshy face, a dark eye glaring at her through a gap
in the slats, and hurried past towards the little pen in the
corner of the yard.

"Christopher? Are you there?"

Pain lanced across her kneecap in a white-hot band,
sharp enough to take her breath away.

"Fuck!"

She reached down, already expecting to bring her hands
up slick with blood, but her trouser leg was intact and the
skin beneath unbroken, though it was already rising into a
broad, tender weal. As her eyes acclimated to the darkness,
she saw the low metal gate she had walked into, the chicken
wire pinned around its edges, the bolt drawn back on the

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202
free side. The piglet's pen was open, and empty.

"Christopher, please!"

For the first time, panic rose up in her throat. She had
been so sure she would find him here, so convinced he
would be nestled in beside the piglet as though she were a
stuffed toy and not a living animal, that she had already
rehearsed the scolding she would give him, the reproachful
silence on their hand-held walk back to the house. She
kicked half-heartedly at the piles of straw, but they were no
more capable of concealing a sleeping child than the
bedclothes had been.

Tears burned her eyes. She wiped at them and choked
back a sob. Her phone was still out of range, but she dialed

999 anyway, watching the screen as it refused to connect.

No network. Nothing at all.

The last vestiges of her fragile composure snapped, and
she was at the farmhouse door, hammering on it with both
fists until the echoes shook the farmyard. The pigs were
shrieking now, hungry, or fearful or both, and she joined
her voice with theirs. "Open up! My son’s missing, I need
your help to find him, please!"

There was no light inside, no footsteps, no frustrated
words from the disturbed household. The farmhouse might
have been a mausoleum for all the response she got. She
hammered her bruised fists against the peeling wood one
final time, then let them fall helplessly to her sides.

Christopher was out there in the dark somewhere, and the
world stretched out around her, vast and dark.

And then she heard him. The words were faint; she
could hardly make it out at all, but she knew the voice was

Christopher’s in a way that had nothing to do with rational
thought. It was carried on the still night air, high and fluting,
singing a tuneless melody that she only vaguely recognised
as belonging to one of his bobble-headed cartoon shows.

"Christopher!" The name came out as a scream, and she
tasted blood in the back of her throat. "Where are you?"

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203

The song stopped, and for a second the world dropped
out from under her. No, he couldn’t go silent now. Fate, or
whatever the hell was directing this particular nocturnal
shitshow, couldn’t be as cruel as to dangle hope in front of
her only to tear it away again. She strained her ears into the
darkness, and the song started again. This time, instead of
calling and hoping for a reply, she focused on identifying
which direction the voice was coming from. Not back at the
house, or down at the road. Christopher’s voice was echoing
down from the woods, just like the voices of the singers had
done on the night she arrived. Had it really only been the
night before? Time had lost meaning, divided neatly into
before and after, sliced in half at the moment Christopher had
left the cottage.

She wiped her face, checked her phone again — no bars,
which meant no chance of calling Richard — and drew a
deep, shaky breath. She had forgotten to put on her jacket,
and the night cold was biting at her skin, but none of that
mattered. Christopher was in the woods. She could hear
him, which meant that when she got there, he would be able
to hear her. He was bound to leave tracks, and besides, the
woods were small, the sort of area you could cover in under
an hour. At the pace he walked, he might not even be deep
inside.

The events of the evening fell into place with sudden
clarity. Christopher had wandered down here to see his
piglet, had opened the door to the pen and the creature had
run out, heading for the woods as if it was following the
advice she had given it. Off to the woods to be a wild pig. Then
of course Christopher had followed it and lost himself up
there. He didn't sound scared. Probably all of this was
another game to him, while every second he was missing
was taking years of her life.

The only question was how to reach the woods. The lane
to the cottage was a dead end, and there was no route off
the B road they had taken the night before, at least none that
she could remember, which left traipsing through the

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204
farmyard as the next obvious route. Ignoring the voice in
the back of her head that told her she was trespassing, that
an angry farmer would burst out of the farmhouse behind
her, she walked through the archway at the back of the yard,
and onto a narrow trail between two fields.

She looked up at the woods. A light flickered between
two trees. Christopher’s song had changed to a soft, tuneless
chant.

"This little piggy went to market…"

"Stay where you are, Chris! I’m coming!"

She fixed her eyes on the tree line and broke into a run.

The path to the woodland was steep, and her T shirt was
clinging to her skin with sweat by the time she arrived, but

Christopher’s singing was getting louder and that was all
that mattered. The boundary between field and forest was
sharp and sudden, demarcated by a low fence topped with
a snarl of barbed wire. The path ended in a locked gate, with
a grubby red and white plastic sign that informed the world
that the wood was private ground, and that no entry was
allowed. A second sign had been made out of a pair of
broken planks and nailed to an adjacent tree; jagged childlike
letters cut into its surface.

Akre Wood.

A cool night breeze caressed her skin, and she shivered.

Something about the letters on the sign made her skin crawl,
and she stiffened her shoulders and climbed over the
creaking gate. She was being ridiculous. In less than an hour
he could be safely in the car, cartoons playing on his pad
while she and Richard packed up the last of their things
ready to head back to London, leaving Acrewood and all of
the demons of her imagination firmly in East Sussex where
they belonged. This would be a story to tell over coffee at
playgroup, to the mixed horror and admiration of the other
parents. All she had to do was find him.

The path was narrow and overgrown, and more than
once she thought she had left it entirely, before picking it up

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205
again a few metres on. The wind was drifting around her,
rustling the dead and dying leaves so that the whole wood
was whispering, and the air — the air was full of that same
rank-sweet musk of whatever had left prints in the
flowerbed.

A wave of adrenaline rushed over her, and she picked up
her pace, almost falling as her foot snagged on a low-lying
bramble. She lurched forward, bracing herself with one
hand against a tree to recover her balance. When she
managed to untangle her feet and step away her hand was
sticky again from where she had touched the bark. Could
the sweet honey smell be coming from some sort of sap?

She played the light from her phone-torch over the tree.

The bark was slick and glistening where a jagged-edged
symbol had been carved into the bark. A crude circle with
five lines radiating upward, like a sun in a picture book if the
rays only pointed in one direction. A sour taste flooded her
mouth, and she shone the light around her. The same
symbol had been carved onto the other trees that lined the
path, like a home-made way marker.

None of this made sense. With a conscious effort of will
she pushed thoughts of symbols and honey away and
focused on finding her son. She could still hear

Christopher’s voice, but the rustling leaves and the close
packed trees made it difficult to tell which direction it was
coming from, and there was only one path, and only one
direction he could be in, wasn’t there? She stopped and
listened, and another voice resolved itself out of the
whispering leaves, low and urgent. There was someone else
in the woods.

Snatches of conversation drifted through the air as she
crept forward, the warm glow of a hooded lantern slowly
resolving itself through a net of tangled branches. The path
opened into a clearing where two figures were standing in
long dark coats, looking like they had stepped out of a film
about medieval monks more than modern people. She was
about to call out and announce herself when the one nearer

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206
her spoke, and she froze in place.

"I’m telling you we can’t let it have the boy."

Jo’s blood ran cold. The speaker had his voice to her,
but the voice belonged to the big man — Sanders — from
the farm. His voice was firm, perfectly controlled, but there
was a tone of frustration to it that made Jo think the
argument had been going for some time. What did he mean,

"let it have the boy"? Surely he couldn’t mean Christopher? She
leaned forward and strained to listen.

The second figure spoke. It was the old woman she had
seen through the dirty farmhouse window, her lined,
leathery face cast into sharp relief in the lantern light.

Compared to the farmer, she was tiny, almost childlike, an
impression that was only enhanced by the grubby floral
pinafore she was wearing, its shape distorted by the bulging
pocket on its front. "And I’m telling you we can’t afford not
to. A piglet’s all very well, but it won’t take that one, not
now it isn’t perfect."

"Another one, then."

"Time we gave it something better than piglets."

A chilly gust of wind rustled through the trees, and Jo
shuddered. What were they talking about?

"One every few months might be enough to keep us
limping on, but this would set us up for years."

Sanders shook his head. His hair was loose about his
shoulders, lying in long, tangled, wiry curls. "And what
happens when they come looking? Five-year-olds don’t just
go missing and that’s the end of it. There’ll be police,
journalists. The sort of attention this place don’t need."

The woman reached a hand and touched the big man’s
shoulder, an affectionate, familiar gesture. "It’s like we used
to do in the old days. We leave the boy up here and that’ll
take care of itself."

"And his parents?"

The woman sighed. "You’ve got a sty full of pigs back
there, Alan. In a couple of hours we can have that cottage
cleaned out and the car taken care of. Folks come round

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207
questioning; we’ll say they never arrived. Won’t be the first
time it’s happened here, won’t be the last."

"I’m not doing it."

"Is it the woman?" An amused note crept into the old
woman’s voice. "We can keep her for farrowing if you like."

"I said no!"

The last word came out as a shout, so loud that even Jo
flinched, but the woman in the woods just laughed. "You
know what happens if we don’t take care of our obligations.

Remember mad cow? Another round of that would finish
us off."

"Maybe that’d be no bad thing."

The old woman shook her head dismissively. "Go on
then. Go and get the boy. Take him out of the woods and
leave it hungry. And see who it comes for next." She left the
lantern at his feet and began walking away from him, her
feet scuffing through the underbrush, directly back towards
the farm.

Jo scanned up and down the path, then shoved her way
between the trees to crouch behind a thick tangle of
brambles to wait for the pair of them to pass. She couldn’t
let them see her. She had to get find Christopher, get him
out of here before — before what? Before something found
him and ate him? Her stomach lurched, the world feeling
suddenly unreal. This couldn’t be happening. It was just a
nightmare — except no nightmare could be this vivid.

The minutes could have been hours. Blood hammered
in her ears, her breathing a harsh rasp so loud it seemed
inevitable that they would hear her, but both of them, the
huge farmer and the tiny woman passed without giving her
a second look. Her mind raced, snippets of the conversation
snagging her thoughts over and over again. Time we gave it
something better than piglets. Leave it hungry and see who it comes for
next. That "it", repeated over and over again.

She tore herself free of the brambles and ran back
towards the path, thorny tendrils tearing at her shins and
ankles. Blood trickled down her shins, but she ignored the

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208
stinging pain, heading into the heart of the wood. Now that
the others were gone she could hear Christopher singing
again, the words interrupted at intervals by soft, wet,
satisfied sounds that made her think he was eating.

"Christopher!" Maybe Saunders and his mother would
hear her, but she couldn’t wait any longer. "Christopher,
please! Where are you?"

And then she saw him. Relief washed over her, so
intense that her knees buckled, and she almost fell.

"Oh thank God, there you are!"

He was sitting in the middle of a clearing, cross-legged
and content, his hands and face slick with honey. The piglet
was next to him, staked to the ground by a piece of blue
nylon rope around its neck, its snout shoved into the
earthenware pot in Christopher’s lap. As she ran towards
him, he laughed, nudged the pig aside and took another
handful of honey from the pot.

"Christopher! We have to go!"

He looked up, and his face broke into a grin. "Mummy!

Have you come to see the bear?"

She crouched beside him and covered his sticky face in
kisses. "No. No, sweetheart, we need to go. Come on. Up
you get." Her voice was shaking. She tugged on his arm, but
he was a boneless weight, passive resistance personified in a
honey-smeared five-year old.

"But I want to see the bear."

The piglet lifted its head from the pot and squealed. The
heavy animal smell was stronger again, cutting across the
smell of honey and pig and small boy. It was getting nearer.

"How do you know it’s a bear?" She shook Christopher’s
arm. "Who told you about a bear?"

"You’re hurting me!" He turned an indignant face to
stare up at her. "No one told me. There’s always been a bear
in these woods."

Something huge moved in the darkness, snapping
branches under huge and heavy feet. Fear coursed through

Jo, and she grabbed Christopher around the waist and lifted

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209
him into her arms. He struggled and one of his flailing feet
caught the pot and knocked it over, spilling thick golden
liquid onto the ground. "Piglet!"

A hand locked around Jo’s shoulder, and she screamed.

"Jo! It’s me!"

Slowly, her muscles softened. Richard. It was only

Richard. He was here, he’d take care of everything, get them
out of the woods. "Thank God you’re here. We have to get
out of here, out of the woods." She was babbling, the words
tumbling from her lips like a rushing stream.

He didn’t seem to register what she was saying. "The
road’s blocked, a tree’s fallen across it. God knows how
we’re getting out of here…"

"Richard, listen!" The edge in her voice cut across his
words, startling him for once into silence. "There’s
something in the woods, they’re trying to… to, I don’t
know, sacrifice Christopher to it. This is all my fault, I’m so
sorry!"

Richard was staring at her, open-mouthed. "What the
fuck are you talking about?"

He didn’t believe her. Of course he didn’t believe her.

The whole thing was totally unbelievable. An hour ago she’d
have reacted the same way.

"It doesn’t matter. Let’s just go." She forced a shaky
smile onto her face, and Richard gave her a curt nod.

"Fine. Jesus, Jo, he’s filthy. What’s he been eating? Is that
honey?"

"I don’t know." She licked her lips, sweet from where
she had kissed her son "I think so."

The moon broke through the clouds, bright and clear. In
the moonlight everything seemed bright and clear, the terror
she had felt so keenly the moment before transformed into
something stupid and shameful. There was no monster in
the woods, no sacrifice to be made, no matter what she had
heard, or thought she had. It was all a terrible
misunderstanding.

And the bear stepped into the clearing.

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210

It towered over them, vast and ancient, its mustard
coloured fur scarred and tattered and black with long
clotted blood around its claws and muzzle. Something long
buried in Jo’s hindbrain flared into life, something that
remembered that humans had not always been at the top of
any given food chain, and her knees buckled under her, her
feet locked in blocks of ice. The piglet looked up and
grunted at the bear as if they were old friends, then returned
its attention to the honeypot. The bear ignored it entirely.

"What the fuck…" Richard began. He swallowed. "What
the fuck is a bear doing…"

The bear turned its vast snout towards them, then
opened its mouth and roared. A hot rank gust of air washed
over her, thick with the stench of rotting meat, and her
paralysis broke.

"Run!" Clutching Christopher to her with all the strength
she could muster, she turned and sprinted for the path, her
feet hammering the earth in synchronicity with the
desperate pounding of blood in her ears. Was Richard
following? She didn’t dare look back and check, but it didn’t
matter — all that mattered was getting Christopher away
from the reach of those bloody yellow teeth.

Light flashed across her eyes, and she blundered to a
stop a moment before she reached it. A figure was standing
in the woods — no, not a figure, more than one — six,
seven? She looked over her shoulder and saw that the
clearing was ringed in yellow light, each lantern at the feet
of a hooded figure. The old woman she had seen with

Sanders was directly in front of her, blocking the path with
a double-barreled shotgun — to her left she saw the farmer
himself, and the farmhand she had seen the day before, but
the rest were strangers. Richard lurched to a halt beside her.

"What the fuck is going on?" He said.

The old woman smiled and lifted the shotgun. Jo knew
they were pinned between one death and another. The bear
was approaching on all fours at a lazy pace, its vast yellow
head hung low below its massive shoulders. Jo tried to move

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211
past the old woman, but the brambles to either side grasped
at her clothes while the two barrels of the gun stared at her
like a pair of watchful eyes. The old woman was missing the
same little finger as the farmer, the stump long healed. Were
they all the same?

"Please, just let us through, I’m begging you." Tears
stung in Jo’s eyes. She squeezed them shut, but when she
opened them again there was only the forest and the
torchlight and the stench of rotting meat. Christopher had
buried his face in her neck, making soft whimpering noises.

"Just you wait," the old woman said.

The bear was close, now, so close she could feel the thud
of its huge paws against the ground. It was nearly on them,
and then it would — it would what? Eat them? The thought
was so absurd that she could barely form it — bears didn’t
eat people, at least not in the twenty-first century and
certainly not in England — and the old woman and all of
the others didn’t look scared. For one wild moment she
wondered if it was a tame bear, but that was another concept
her brain refused to process. This bear wasn’t tame. This
bear was ancient. This bear was wild and hungry.

Richard shoved past her. Her foot snagged on the
brambles, and she fell forward into them, Christopher
tumbling in an ungainly pile beside her. Richard lunged
forward for the shotgun, and for a desperate moment Jo
wondered if the old woman would fire it directly into his
chest, but his grasping hands never reached it. A vast paw
slammed into him from the side and sent him flying across
the clearing, landing against a tree stump with a bone-jarring
snap. The bear grunted, then ambled towards him.

Brambles slashed at her hands as she tried to scramble
to her feet. Christopher was crying now, thrashing his arms
in the feeble attempt to extract himself from the grasping
thorns. She reached out to pull him free, but the old woman
swung the shotgun around to cover them both. She froze.

"Wait," the old woman said.

Richard had managed to struggle into an unsteady

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212
crouch, blood spattering the ground from his bleeding scalp
with every shake of his head. The bear was almost on top of
him now, its head cocked on one side like a quizzical cat
playing with a bird. Jo whimpered. It was going to…

The beast’s jaws opened and came down on Richard’s
head. There was a dull crack, then the bear drew its head
back and shook it from side to side, thrashing Richard’s
body back and forward like a dog with a rat. With a final
jerk, Richard’s neck gave way, sending the rest of his body
flying. Blood spurted, black in the lantern light. The bear’s
jaws crunched again, then it swallowed and placed one vast
paw on what had been Richard’s back. The great jaws
lowered, opened again, and tore a crimson mouthful free.

"It likes them perfect," the old woman said. "And I
reckon your man put a lot of work into staying that way."

Tears blurred her eyes. "Please. Let us go. Please don’t
let it hurt Christopher, he’s just a baby. I’ll do anything."

"Anything?"

Jo glanced at the shotgun barrels. What did the old
woman want? Still, there was only one reply she could give.

"Anything."

"Can’t let you leave. Not seeing what you’ve seen,
knowing what you know." The old lady glanced across at

Sanders, then back to Jo. "Only two types of people in

Acrewood. The bear’s chosen, and the sacrifices. And we’re
always needing new blood round these parts."

Sanders picked his way around the clearing, passing
within inches of the bear and the grisly remains of its meal.

It ignored him entirely. He learned over her and offered her
an outstretched hand. She stared at it, then, for want of
anything better to do, pulled herself upright and lifted

Christopher into her arms.

New blood. The old woman’s meaning suddenly became
clear. "Do you mean — you want me for —" What was the
word she had overhead before? "For farrowing?"

The old woman’s face stretched into a ghastly smile.

"Reckon you’ve got about five minutes to make yourself

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213
safe, otherwise you’ll be going the same way as him." She
jerked her head towards Richard’s rapidly dwindling
remains. “Alan here can do it for you both, or you can do it
yourself."

The old woman held up her hand with the missing
finger, then reached into the deep pocket of her apron to
produce the glinting blade of a carving knife

"The Bear only takes a perfect sacrifice. It keeps the
compact with its people who bear its mark, so long as the
rites are observed. The women see to keeping it fed, and in
return it gives them strong sons to work the land."

"It gives them —" Jo’s eyes were so wide she thought
they might never close again. She shook her head. "How
does it give them sons?"

The old woman racked the shotgun, all business again.

"The usual way. Not so bad once you get the hang of it."

Sanders was standing next to her, and she recognised for
the first time the bear-like slope of the shoulders, the way
the hair protruding from the neck of his checked shirt was
thick and golden, like a pelt of fur. The bear was still ripping
at Richard’s carcass, the big head moving up and down with
startling efficiency that could almost have been described as
grace. The sight was horrifying, but no more so than if it
had been dismembering a deer. Richard was gone, all that
was left of him rapidly disappearing down the throat of a
monstrous bear — no, not a monster, the bear was older
and greater than that — but she realised what she was
feeling wasn’t grief. Underneath the horror, what she was
feeling was an unmistakable sense of relief.

"Time’s nearly up," the old woman said. "Now, what’s it
to be for you and your boy? The shotgun or the knife?"

.

214

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

John Linwood Grant is a professional writer/editor
from Yorkshire, UK, with some eighty short stories and
novelettes published during the last few years in venues
such as Lackington's Magazine, Vastarien, and Weirdbook,
and in several award-winning anthologies. He writes dark
contemporary fiction, and also specialises in disturbing
tales set in the late Victorian/Edwardian era, such as his
novel ‘The Assassin’s Coin’ (IFD Publishing). He is the
founding editor of Occult Detective Magazine, and a number
of anthologies, including the Sherlock Holmes & the Occult

Detectives series (Belanger). His second collection Where All
is Night, and Starless, which includes Mythos tales, weird
fiction and folk horror, came out in 2021 from

Trepidatio, and a third collection of Edwardian tales is
under construction.

He can be found regularly on Facebook, and at his
eclectic website: www.greydogtales.com/blog/

Linwood Grant is ageing, sarcastic, and has his
own beard.

Christine Morgan is a Rather Peculiar Person who
writes some Very Naughty Books full of sex and violence
and words of which Owl would Not Approve, including
the Splatterpunk Award winning Lakehouse Infernal and its
soon-to-be-released sequel Warlock Infernal. She also makes
crafts and bakes cookies, has three cats, and way more
dinosaurs and sharks than a woman her age probably
should.

Lee Clark Zumpe has been writing and publishing
horror, dark fantasy and speculative fiction since the late

1990s. His short stories and poetry have appeared in a
variety of publications such as Weird Tales, and Space and

Time; and in anthologies such as The Children of Gla'aki, Best

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New Zombie Tales Vol. 3, Corridors, and the forthcoming The

Call of Poohthulhu. His work has earned several honorable
mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror collections.

As entertainment editor for Tampa Bay Newspapers,

Lee has penned hundreds of film, theater and book
reviews and has interviewed novelists as well as music
industry icons such as Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains
and Alan Parsons. His work for TBN has been recognized
repeatedly by the Florida Press Association, including a
first-place award for criticism in the 2013 Better Weekly

Newspaper Contest. Lee lives in Florida with his wife and
daughter. Visit www.leeclarkzumpe.com

Pete Rawlik is the author of more than fifty short
stories, the novels Reanimators, The Weird Company, and

Reanimatrix, as well as The Peaslee Papers, a chronicle of the
distant past, the present, and the far future, and the short
story collection Strange Company and Others. As editor he
has produced The Legacy of the Reanimator and The Chromatic

Court. His short story Revenge of the Reanimator was nomi
nated for a New Pulp Award. He is a regular member of
the Lovecraft Ezine Podcast and a frequent contributor to
the New York Review of Science Fiction.

When he is not pretending to be a grown up for the
sake of his children, Edward M. Erdelac spends his
increasingly fleeting idle moments snagging big notions
and slippery daydreams with the hooks and angles of
words and then trying to fit them between the covers of
books. He has done this fourteen times with varying
degrees of success, most recently with Rainbringer: Zora

Neale Hurston Against The Lovecraftian Mythos, Conquer, and,
most notably, in The Merkabah Rider series. With Winnie

The Pooh, he has now had the distinct pleasure to
exchange his decidedly Colonial notions about four iconic
and beloved British characters (the other three were King

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Arthur, Sherlock Holmes and James Bond) for American
dollars which he probably spent on trifles, if not less
important things like bills. His body started toddling about
in Indiana, stumbled through Chicago, and now lazes
about California, but his heart is often found meandering
all over the place, from Narnia to Santa Mira, and not
often in the present day. Sometimes he posts his scattered
thoughts on http://www.emerdelac.wordpress.com

Robert P. Ottone is the author of the horror
collection Her Infernal Name and Other Affairs (an honorable
mention in The Best Horror of the Year 13) as well as the
young adult dystopian-cosmic horror trilogy The Rise.

His short stories have appeared in various anthologies as
well as online. He’s also the publisher and owner of Spooky

House Press.

Robert is also an English as a New Language teacher, as
well as a teacher of English Language Arts. He can be found
online at SpookyHousePress.com or on Twitter/Instagram

(@RobertOttone). He delights in the creepy and views
bagels solely as a cream cheese delivery device.

Jackson Parker is a graduate from the University of

Delaware where he received his degree in Anthropology,
and he now lives in Dover with his girlfriend, and the cat
of many titles. He is a fan of horror, mysteries, and weird
fiction. He also writes for young readers. Jackson is rather
fond of cats, despite being rather allergic to them as well.

Eeyore Makes a Friend is Jackson's first published work as an
author.

Lisa Cunningham, compliance-expert-neé-failed
academic, has written six chapters in scholarly collections
on horror film and finally decided to create some of the art
she loves so much. She lives in Atlanta with her corgi and
cat, Fiona Goode and Bette Davis, and can quite often be
found getting up to no good.

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Kevin Wetmore is a four-time Bram Stoker Award
nominee having written and edited over two dozen
books. He is also the author of dozens of short stories,
including a number of fun mythos mashups, including

"Tales of a Fourth Grade Shoggoth" and "Are You There,

Azathoth? It's Me, Margaret." He is also the author of the
pushcart nominated "Machiavelli's The Little Prince."

Learn more about his fiction and nonfiction
at www.SomethingWetmoreThisWayComes.com

Jude Reid lives in Glasgow and writes dark stories in
the narrow gaps between full time work as a surgeon,
wrangling her kids and trying to wear out a border collie.

Her short fiction has appeared in Daily SF, The Accursed
and Sanction and Sin (Black Library) and Places We Fear

To Tread and Campfire Macabre (Cemetery Gates Media),
amongst others. She's currently working on her first novel.

Carmen Cerra earned a degree in Biological and

Premedical Illustration at Iowa State University in 1997,
but spent the following 20 years as a full-time news
paper political cartoonist, page designer, and copy
chief. He currently does illustrations for tabletop and
roleplaying games, as well as for books and private
commissions. When he’s not drawing for work, you can
find him at the local park or cafe pushing ink with his
fountain pen, drawing, among other things, cute little
animals which are not nearly as scientifically accurate as
they should be.

Neil Baker founded April Moon Books in 2013, a
small press dedicated to bringing thrilling stories to the
masses at great expense to the owner, who has finally
realised that flower pressing would have been a less
expensive hobby.

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Neil has written short stories for several anthologies
including Atomic Age Cthulhu, World war Cthulhu, Return of
the Old Ones and Transmissions from Punktown. He is an
award-winner filmmaker and animator, an illustrator, high
school teacher, and dedicated husband and father.

Despite all this, his cats barely tolerate him.

ALSO FROM APRIL MOON BOOKS
The Dark Rites of Cthulhu
Monstrous Tales of Mythos and Magick!
Flesh Like Smoke

Shapeshifters, Lycanthropes, and all manner of Skin-Stealers!

Amok!

Terrifying Tales of Twisted Rampages!

Stomping Grounds

Giant Monsters, Kaijus and Other Enormous Things!

Ill-considered Expeditions

Vacations and Adventures gone Very, Very Wrong!

Spawn of the Ripper
An Homage to Hammer Films!
The Stars at My Door
Stellar Stories of Spaceships and Shocks!
Bond Unknown
James Bond vs. The Mythos!
All available from Amazon
www.AprilMoonBooks.com

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