How do you like this stump? It’s lovely, isn’t it? Kind of like a melty Oscar the Grouch somehow. However, I’m sorry to be deceptive, but this isn’t actually a story about this beautiful stump. It’s just that I was unable to take a picture of the subject of the story, who was, right at that moment, behind the stump. As it goes, I was sitting down eating my lunch on the remnants of an old laid beech hedge opposite this glorious stump, when a ghostly lady slowly approached on an equally ghostly bay horse. The pair were smiling gently, clearly deep inside some shared reverie, as they ambled down the path before them. At first I was not sure if they would notice me, but as they came adjacent, the lady turned her vaguely opaque head toward me and said ‘good day’ as she doffed her top hat. After which,
You’re probably thinking this is a photo of a large patch of red hot pokers in the striking shingle landscape of Romney Marshes, and you’re right, it is. As beautiful as this photo is, the real magic happens at night in the presence of a real live Seeker, whereby in response to an ardent and sincere question posed by said Seeker, the pokers shoot up into the night sky and explode like fireworks to spread the answer to the question across the night sky. The reader may well notice that a lot of my stories document real life instances of prescience, prophecy, and prediction. I should explain that this is because I find life very confusing and have therefore been a Seeker since I was a child. Ergo, my sensitivities are particularly attuned to moments in which I can cop a plead for a little bit of clarity, and so that
[This is the second instalment of the legend of Stick Boy.] Stick Boy got lost here on Black Down on his way to Holmbury Hill. He didn’t know he was going to Holmbury Hill, you understand, it’s just that he wasn’t intending on stopping on Black Down. However, the heavy fog which sometimes sits on that hill was causing him to walk in confused circles. Stick Boy sat down at a cross-paths to think. As he was admiring how the yellow of the gorse still popped in its own brightness amidst the fog, Stick Boy saw a shadow emerging from a distance down a path. A small shadow, wandering and weaving along the sandy trail, and holding a piece of bracken in her hand. Her name was GG, but Stick Boy didn’t know that then. GG stands for Ghost Girl, but only meanies call her that. To those of us who
Quite a long time ago, people were much, much smaller than they are now. This is where our fairy legends come from, only so much time has passed that we’ve forgotten that the little people were actually us. Bigstickasaurus hasn’t forgotten though, he’s still full of the stories from when we were small. He even told me one. In those days, we, the little people, would suspend ourselves from his spikes like ornaments on Christmas trees. Our ancestors would sit there, swinging backwards and forwards, shouting out ideas for a full moon show, practicing under cover of the new. The full moon shows were always spectacular and involved incredible circus feats. After they were finished, the little people would jump off their swings all at the same time, and perform synchronised somersaults as they landed. Then, after a prolonged series of curtsies and bows to a very loud round of applause,
I have to say that I was excited to find this sign! It’s been a long time since I encountered the Numberplate of Destiny, so to find the Sign of Jumbling Fortune was, well, a sign! A sign the universe had another message for me, a sign that my quest was not in vain, a sign that I had eyes for seeing and ears for hearing, a sign that the universe was rewarding my careful, quiet attention with a message. Before I reveal the potent and timely message the Sign of Jumbling Fortune had for me, let me first explain the way it works. As with a great many other naturally magical artefacts, it works best if you are carrying a stick. Thankfully I had picked up three yew sticks on that walk, and was thus able to divine a rather complicated message. However, the Jumbling Sign recognises that three sticks