Blog-o-ween 2023: Edgar Allan Poe

It’s 28 October. It’s getting late in the day, kiddies. The last handfuls of sand are beginning to trickle through the neck of our hourglass. There doesn’t seem to be enough time to talk about all the stories that we here at LARPing Real Life still have on our agenda for Blog-o-ween 2023. So, let’s stop fooling about and get down to the nitty and the gritty...

Nooooo...that’s Al Capone’s enforcer, Frank Nitti, and the other fellow (the one on the right) is the mascot for the Philadelphia Flyers (and known hell demon), Gritty. Nice try, though.

Anywho...we’ve got six stories on deck today for Blog-o-ween. SIX! What better way to celebrate Halloween than with the stories of everyone’s favorite emo kid, Edgar Allan Poe? Eddie was definitely one of America’s earliest adherents to the maxim “Everyday is Halloween.” Unfortunately, he was also a lover of the adage “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.” So, let’s raise a glass to Edgar and jump right into the festivities without any further ado...

First up is a story about a gated community whose residents think they are above things like the plague and death. Why worry about getting vaccinated and masking up when you can party like it’s 1399? Let’s see how the other half dies in “The Masque of the Red Death.”

Prince Prospero is throwing a kegger for all his bros (and a few hoes) at his castle. They aren’t so much celebrating as they are just simply waiting out the plague that is ravaging the country. “The Red Death,” as it is known, has swept across the land, causing sharp pains, sudden dizziness, and profuse bleeding at the pores before finally dispatching its victims. Prospero and his friends hope that their wealth and status, along with the walls of their enclave, will protect them. I think the uninvited guest to the prince’s masquerade ball — the one who is tastelessly dressed in a dark, blood-spattered funeral shroud — will have something to say about that. And I don’t think Prospero and his guest will want to hear it.

Next, we have the old, familiar story of one guy and two girls. Classic lover’s triangle, amirite? In this case, however, one of the ladies is dead and...well, actually, both of the ladies are dead in this one. Maybe this isn’t as familiar a tale as I thought. Let’s take a look at the story of “Ligeia” and learn more...

Our narrator has found the love of his life in the Lady Ligeia. She is intelligent and beautiful, with dark eyes and raven-hair. She is also something of a metaphysician. During their brief marriage she begins to introduce her husband to the wonders of forbidden wisdom.

Heh-heh-heh!

But soon, however, Ligeia becomes ill and dies. Don’t worry for our dear narrator. He replaces Ligeia with the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena. And when I say “he replaces her,” I mean...well...you’ll just have to find out for yourself.

Our next tale is another old, familiar yarn about love and...dental work? It’s a story with a lot of bite, and one that you can really sink your teeth into. Heh-heh-heh! Let’s read on about young Egaeus and his love for his cousin “Berenice” and her smile.

Egaeus and Berenice grow up in a gloomy castle. (Is there any other kind?) She has an unnamed degenerative illness, which causes her to fall into a kind of catalepsy, and he suffers from a monomania that forces him to fixate on objects. So far, this sounds like a goth version of “The Gift of the Magi.”

As Berenice’s illness ravages the rest of her body, it leaves her teeth looking healthy (and with a pleasant mint flavor, too, I’m sure). Egaeus becomes obsessed with those pearly whites. Berenice dies and is interred. Egaeus sits and thinks about those teeth...about holding those teeth in his fingers...Berenice’s beautiful teeth...Berenice who is buried not too far away...

Them with dentophobia should look away at this point.

Our fourth story is all about mesmerism. It was all the rage in Europe and America when Poe wrote this story in 1845. Sure, making a subject cluck like a chicken is loads of fun, but could hypnosis be a cure for death? Let’s find out by looking at “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.”

Ernest Valdemar is dying of tuberculosis. His friend, the narrator, is interested in mesmerism and wants to experiment on Valdemar to see if the (psuedo)science of putting a dying subject into a hypnagogic state can affect the process of death. Valdemar agrees and is soon put under. He dies while in the hypnotic state. As any friend would do under the circumstance, the narrator keeps Valdemar in his trance for over six months. When it comes time to wake Valdemar and release him (and his spirit)...well let’s just say that it gives new meaning to the term “morning breath.”

You still with us? Because we’ve got two tales left. And, boy are they doozies!

Our fifth tale is, perhaps, my favorite of Poe’s stories. Its central image — of a person buried behind a wall — has been used by many makers of Italian “giallo” films, including Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, and Dario Argento (who directed a direct adaptation of it). You may be thinking of a certain Montresor who tricks his “friend” Fortunato into accompanying him into the catacombs to have a sip of a very special wine, but I’m not talking about “The Cask of Amontillado.” The story of murder and burial that we’re going to read next is “The Black Cat.”

Our narrator is a happily married man who loves his wife and all animals, especially his black cat, Pluto. Unfortunately, like Poe himself, the narrator also has an unnatural love of alcohol, which causes him to become violent. One night, while chasing the cat with an ax, the man’s wife comes between him and his prey. He buries the ax in her head, then proceeds to bury her body in the wall of the cellar. After he’s done, he cannot find the cat, which is fine so far as he is concerned. The police come sniffing around to search the house. They find nothing...except the preternatural howls of a cat...and it sounds like it is coming from behind one of the basement walls!

Bob Villa and Norm Abram never had this problem.

Okay, Blog-o-weeners, we’ve come to the end of today’s entry. One more story, and I will stop bending your ear. This story is probably Poe’s most famous creation. It is (at the time of this writing) being used as the basis for a certain streaming service’s multi-episodic series. It’s been made by avant-garde filmmakers in France and given the low-budget, high-concept treatment by Roger Corman. It is another tale of isolation, madness, and premature burial. It’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

Another unnamed narrator (this guy gets around!) visits his old friend Roderick Usher. Usher wrote to his friend asking him to come and help him pass the time because of an illness he is suffering from. The narrator arrives to find his friend and his sister, Madeline, living in a dilapidated house next to a tarn. The house has a thin crack on its front that stretches from the roof to the ground.

During the narrator’s visit, Madeline dies from an unknown disease, but because she also suffered from cataleptic trances, her body will be interred in the family tomb for two weeks before it is permanently buried. (As you do.)

A week later, a storm rages outside, and as Roderick reads aloud the story of a knight named Ethelred who battles a dragon. During the reading of the story, the narrator and Roderick hear the sounds of cracking and ripping coming from somewhere in the house. Soon, a loud banging is heard, and the door is blown inwards to reveal...

Well, you should really find out for yourself what comes into Roderick’s bedroom and what becomes of the house of Usher.

What can we say about Edgar Allan Poe that hasn't already been drilled into our heads during a junior high English class? He was born in Boston in January, 1809, and he died in Baltimore in October, 1849. In between, E.A. Poe lived a life with as many ups and downs as an Otis elevator, albeit the downs outnumbered the ups by a conservative 4-to-1 margin.

Even in death, the poor man couldn't catch a break. Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an editor, critic, and anthologist, bore Poe a grudge. The tension between the two men stemmed from Poe's attack on Griswold's critical acumen in his 1842 book The Poets and Poetry of America. Later, Griswold replaced Poe as co-editor at Graham's Magazine at a higher salary, something Poe could not stomach. Somehow, even through all this antagonism and aggrievement, Griswold was named Poe's literary executor upon his death, and he used this position to spread lies and destroy Poe's reputation.

Thankfully, Griswold failed at his attempt at literary assassination. Due to the diligence of people who knew Poe well, as well as French critics and writers like Charles Baudelaire, Poe's reputation remained intact, and in fact only grew as the years passed.

Whew! That’s all for today, kiddies. And what a day! So many great stories to accompany you to bed. I just hope that Uncle Edgar’s stories don’t scare you to death. But not to worry. We won’t permanently bury you until we are absolutely sure you’re dead. We’ll give you the old mirror-under-the-nose check and the needles-in-between-the-toes test. We are nothing if not scientific and thorough. In the meantime, we’ll place you in the family tomb deep in the catacombs beneath the castle. There, you’ll be stretched out on a bier in the dark. And if you aren’t really dead, well, at least you’ll have a quiet place to rest and to relax and to have...pleasant dreams? Hmmmm? Heh-heh-heh!

Blog-o-ween 2023: Goddess of Filth & The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro

Well, campers, that day that we feared was just around the corner has finally come. It’s the final—

No, it’s not the final chapter. Today is the final Friday—

No, not THAT final Friday. Lemme finish, will ya?

Today is the final “Long Form Friday” for Blog-o-ween 2023. For the previous three Fridays of our month-long celebration of all things spooky and Halloweenie, we’ve taken our time with tales that were slightly longer than the usual run of short stories and oral tales. These were novellas or novelettes that could be read in a single evening or (if you were too chicken) afternoon. There was short long fiction (or was it long short fiction?) by Elizabeth Hand, Stephen Graham Jones, and Carlos Fuentes. As much as I love all of those writers and their works, I think we’ve saved the best for last, kiddies.

As a bonus (hey...this is the FINAL Long Form Friday, so we’re going all out!), you’re in for an extra-special treat, because we are highlighting not one but TWO books by the same author. Both books deal with the birth of legends. In one, it is the birth of a new urban legend; in the other, it is the rebirth of an old god. Today, we’re going to sit at the feet of Mexican-American writer V. Castro and listen as she spins the tales of the Goddess of Filth and the Queen of the Cicadas.

Goddess of Filth starts with a Saturday night séance between five friends. Lourdes, Ana, Perla, and Pauline are saying their goodbyes to their friend Fernanda, who is leaving San Antonio, Texas, for college. Hoping simply to mimic the coven from the movie The Craft, the five girls inadvertently call something from out of the past...something from out of the darkness. And we’re not talking about the return of that height of Nineties fashion, chokers!

When Lourdes calls out to the air “I want to reach a spirit. An old spirit, one from before the world was what we know today,” she gets exactly what she asks for. Returning her call is Tlazoltéotl, the Goddess of Filth, the eater of sin and the unclean. Tlazoltéotl enters Fernanda, who begins to crawl about the floor, blood dripping from between her legs, speaking Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Packing on the “freshman fifteen” is suddenly the least of the college-bound Fernanda’s worries.

With the help of Dr. Camacho, a college professor who specializes in Aztec history and their language, the young women learn just what it is that the ancient goddess wants from Fernanda, from them, and from the world. There are, however, forces that do not believe that what is inhabiting the once meek and mild Fernanda is a force of good. Fernanda’s mother and the local priest view Tlazoltéotl as a demon possessing the young woman, and Father Moreno will do anything to exorcize that demon.

What is it that Tlazoltéotl wants? Will Fernanda ever be free of the goddess? Just what does Father Moreno have hidden away in a freezer in the church?

Moving on to a slightly longer tale (but one that you can easily read in a day or two — I mean, what else have you got going on?!), Castro’s The Queen of the Cicadas (La reina de las chicharras) is another story of possession and the rebirth of the old gods and goddesses. Here, it isn’t an innocent bit of fun that calls out to an Aztec goddess, but the violent murder of a Mexican farmworker in 1950s Texas. When the young woman Milagros is killed by the white wives of the landowners, Mictecacíhuatl, the Aztec goddess of death, hears her cries and promises her that she will be reborn. Milagros becomes a vengeful spirit, an urban legend like Candyman, Bloody Mary, or La Llorona.

Years later, on the same ranch that has now become a destination wedding-style B&B, two damaged people, Belinda and Hector, find themselves embroiled in the story of Milagros-Mictecacíhuatl. While they spend their time discovering Milagros’s story and what the return of Mictecacíhuatl will entail, Castro also gives the reader the fates of the women who murdered the young farm worker, a dive into Mexican folklore, and a look at Mexican history. It’s a lot going on in a 214-page book!

What I love about both of these books (aside from the folk horror aspects, natch) is that the return of Tlazoltéotl and Mictecacíhuatl is not presented as a bad thing. It all feels like there is a natural cycle at work. It’s just time for the goddess of filth and the goddess of death to come back and clean up this mess that (white, colonizer) humanity has made of the world. In the hands of a non-Mexican writer, these stories would be reduced to simple vengeance tales, where the horrors are committed by the goddesses and their followers. But in Castro’s hands, we have two tales of darkness and hope, where the light and the dark aren’t two mutually exclusive realms. They are forever intermingling and changing and evolving. Goddess of Filth and The Queen of the Cicadas are both incredible works of folk horror that are terrifying and heartening at the same time. I don’t know how she did it, kiddies, but she done did it!

V. Castro was born in San Antonio, Texas to Mexican-American parents, and currently lives with her family in the United Kingdom. She has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award twice — in 2021 for both of today’s stories, The Queen of the Cicadas (Superior Achievement in a Novel) and Goddess of Filth (Superior Achievement in Long Fiction). That neither of these books won the award for which they were nominated should be in no way seen as a slur on the good name of the Horror Writers Association, but let it be known that I have a strongly worded letter ready to go in my Google Drive ready to go if it happens a third time. You have been warned, HWA!

Well, I hope this final “Long Form Friday” isn’t a bittersweet one for you. We had a good run, you gotta admit. And really, let’s look on the bright side, you now have a nice, tight group of authors whose other books — some longer, some shorter — you can enjoy, too. Pick up Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand or My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. How about Inez (Instinto de Inéz) by Carlos Fuentes? And V. Castro has a new book out this year you can check out, The Haunting of Alejandra, which is about a woman haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona. All of these books are guaranteed winners, and they are guaranteed to give you...pleasant dreams? Hmmmm? Heh-heh-heh!

Blog-o-ween 2023: The Urban Legends of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

We began this year’s Blog-o-ween 2023 by talking about one of the most famous and often-told oral tales out there, “The Hook.” It’s a tale that’s been cataloged and studied by folklorists, collected by anthologists, and even had its moment of cinematic stardom when it was used in the 1979 Bill Murray film, Meatballs. Not bad for a little cautionary tale about the dangers of parking and smooching...and allowing inmates at a hospital for the criminally insane to continue to wear their prosthetic stainless steel hooks.

Someone’s gonna lose their job over that decision.

For many kids, the tale of “The Hook” is best remembered as being a part of Alvin Schwartz’s 1981 folklore collection Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. That book was the culmination of years of research by Schwartz at the Firestone Library at Princeton University, as well as countless interviews the author conducted with many sources. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark brought together many types of legends, folklore and songs, both scary and silly. There were ghost stories, tales that ended with a jump scare, stories about witchcraft and voodoo, and that old ditty about death, “The Hearse Song.”

But my favorite stories were the ones gathered under the chapter heading, “Other Dangers.” As Schwartz notes in his introduction:

“Most of the scary stories in this book have been passed down over the years. But the ones in this chapter have been told only in recent times. They are stories that young people often tell about dangers we face in our lives today.”

“The Hook” is just one of these tales. Today, we are going to look at the other urban legends Schwartz collected. These are tales that you’ve probably heard over the years, and they are usually prefaced with “This really happened to my friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s classmate...”. Heck, maybe you yourself have told them. (Maybe you’re the friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s classmate! You do exist!) One or two of the following stories, like “The Hook” had their day in the cinematic sun.

Let’s go!

“The White Satin Evening Gown” is the tale of a poor girl who gets invited to a dance, but cannot afford a new dress. So, she goes to a pawn shop and finds the most beautiful white satin gown. It fits like a glove (natch), and she rents it for the evening. That night, she is the belle of the ball. She dances with everyone, and works up quite a sweat doing so. After the dance, she goes home and goes straight to bed. Unfortunately, she doesn’t wake up again. She’s dead! An autopsy discovers that embalming fluid on the gown entered her bloodstream through her perspiration (is that a thing?). They trace the dress to the pawn shop, and the pawnbroker says that he bought the dress from a undertaker who had taken it off a dead woman.

This story has got it all: the Cinderella-like set-up, the short-lived happiness, the death of the girl, and slightest suggestion of necrophilia (why else is the undertaker taking the clothing off of a young woman’s corpse, I ask you?). It also plays on that most American of fears — not being able to afford something new, so you get something used, and it ends up killing you. Caveat emptor, indeed!

“High Beams” is the story of a young high school student driving home from a basketball game. As she pulls out of the parking lot, she notices a truck following her. She thinks nothing of it, until the driver begins flashing their high beams at her. She tries to speed up and put distance between them, but the driver follows and flashes his headlights. She passes other cars. The truck follows and flashes its lights. She finally gets home and rushes into her house. The police are called, and when they arrive to arrest the man in the truck, he tells them that he was trying to warn the girl of a danger much closer to her than his truck. The police investigate and find a man with a knife crouched down in the back seat of her car. Every time he rose up to kill the girl, the truck driver flashed his high beams.

Again, this is a story that just about everyone has heard at one time or another. Even though it’s kind of ludicrous in its set-up, it works because it plays on the very real fears and dangers felt by women in our society. What woman hasn’t felt as though she were being followed...heck, what woman hasn’t BEEN followed by a mysterious man, whether it’s on foot as she returns to her parked car or in a truck as she makes her way home? Sad, but oh so true.

If this scenario sounds familiar, it’s because it’s been used in countless movies and TV shows. The 1959 Twilight Zone episode “Perchance to Dream” (based on a short story by Blog-o-ween 2023 alumnus Charles Beaumont) makes passing mention of “that woman who was killed by a psychopath hiding in the back seat of her car.” The made-for-tv movie Nightmares (1983) depicts the tale. On a 1992 episode of The Simpsons, Otto the bus driver tells Lisa the tale as a bedtime story. (Good luck getting to sleep after that one, Lisa!) Perhaps most famously, “the killer in the backseat” trope was used to open the 1998 nu-slasher Urban Legend.

Last, but certainly not least, is “The Babysitter.” This one, along with “The Hook,” is probably the most well-known urban legend out there. And it’s well-known for a reason: it plays on the fears of every kid who’s ever been left alone at home — either your own or someone else’s — and charged with the responsibility of taking care of someone younger than you — a sibling, a relative, or just the kids next door. It’s one thing to accidentally spill Dr. Pepper on Mrs. Watkins’s new couch. It’s quite another to have what’s spilled be thicker and more red than mere pop...and I ain’t talking about Cherikee Red, friend-o.

The story goes like this: one night a babysitter and her two charges are sitting together in the living room and watching TV. The phone rings, and a man on the other end of the line laughs maniacally. The babysitter writes it off as a crank call. The phone rings again. It’s the laughing man again. He tells her, “One more hour!” The babysitter is scared. An hour later, the phone rings again, and the man tells the babysitter, “Pretty soon now!” The babysitter calls the operator to complain. The operator tells her that they will trace the call the next time. The next time comes pretty soon. The man calls and says, “Very soon now!” The babysitter hangs up, but the phone rings again immediately. It’s the operator. “We’ve traced the call,” the operator says. “It’s coming from another line inside the house!”

Woo! That’s an oldie, but a goodie! Like “High Beams,” the strength of the story is in the fact that the danger isn’t far away — it’s right behind you or it’s right upstairs. Technology collapses distance. While the telephone made it much easier to reach out and touch someone we loved with a phone call (so long as it was made after hours when long-distance rates were much lower), it also made it easier for those who have less affectionate ideas in mind to reach into our homes, our safe spaces, and touch us right back. It was just possible that a maniac could pick up the phone and let his fingers do the walking...through our disemboweled innards!

The tale of “The Babysitter” or “the phone call is coming from inside the house” trope has been used many times in movies and TV. Bob Clark used it to superb effect in his 1974 film Black Christmas. Anyone who has seen that holiday slasher can never forget the sounds the caller makes during his phone calls.

Most famously, the trope was used as the set-up to the 1979 film When a Stranger Calls, starring Carol Kane as the put-upon babysitter. Many people remember that scene, but few recall that that wasn’t the whole film. It was only the first twenty minutes or so.

Director Fred Walton and his co-writer Steve Feke had based their feature on a short film they made two years earlier called The Sitter. This short consisted solely of the babysitter being harassed on the phone. Even then, in my own humble opinion, I think it goes on a beat too long. The arrival of the police seem an unnecessary addition. I mean, once you learn that the killer was calling from inside the house, what more do you need to show? After the babysitter learns the truth from the operator, cut to the light filling the stairwell behind her. The end. Watch the film below, and let me know what you think. Does the ending work for you?

Well, that’s all for today, Blog-o-weeners. Hope you enjoyed these urban legends. Don’t let them stay on the page (be it a web page or one made of paper). Pick ‘em up, pass ‘em around, and put your own spin on ‘em. Now that we have cell phones, how would that change what happens in “The Babysitter” or “High Beams”? Make the stories fit your life and your circumstances. Let them present your fears in new ways. That’s the fun of telling these stories after all. Well, that and...the pleasant dreams they give us. Hmmmm? Heh-heh-heh!

Blog-o-ween 2023: "Impermanent Mercies" by Kathe Koja

Over the course of this year’s Blog-o-ween, we’ve read some stuff that made your skin crawl and your spine shiver. There were also some stronger tales that dealt with subjects or presented images that perhaps made your tummy do a backflip or two. Today’s Blog-o-ween post is the first of this year’s run, however, where I feel compelled to issue a TRIGGER WARNING. If you are adverse to gory tales of animals and trains and moist boxes and immolation, then...

Still with me? Okay. Buck up, campers, we’re in for a bumpy ride.

Today’s story was written in 1991 at the height of the “splatterpunk” movement in the horror genre. What is splatterpunk? I think the tagline of the 1982 Spanish-American slasher film Pieces says it all: It’s exactly what you think it is!

“Splatterpunk” the term was coined by writer David J. Schow in 1986 to describe a new movement that had developed in the horror scene over the decade. Splatterpunks put the splatter — graphic depictions of violence and gore — front and center in their stories. These were writers who weren’t satisfied with just pushing the envelope. They were fully out of the envelope and flopping around on the table. Splatterpunk was seen as a revolt against the more traditional, leave-it-up-to-the-reader’s-imagination style of horror. Splatterpunk qua splatterpunk stalled by the mid-1990s when the market for horror itself bottomed out. The over-the-top stylings continue to this day, however, in the form of other genre offshoots, such as “torture porn” movies and Bizarro. Writers who were considered part of the splatterpunk movement at one time or another are Edward Lee, John Skipp, Poppy Z. Brite, Craig Spector, and today’s featured writer, Kathe Koja.

So, if you dare, let’s tag along with Ms. Koja as she takes us down by the railroad tracks and (like a hungry black widow spider) weaves for us the tale of “Impermanent Mercies”...

Ellis is a photographer. One day, he is taking your typical Norman Rockwell-style pictures of a boy, Andy, and his dog, True, near some train tracks. After the photo shoot, as the trio head off, True gets away from Andy and is struck by an oncoming train. Andy takes off with True’s head, and that is the end of that. Or so Ellis thinks.

Later, Ellis bumps into Andy outside of a convenience store. He tells the boy he was worried about him. Where did Andy run off to so quickly? “I took True home,” Andy says. “Wanna see?” So, Ellis follows Andy home to see.

What he sees is not a cute little grave in the backyard. What Andy shows him is True’s head. In a saltine box. In his bedroom. And what True shows him is...well, I don’t think I can do justice to what True shows Ellis. Let’s just say that True makes David Berkowitz’s dog seem like Benji.

Kathe Koja was born in 1960 in Detroit, Michigan. Although she had been writing stories from a very young age, it wasn’t until she attended her first Clarion Workshop (a six-week workshop for aspiring science fiction and fantasy writers begun by Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm in 1968 at Clarion State College in Pennsylvania) that she became serious about pursuing writing as  a profession.

Koja’s first novel The Cipher, about two social misfits and a hole in a storage room of their apartment that leads to...somewhere else, was published in 1991 and won the Bram Stoker Award and the Locus Award in 1992. This novel was followed by others: Bad Brains (1992), Skin (1993), and Strange Angels (1994). These boundary-shifting books were interspersed by numerous short stories, which, shockingly, have never been collected and published together. Beginning in the early 2000s, Koja began to publish young adult books such as Straydog (2002), Buddha Boy (2003), and The Blue Mirror (2004).

Well, that’s all for today, kiddies. Hope we didn’t gross you out too badly. Just remember...to avoid fainting, keep repeating, “Today’s Blog-o-ween story will give me...pleasant dreams...pleasant dreams...pleasant dreams? Hmmmm? Heh-heh-heh!”

Blog-o-ween 2023: "The Crown Derby Plate" by Marjorie Bowen

Today for Blog-o-ween 2023, we continue to trudge across the misty moors by the light of the full moon, our walking stick firmly in hand, and our scarf pulled around our throats to fight off the chill in the air. The superstitious old carriage driver wouldn’t go any further than the crumbling stone wall back there at the crossroads, dash him, so we had to light out on foot in hopes of making it to the ancient family manse in time for Christmas dinner.

That’s right, kiddies, it’s time for another old-timey, gothic Christmas ghost story for Halloween. We’ve had our fair share of Yuletide horrors this Blog-o-ween season — classic tales from Robert Shearman, Ramsey Campbell, and A.M. Burrage — so what’s one more, amirite? It’s one thing to put up Xmas decorations in October (I mean, that’s just gauche and morally wrong on many, many levels), but we can be magnanimous enough to accept another spooky Christmastide ghost story for Halloween, can’t we? Just one more? Last one...I promise...

That’s the spirit!! You won’t regret it, I promise. This one is a good Christmas ghost story to go out on. It’s simply told, but very creepy. It concerns an old woman, an almost-complete set of china, and...a fearful smell. Let’s follow Marjorie Bowen to the Hartleys’ estate and see if we can’t find “The Crown Derby Plate.”

“Martha Pym said that she had never seen a ghost and that she would very much like to do so, ‘particularly at Christmas, for you can laugh as you like, that is the correct time to see a ghost.’”

Miss Pym, visiting her cousins, Mabel and Clara, for the Christmas holidays, is told that an old Miss Lefain has moved into a house out on marshes. This Miss Lefain is supposed to be very eccentric, and she, like Miss Pym, is a collector of china. It was many years ago that Miss Pym bought an entire Crown Derby tea service at an auction at that very house, known as “Hartleys.” It was a perfect collection, save for the fact that it was missing one plate. A plate that was supposedly hidden in the house somewhere. Why shouldn’t Miss Pym take a run over to Hartleys and ask Miss Lefain if she has found the missing Crown Derby plate? Her cousin tries to talk her out of it:

“Miss Lefain, she declared, was a recluse, an odd creature who might greatly resent such a visit and such a request.

“‘Well, if she does I can but come away again,’ smiled Miss Pym. ‘I suppose she can't bite my head off, and I rather like meeting these curious types — we've got a love for old china in common, anyhow.’

“‘It seems so silly to think of it — after all these years — a plate!’

“‘A Crown Derby plate,’ corrected Miss Pym. ‘It is certainly strange that I didn't think of it before, but now that I have got it into my head I can't get it out. Besides,’ she added hopefully, ‘I might see the ghost.’”

Uh-oh.

So, off Miss Pym goes to Hartleys. Once there, she see the state that the house is in:

“The house sprang up suddenly on a knoll ringed with rotting trees, encompassed by an old brick wall that the perpetual damp had overrun with lichen, blue, green, white colours of decay...

“It was a square-built, substantial house with ‘nothing wrong with it but the situation,’ Miss Pym decided, though it was not very attractive, being built of that drab plastered stone so popular a hundred years ago, with flat windows and door, while one side was gloomily shaded by a large evergreen tree of the cypress variety which gave a blackish tinge to that portion of the garden.

“There was no pretence at flower-beds nor any manner of cultivation in this garden where a few rank weeds and straggling bushes matted together above the dead grass; on the enclosing wall which appeared to have been built high as protection against the ceaseless winds that swung along the flats were the remains of fruit trees; their crucified branches, rotting under the great nails that held them up, looked like the skeletons of those who had died in torment.”

Miss Pym is greeted by an old woman. Miss Lefain, surely, Miss Pym assumes. The woman admits to receiving few visitors and to being quite lonely. Miss Pym accepts the woman’s invitation and enters the decrepit house.

In the poor light of the interior of Hartleys, Miss Pym notes that Miss Lefain was

“most dreadfully old, older than any human being had the right to be, why, she felt young in comparison—so faded, feeble, and pallid was Miss Lefain.

“She was also monstrously fat; her gross, flaccid figure was shapeless and she wore a badly cut, full dress of no colour at all, but stained with earth and damp where Miss Pym supposed she had been doing futile gardening; this gown was doubtless designed to disguise her stoutness, but had been so carelessly pulled about that it only added to it, being rucked and rolled ‘all over the place’ as Miss Pym put it to herself.

“Another ridiculous touch about the appearance of the poor old lady was her short hair; decrepit as she was, and lonely as she lived she had actually had her scanty relics of white hair cropped round her shaking head.”

Miss Pym can’t be too bothered by Miss Lefain’s appearance, however. Not when there’s the matter of the missing Crown Derby plate to be taken care of. The old woman tells Miss Pym that she hid the plate away, and that if Miss Pym stays a while longer and talks, then she can have the plate. This is too good an opportunity to pass up, so Miss Pym follows the old woman up the stairs to where the plate is hidden. But why, if the old woman lives in Hartleys, is everything — beds, tables, chairs — covered in dust sheets? And why are there no fires set? And what is that smell that Miss Pym suddenly notices: “a fearful smell — something damp rotting somewhere”?

Miss Pym soon discovers the answers to those questions, but...at least she got her plate, right? Right?

Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long was born in 1885 on Hayling Island in Hampshire, England. Her alcoholic father left the family when she was young and was later found dead in the streets of London. She, along with her sister and their unaffectionate mother, lived in poverty.

At the age of sixteen, Bowen (which was one of many pseudonyms she used) wrote her first novel The Viper of Milan. So violent was the historical novel, that several publishers refused to touch it because they considered it inappropriate that so young a woman should have written it. Of course, eventually it was published in 1906, and, of course, eventually it became a bestseller. After that, Bowen was able to support her family through her writing.

And write she did.

Her works numbered over 150 volumes and covered such genres as historical fiction, gothic horror, mysteries, and popular history. She continued to be well-regarded after her death in 1952 by writers and critics such as Graham Greene, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, and Fritz Leiber.

“The Crown Derby Plate” is perhaps her best known work. It’s been included in several Christmas-themed anthologies such as Christmas Ghosts (1987), Horror for Christmas (1992), and Mistletoe & Mayhem: Horrific Tales for the Holidays (1993). Bowen herself published the tale in her collections The Last Bouquet: Some Twilight Tales (1933) and The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories (1949). It was also published by Arkham House in the 1976 collection Kecksies and Other Twilight Tales. You can also find the story here at Project Gutenberg.

I’m very surprised that none of the old time radio shows adapted Bowen’s tale, but you can listen to Tony Walker read it on his excellent Classic Ghost Stories Podcast:

As I said, “The Crown Derby Plate” is the final Christmas ghost story of this year’s Blog-o-ween. I hope you enjoyed it. Now, it’s time to take down the tree, pack up the stockings, toss out the mistletoe, and get on with stories that have less to do with Santa Claus and more to do with Satan’s claws, if you know what I mean? Until tomorrow, then...pleasant dreams? Hmmmm? Heh-heh-heh!