Everybody talks a big game about the exorcism of spirits, but when you’re pinned to your ceiling and a yawning spinning spectral pit opens beneath you, suddenly everyone’s got “other plans” or “forgot they weren’t sanctified or qualified for spook removal.”

The kids in the village have been getting into this role-playing game where each of them holds a mushroom cap and speaks on behalf of the mushroom.

It’s good to see them staying out of trouble, gathering in dark places, and using their imaginations to have dialogues such as:

“BE STILL. BE WET. ALL WILL GROW.”

[waggles mushroom in a friendly manner] “ALL WILL COME TO US IN TIME.”

Adorable.

MEETING REMINDER: Summon Dark Forces

[DISMISS] [SNOOZE]

participants:
You
The Dark Forces (list)
The North Wind
The Smell of Doom

location:
inside the chalk-etched sigils of Meeting Room B (“Hummingbird”)

dial-in numbers:
[none selected]

1) Sometimes you have two of that chair, sometimes you don’t

2) People passing by your home point at it and say to each other “That’s where that shape-shifter lives.”

3) You’ve told yourself, to your own face, that you’re imagining things and there’s no shape-shifter in your home

4) Mail arrives addressed to RESIDENT SHAPE-SHIFTER

5) (trick question) You’ve been able to change your own shape the whole time

1) There’s no way you’re going to blow me out this airlock.

2) You know all this air goes with me, right? You won’t get it back.

3) Why do they call it an airlock when it’s the doors that are locked?

Everyone knows the bog witches and their damp cauldrons, positioned over smoky peat fires, and their potions that go down thick with a mossy tickle in the back of the throat.

But what of the desert witches, with their cauldrons that resemble enormous sandboxes, large enough for a full-grown adult human to recline in, and bury one’s self under a sand dune to hide from the unblinking sun? When wandering the sandy expanses they call home, an unwary traveler may come across a stray peaked hat on the ground and not even realize that it’s a sign there could be a submerged witch there, awaiting nightfall to rise again.

Or ponder the arctic witches with their… snow… and stuff. Okay, we couldn’t be bothered to visit them, it’s too cold. That chapter’s really short.

Every spring, the clocks jump ahead one hour. Every year, we pretend not to notice Alex sneaking out of town in the middle of the night, pockets bulging with time.

We notice, Alex. But we’re optimistic that you’re going to change. We don’t care what you’re doing with the time. Please come home.