Still Scared: Talking Children's Horror

Still Scared: Talking Children's Horror

The Crystal Prison (Deptford Mice Book Two)

Download it: MP3 | AAC | OGG | OPUS

This episode we talked about The Crystal Prison by Robin Jarvis from 1989, the second book in the Deptford Mice trilogy.

Returning thanks to the returning Ava, who you can find on twitter at @avafoxfort.

If you want to follow us on twitter we are @stillscaredpod, and our email address is stillscaredpodcast@gmail.com.

Intro music is by Maki Yamazaki, and you can find her work at makiyamazaki.com.

Outro music is by Joe Kelly, and their band Etao Shin are at etaoshin.co.uk

Artwork is by Letty Wilson, find their work at behance.net/lettydraws

The sound effects used in this episode are:

zg444 - creepy-background-music

HerbertBoland - BunchofFlies

kaunaj - EnterHero

1bit - David Bowie MIDI tribute - "Starman"

How to Pronounce Tsundere - Japanese English 101

bigmanjoe - Suspenceful Creepy Music

zimbot - DreamsBeforeTheFlood

hykenfreak - Spooky Sucking Air

AlienXXX - mostersofthe_abyss2

Transcript

(distorting effects are applied to the intro, as Ren’s voice is echoed and joined by Adam’s)

**Ren: ** Welcome to Still Scared: Talking Children’s Horror, a podcast about creepy, spooky and disturbing children’s books, films and TV. I’m Ren Wednesday, my co-host is Adam Whybray, we’re joined again by returning guest

Ren and Adam: Ava Foxfort

Ren: To discuss the second book in the Deptford Mice series by Robin Jarvis, The Crystal Prison from 1989-9-9-9.

Adam: There’s a transcript at the link, so check the shownotes for that. Enjoy.

Ren: Good evening, Adam!

Adam: Good evening!

Ren: Good evening Ava, who is sitting right next to me.

Ava: Hi Ren, who is sitting right next to me!

Ren: I’ve never recorded in the same physical space as someone for this podcast before, so this is very exciting. Sorry Adam.

Adam: Are you sat tucked up together, or are you at other ends of the room?

Ren: We’re at other ends of an extremely long dining table.

Ava: If you could just pass the salt.

Ren: And a servant is passing the microphone between us, on rollerskates.

And we’re here to talk about the second book in the Deptford Mice series, The Crystal Prison, written and illustrated by Robin Jarvis, from 1989 as well. The first one’s also from 1989.

For the first time we are doing this series in order, so check out last month’s episode for our discussion of The Dark Portal. But unlike The Dark Portal, which mostly took place in the sewers under Deptford, The Crystal Prison mostly takes place in the countryside, in the country-mouse Twit’s homefield of Fennywolde.

So you’ll feel right at home with this, Adam.

Adam: I don’t live in a field!

Ren: Yeah, you know. You build a hall of corn.

Ava: Every summer you climb up to the thing, and get the moss and build a nest.

Ren: But before we get to Fennywolde and the countryside we have the matter of Jupiter’s corpse to deal with. We get the I guess satisfying conclusion of Jupiter’s earthly body as he takes an unceremonious journey through the sewers, out into the Thames and then flooded onto a building site, to be discovered by a builder.

Adam: The corpse all eaten up —

Ren: — Buzzing with flies.

(flies sound effect)

Ava: And the builder just sets fire to it. I feel like that’s not… the protocol. Surely if you find a large rotten dead cat you call health and safety.

Adam: I don’t reckon it’s the first time he did something like that.

Ava: Prominent cat burner. I think it’s interesting that he seem’s to really want to seal the deal. Jupiter is definitely dead, apart from a cloud of smoke emerging.

Ren: I’ll just read a little description:

‘The builder who had found him hurried away quickly, but soon returned dragging behind him a great shovel caked in cement. With a grunt he lifted the sagging corpse into the air. Jupiter’s massive claws dangled limply over the sides of the shovel and what was left of his striped ginger fur blazed ruddily in the sunlight.’

That is a dead cat.

So, I was trying to do a quick plot summary of this book and it just wouldn’t happen. It kept getting longer and longer. A lot happens in this book!

Ava: It’s interesting, you may remember from the last podcast that we were jumping all over the place because the narrative jumps all over the place. In this it’s not doing that at all, there is just one through narrative but lots is happening all of the time.

Adam: I think there’s also a lot more in the way of character interaction or characters at cross-purposes. Characters with different agendas and feelings about other characters.

Ava: Yes, it’s a feels-ier book, isn’t it. Although not all of those feelings are particularly present.

Adam: Structurally it’s very much a folk horror. People from outside the community come into the community and come up across some traditional ways, and there are suspicious feelings on both sides.

(Clip of the Maypole song scene from The Wicker Man: Children and an adult singing: 'And on that tree there was a limb And on that limb there was a branch And on that branch there was a nest And in that nest there was an egg And in that egg there was a bird And from that bird a feather came And of that feather was A bed …’)

Ava: I was kind of expecting more of that, but the Fennywolders aren’t the most united of people. I was expecting it to be full Wicker Man and everyone to be involved, but it was more complex than that.

Ren: So after we’ve seen with our own eyes that Jupiter is definitely dead, we come back to Deptford and after the events of The Dark Portal, the albino mouse Oswald is dying. And as he’s laying on his deathbed Audrey is summoned by:

(sings off-key) Thomas Triton Midshipmouse!

(A synth stab for Thomas Triton plays)

Summoned by him to come and meet an ancient squirrel called the Starwife, and the Starwife reveals that she’s found Madame Akikuyu, lost and raving, and Audrey has to go the countryside and stay with her forever. In exchange for which, the Starwife will save Oswald’s life.

Ava: Just to bring up here, this is Starwife The Astrology Squirrel.

(Synth stab)

Adam: Sorry?

Ava: Starwife the Astrology Squirrel who lives under the Greenwich telescope. We all remember the Starwife, right?

(Synth stab)

I just find it a bit weird, in this book with so many parts, to be introduced to this wizened old squirrel who looks through telescopes and finds magic in the stars and pours it into bags. I don’t know, I’m just well up for it.

Adam: I thought Starwife sounded like something out of glam rock or a prog song.

Ava: (sings to the tune of Starman by David Bowie) ‘There’s a Starwife, under Greenwich Tower…’ etc. Sorry.

Adam: (continues singin) ’We’d like to come and meet her, and see her telescopic power’.

Ren: Anyway. They heal Oswald, Oswald’s fine.

Ava: Oswald’s fine, but only on the condition that Audrey is exiled from her home and made to follow a rat that she doesn’t like.

Ren: Yeah, if she breaks her promise then Oswald will die.

Ava: (stage whisper) I reckon that’s a lie.

Adam: I don’t know, I think you’re underestimating the Starwife there.

Ava: (stage whisper) She’s just a squirrel!

She’s just a squirrel with a telescope, at the end of the day. No, I wouldn’t say that to her face.

Ren: She’d throw her stick at you.

Ava: I’d definitely get sticked by the Starwife.

Ren: Audrey, Madame Akikuyu, Audrey’s brother Arthur and Twit travel to Fennywolde, Twit’s homefield and pretty much as soon as they arrive, Madame Akikuyu fights off an owl that has been terrorising the area.

Ava: It’s pretty full-on! A couple of kids are hanging out by the tree and they get trapped by the owl, and they’re all going to get gored, and one of them is getting chased and then suddenly the rat leaps on the owl!

Adam: Making a lot of sassy one-liners as she goes, in a kind of Arnold Schwarzenegger action hero way.

Ren: And the owl’s name is, Ava?

Ava: The owl’s name is Mahooot. Mahooot! I don’t know if you noticed, but it does have three ‘o’s throughout. The owl is definitely called Mahoo-ooot.

Ren: So Fennywolde declares her a hero, lifts her up on their shoulders and chants (wee mousey sound effect voices) Madame Akikuyu! Madame Akikuyu!

And Audrey and Arthur are like ‘ehhhh…’

Ava: ‘We thought she was trouble!’.

Adam: And she’s very pleased with her newfound veneration.

Ren: Yes, she’s very happy. We haven’t mentioned that Audrey describes her as having ‘lost her mind’ after the events of The Dark Portal.

Ava: But it’s hard because I remember with The Dark Portal I was saying there were definitely hints of someone who was wanting to be redeemed, or had possibilities of being redeemed if she hadn’t been cursed to being treated as a miserable rat by various thuggish rat and cat gangsters.

So I found it really sad that Madame Akikuyu has lost all those memories, and is now being quite earnestly really affectionate about Audrey, doesn’t remember anything about Audrey except that Audrey saved her at one point and is just like ‘You’re my little mouslet friend and I’m going to look after you and your people’, and Audrey is having none of it! It’s sad.

Ren: Audrey is perhaps not the most likeable character in this.

Ava: Despite being definitely the protagonist, even more so than the first book. It’s her story that we’re following for the bulk of this. But she is quite mean.

Adam: It’s interesting because we saw hints of that in the first book, but maybe it’s that the faults in her character become more apparent when she’s outside of her element, or outside of her usual surroundings? Surrounded by people she loves she’s quite a genial character —

Ava Well, she does just tell Piccadilly to screw off, when actually they are clearly dreamily after each other.

Adam: Yeah, but that’s just like the tsundere character archetype isn’t it. *

(Clip of a voice instructing you how to voice the word tsundere, repeating the pronunciation twice).

Ren: Yeah, I mean she is a teenager who is being forced to go on a big quest that she doesn’t want to do.

So as they’re settling into Fennywolde, conflict appears in two forms: the first is Alison Sedge, a flirty local girl who immediately distrusts Audrey as a potential romantic rival, and the second is Isaac Nettle, a religious fundamentalist ’staunch green mouser’.

When Audrey makes a decorative corn dolly to decorate the hall of corn where they’re all sleeping, Alison goes and tells on her to Isaac Nettle, who storms in and declares it an abomination and destroys it.

Ava: And Isaac at this point has already been established as being an abusive parent, and having a strongly devoted Protestant work ethic. And I found it a little jarring to have a very obvious pagan religion being painted as very Christian fundamentalist from one angle. There’s some weird contrasts theologically there.

The Green Mouse really really wants a lot of suffering and hard work, that doesn’t really seem like the Green Mouse that we’ve seen anywhere else, in Isaac Nettle’s vision of things.

Adam: In a way it might make sense that the religion would take on different local characteristics.

Ava: But even within Fennywolde it seems like Isaac’s an extremist within Fennywolde. Possibly we don’t see enough to know that for certain, but he gets told off by the King of the Field quite often.

And you get the feeling that most people have had enough of him. But on the other hand they are putting up with him despite knowing that he’s beating his child, Jenkin. Which is horrible subplot running through the whole thing.

Adam: It is, and it’s rendered quite brutally. It does make for disquieting reading, as well it might. I was quite struck by the brutality of that subplot.

Ren: If listeners remember when we talked about The Crysalids?

Adam (in voiceover): Editor’s note: Series 1, Episode 15.

Ren: There was a somewhat similar abusive religious father figure that we had in that book.

Ava: It’s definitely a very common Puritan trope, being brought out in Isaac Nettle.

Adam: I don’t think it’s making any monolithic statements about religion or Paganism, per se.

Ava: I think I’m digging for those themes, and they’re not actually there and that’s what’s jarring for me a little. I’m expecting there to be a bit more congruence between the themes on that level, because it comes in right at the beginning.

When I was reading the very first chapters of The Dark Portal I was immediately struck by the idea of this underground paganism and these Cuthulu-worshipping rats, and different kinds of folklore.

I feel like there were some interesting tensions there and they’re not really explored, possibly because it is a kid’s book! And not a meditation on the religious practices of the people of Deptford.

Ren: Speaking of mystical threats, Madame Akikuyu has been hearing a voice that no-one else can, and one night it reveals itself to be her tattoo that is talking to her. Which is a face, she has tattooed on her face, near her ear. And it claims to be Nicodemus, spirit of the fields, who has become trapped in limbo and she must help to free.

He promises to teach her powerful magic to be able to do so, and in order to prove this he makes the pieces of Audrey’s torn-apart corn dolly come back together, and then gives the dolly life.

I feel like this would be a good point to read an extract:

Ava: ‘Hear me, oh Brud!’ called out Nicodemus. ‘Give this image life – let sap be as the blood on the straw. Pour breath into its empty breast and let stems be as sinew.’

A deathly silence descended over the whole of Fennywolde. The fieldmice shifted uncomfortably in their soft nests as a shadow passed over the sky. Birds shrank into their feathers as they roosted in the tops of the elms and feared the worst. A hedgehog in his den of old, dry leaves felt the charged atmosphere and curled himself into a tight ball of spikes.

Down came the shadow, thundering from the empty night on the back of the wind. The tree tops swayed and the leaves whipped round. The grass in the meadow parted as the force fell upon it and travelled wildly through, flattening and battering everything in its path. It rushed towards the ditch and went howling down into it.

Madame Akkikuyu stood her ground as the unseen fury tore at her hair and pulled her shawl till it choked her. And then all was still.

The fortune-teller lowered the claws she had raised against the ravaging gale and looked down at the dolly. ‘Command it,’ said Nicodemus. ‘I . . . I?’ she stammered. ‘Who else? It will obey none but you.’

Madame Akkikuyu swept back the hair which had blown over her face and peered again at the corn dolly. ‘Up,’ she ordered meekly.’ One of the grain arms gave a sudden twitch and the rat drew her breath sharply. ‘Up!’ she said again with more force.

The straw figure flipped itself over, rustling and crackling. It leant on its arm and jolted itself up until it stood before her. The fortune-teller took some steps around the dolly and waved her arms over it just in case someone was tricking her with cotton threads.

But no, the corn dolly was alive! ‘Instruct it to bow before you,’ suggested Nicodemus. ‘Bow,’ said the rat. With a snapping and splintering the corn dolly bent over and bowed. ‘

Ren: Ohohoh…. And there’s an illustration as well, which you might not have seen Adam. We’re both reading the kindle version but Ava has the book, and it shows Madame Akikuyu with her arm outstretched towards the corn dolly which is raising its corn arms, and a quite frightening depiction of Nicodemus on her head.

Ava: It really is on her ear, like the whole of her ear has this horrifically gleeful face on it.

Ren: It doesn’t look so much like a tattoo as just a whole head that is attached to her head.

Ava: Ooh yeah, it’s a bit ‘how to get ahead in advertising’ actually.

Ren: So. Soon after this, Arthur comes across the body of a young mouse called Hodge, who has been strangled. It’s Midsummers’ Eve and all the mice in Fennywolde go to bed early, grief-stricken and frightened.

But Audrey wakes up hearing a melody, and seeing the dried Hawthorn blossom Oswald gave her glowing. She follows it out to the Hawthorn grotto, and finds all of Fennywolde celebrating in the presence of the Green Mouse. Dancing, and drinking. The moon herself comes down and turns the pond into mead, and the Green Mouse tells her that he will take care of her while the summer lasts and his power is strong.

But come morning no-on else remembers this happening, and this is about when Nicodemus starts to tell Madame Akikuyu about the potion she needs to make to free him.

The people of Fennywolde also ask her to break the dry weather spell, but in order to do the spell, Nicodemus makes her kill a fish, and a baby bird.

So we’ve had one corn murder, and at this point we get our second corn murder. The young mouse Whortle, who narrowly escaped death by owl earlier, is murdered by the sinister presence in the corn.

It says: ‘Thin, long fingers appeared out of the mist and came for him. As he yelled for his life he felt something tighten around his neck. ‘FENNY!’ he screamed desperately, ‘FEN-’ Only the corn stems rustled in reply. ‘

Fenny is the watch-word to shout in an emergency.

Adam: One of my favourite bits of the book, I think. Certainly one of the most sinister.

Ava: Also I feel like at this point we genuinely have no clue what’s going on, and what the threat is. Audrey having a dream that is that real at the same time… you know that Audrey’s not going to be the murderer, but some of the villagers think that she might be because she threatened Alison Sedge earlier, and moments after she threatened to strangle Alison, someone else turns up strangled. It all plays quite mysteriously, with lots of jumping between.

Adam: It’s eerie!

Ava: It is quite eerie. It doesn’t let you know exactly what’s happening.

Adam: Mark Fisher, in The Weird and the Eerie defines the eerie as ‘absence when there should be presence’. Which I think is borne out here. There is a palpable presence in the effects, the bruises left on the necks of the mice who are strangled, and yet we don’t know exactly who or what is doing the strangling.

I mean, I thought it might just be the wind.

Ren: Strangled by the wind?

Adam: Yeah, the wind gusting up bits of corn. But that would be quite a co-incidence if the wind happened to gust a noose of corn around several necks of mice.

Ava: I don’t know what happens in the countryside! Who knows.

It’s also interesting in that there’s an illustration of this as well, the hands reaching out and the thing here is that they don’t line up with what you expect it to be later on, which might be a bit of misdirection.

Ren: So the same creature goes for Twit, and this is when we get the first idea of what it might be As he comes round from being choked, he says: ‘All I saw was something that looked…looked as if it were made totally out of straw’.

The mice of Fennywolde begin to suspect Audrey. But Audrey has been having this flirtation with Jenkin Nettle, Isaac Nettle’s son, and they have a moment, in which he proposes to her, and she says: ’No, you’re meant to be with Alison Sedge’.

Ava Which is something that she saw in her vision of the Green Mouse. Jenkin and Alison Sedge are getting it on at the party, and Audrey gets a distinct sense that they are supposed to be together.

It’s interesting, because up until that point I thought they were going to split into a full on teen drama ‘Team Jenkin’ and ’Team Picaddily’ thing with Audrey, but they shoot it down fairly quickly.

Ren Which team would you be?

Ava Oh, team Picadilly. I feel for Jenkin, but he’s just got a bit besotted because Audrey’s turned up and represents a way of escaping his quite grim existence.

Anyway.

Ren But as they’re showing this moment, the corn dolly lurches towards them:

‘Audrey could not believe her eyes and Jenkin fell back in fear. The corn dolly she had made was lurching towards them! No longer was it the trim, neat figure she had woven but a mass of tangled, twisted stems – bent with hatred and evil spells. The arms which had been pretty corn ears had grown long and wild with spiky fingers which clutched at the air greedily and waved around full of menace. The nightmare figure staggered towards them, its twiggy fingers outstretched, ready to catch them.’

Which is some proper children’s horror there, that’s one for the record books!

Adam: And some good textures!

**Ren: ** Oh yeah!

But they are running to escape, and as they are Mahoot the owl swoops down and steals Jenkin away. Madame Akikuyu fights the owl, again, and the villagers are whipped into a frenzy.

I’m compressing this a bit, because there’s so much plot. Nicodemus reveals his final plan to Madame Akikuyu: she must throw the mouse without a mousebrass into a fire, that is, Audrey.

Ava: Yeah, we suddenly get introduced to the concept of the Green Laws, and it’s implied that the rules and strictures of the Green Mouse, including the giving of the Mousebrass, and marriage, are providing some kind of mystical protection to most of the mice. But because Audrey lost her Mousebrass anti-cat medallion fighting Jupiter, she’s no longer under protection, and is prey to Nicodemus’s mischief.

Ren: Nicodemus tells Akikuyu that she must have a special mousebrass made. She goes to Isaac Nettle, and tries to manipulate him into making one for her. When he doesn’t agree, she does what Nicodemus told her to and takes him out to the owl’s tree.

For just a moment of pure horror, and brutal plot twist. She takes him to the tree and he finds his son’s mousebrass sticking out of an owl pellet.

‘There on the dusty ground was an owl pellet, one of those tight little bundles of fur and bones. Sticking out of it was Jenkin’s mousebrass’.

Adam: This is this instalments’ equivalent of hiding under mouse skins in the first book.

Ren: I guess so. He really goes there, once per book.

Adam: I will admit that if I had a child, and they went missing and then I discovered their corpse vomited up by whoever or whatever had eaten them, yeah, I would be quite upset.

Ava: You’re a sensitive soul, aren’t you Adam?

Adam: Yeah, I think so.

Ren: And at this point Isaac Nettle has broken down and is begging for forgiveness in how he treated Jenkin. Poor Jenkin.

Ava: And does end up crafting the hateful mousebrass, so it’s all been set up by Nicodemus.

Adam: Like all good art, forged out of hate.

Ren: During all this, the body of the last victim of the corn dolly, Whortle, still hasn’t been found. Until, Alison goes out for a walk and stumbles across it. The crowd rushes out at her alarm, and they finally see the animated corn dolly.

They know that Audrey made it so they grab her, and when the corn dolly comes at her, she shouts ‘stop’ and it obeys her. And this is the final proof —

Adam: The final straw, as it were!

Ren: Groan.

Ava: Groan.

Adam: Because it’s a corn dolly.

Ren: And they call out to burn her.

Adam: No they don’t!!

Ren: Or, as the Kindle edition would have it: they call to ‘bum’. Because due to an unfortunate error in the transition to an ebook, this edition now has the line: ‘bum! bum! they repeated excitedly!’.

Adam: We have to accept it as canon, unfortunately. It’s a shame but that’s what we have to do.

Ren: Ava’s has the PG version.

Ava: Well, the PG version where they’re just burning people to death at the stake!

Ren: Oh dear. Anyway. That far aside.

Ava: I imagine that is quite frustrating if you’re reading this and it’s reaching its emotional climax and it’s suddenly like: ‘bum! bum!’.

Ren: So maybe get the paper copy if you want to avoid that.

Ava If you want the full dramatic effect. Because it is a terrifying climax. I couldn’t remember anything of what happened from when I was little, so it was all quite dramatic as everyone’s completely gone of on one and ready to burn people at the stake, or hang them. It’s a lot!

Adam: This is really get the mob mentality. Because as you said, Ava, we don’t see that so much at the start. It’s not so much like The Wicker Man, say, where it’s this really closed insular community who fully distrusts Sergent Howie from the start.

Ava: They seem a little suspicious of the newbies, but they’re also quite happy to welcome them in as friends of Twit’s. But they do definitely go over the edge.

Adam: Into the stereotypical pitchfork-wielding mob.

Ava: And to be fair, they are being preyed upon by a vengeful spirit.

Adam: I guess the same question we had with the rats in the last podcast applies, as to whether this is really them or if it is the evil malign influence of Jupiter.

Ava: A co-incidence of Audrey’s different bits of churlishness have accidentally given the impression of her being a lot less trustworthy than we would normally have her. She does threaten Alison Sedge, she does seem to not trust Madame Akikuyu even after she saves the whole village from hiding underground all summer.

These little things add up, and then it is the corn dolly that she made. And if you have someone saying that that corn dolly is an evil idol of some kind, and then it does come alive.

I’m not saying that anyone should ever be burned at the stake, but I am saying that I can understand how that terror and mentality could easily latch onto something and Audrey’s had some real bad luck.

Adam: I’m not going to make a corn dolly around you, Ava.

Ava: It’s fine, you can make as many corn dollies as you want. But if they re-animate later, I may want to keep my distance, is all I’m saying. Almost certainly not going to burn you, but.

Ren: Oh, I love it when we have a good rapport between cohosts.

Ava: I’m at that point in our relationship when I can say firmly Adam, that I probably won’t burn you at the stake.

Adam: That’s like when I spent the night on the streets talking to a really engaging and charismatic but obviously quite troubled paranoid schizophrenic guy, who was homeless and actually kind of looked after me for the night.

But one of the first things he said to me was: ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to stab you in the face!’

Which is one of the least reassuring things anyone’s ever said to me on first meeting.

Ava: I once did a hitchhiking trip with some folks, and there were three of us which is a hard number to hitch with as you do definitely outnumber anyone who gives you a lift.

But we’d been waiting for ages and this really lovely woman gave us a lift, but the whole time she was moving giant boxes of stuff out of her back seat so we can sit with her, and the whole time she was going: ‘I hope you don’t kill me! I really hope you don’t kill me!’. And I was like, ‘Oh no, don’t give us a lift! It’s alright! I don’t want you to be that scared in your own car!’. I think to be fair she could have taken us, she was an ironman triathlete we found out later.

Adam: And to be fair, for all you know, she had a load of bodies in those boxes.

Ava: Yeah, I mean, she didn’t kill us, we didn’t kill her. I like to think it was a pretty solid interaction.

Adam: That’s the model of society that we want going forward.

Ava: Podcast standards have slipped. Once you’re exposed to that much horror you’re just glad to escape from any situation alive.

Adam: This is the effect of reading Robin Jarvis, clearly.

Ava: It’s a very high body count!

Adam: I know, it’s like a slasher isn’t it!

Ava: There’s a lot of people who die. I mean, I know that all the rats in Deptford get killed at the end of the last one, but that does happen offscreen.

Ren: They’re targeted one by one. Get to know them a little bit, then they’re gone.

Ava: It’s worse than Game of Thrones, I think, for body count of people you think are probably going to survive.

Ren: I mean, you don’t expect that the mouse who has almost got killed by an owl to then be strangled by an animated corn dolly.

Ava: And you have this set up of ‘they’re meant to be together’. No! Sorry.

Adam: I should know Jarvis better than this after the last book, but I thought ‘maybe Jenkin will return!’

Ava: I think Jenkin was the one who shocked me the most, because that had been set up, like ‘Oh right, they’re meant to be together so I can probably rely on that happening by the end.’ But no. And Alison ends up distraught by this.

Adam: And Alison seemingly ends the book broken and having retreated into a world of her own fantasy.

Ava: It’s heartbreaking! The book is genuinely heartbreaking, which I think is quite impressive.

Adam: I think the story of Madame Akikuyu in this is genuinely quite tragic.

Ava: It is quite a sharp turn from her being friends with Audrey. Audrey is really obnoxious to her, but then she immediately falls for Nicodemus, the first person who is offering power. And that’s what got her before, she was corrupted by that desire for magical power and she just falls for it again straight away. It’s sad.

Anyway, I’ve forgotten where we were.

Ren: We were at Twit about to burst through the crowd and invoke Gallow’s Law to offer to marry Audrey and therefore have her protected by the Green Laws, so they can’t murder her.

Ava: Twit’s thorough legal knowledge of the Green legal system, which had not been revealed at any point prior to this, but suddenly comes in very handy.

Ren: They do an impromptu wedding ceremony, which includes various mousey requirements, such as having someone to bless both halves of the couple. And no-one will offer to bless Audrey, until Madame Akikuyu steps forward to do it, in quite a tender moment.

Ava: Because having moments ago been conspiring to kill Audrey, remembers that she loves her and care for her, and says that she will bless this marriage. Which as well as legally protecting Audrey from the gallows, also binds her up in the Green Laws, which protect her from Nicodemus’s preying hands.

Ren: So in order to satisfy Nicodemus, Akikuyu must chose another victim. She tells Alison that she is going to cast a terrible spell on Audrey, and gets her to ‘help’, but instead binds Alison up in the ritual.

Ava: Alison having thrown away her mousebrass out of sheer horror at the death of Jenkin, who she realises that she loved all along.

Ren: So the ritual happens, involves Madame Akikuyu’s crystal ball, and just before it’s complete she realises in horror that Nicodemus’ true identity is Jupiter.

Ava: Which is revealed partly through the fact that she is starting changing colour, and I awkwardly had a brief moment of thinking: ‘Oh, she’s starting to get orange and brown stripes. Is she Garfield??’. Actually my first instinct. Which ruined the moment for me, I think that was my ‘bum’ moment, if you will.

Adam: We discussed this on twitter the other week, didn’t we, that you stan Garfield.

Ava: I do stan Garfield. I am apparently a generation younger than I thought I was, according to one particular twitter meme, because of the nature of my leftist politics and my fondness for Garfield.

Which I think is fair. I’m going to take suddenly being made thirteen years younger by an internet meme. Anyway.

Sorry for bring Garfield into this when you were about to do quite a strong dramatic reading.

Ren: ‘Madame Akkikuyu thought of the eternal torment that lay before her should Jupiter take possession of her body. She let go of Alison and shouted, ‘Mouselet my friend! It is I who have choice. I will not serve you again! Akkikuyu is free!’ With one terrific leap, Madame Akkikuyu cast herself into the middle of the fire. The rat’s ginger fur became black once more . . . As the blaze roared up, Akkikuyu’s voice was heard one last time from the heart of the flames, ‘Akkikuyu tried so hard mouselet . . .’ and with that she died.’

wails

Ava: I loved the double play of her ginger fur becoming black once more, you’re like ‘oh, the magic’s wearing off — oh no, wait, that’s fire!’. That’s a really lovely detail.

Ren: She tried so hard.

Ava: She does, and she made the right call at the end but the right call it turned out that the right call was to sacrifice herself. People are really doomed by the choices they make in this book. Little bits of evil build up and make horrible messes for people.

Ren: It’s very unforgiving.

Adam: It’s a pretty bleak vision, really.

I’m sure everything will turn out happily in the next book and all the dead characters will come back!

Ava: I’m expecting it’s just going to be a complete wasteland, from Deptford up to Fennywolde it’s all going to be ashes by the end of the final book.

Ren: Yeah, so the fire spreads to the cornfield, all the mice run to escape the burning hall of corn, but the drought finally ends and the fire is put out by a massive downpour of rain. Not before we get another addition to our body count, the King of the Field.

Ava: Yep, the King of the Field sacrifices himself to save Isaac Nettle, and I’m like ‘No, he’s just been awful throughout!’. I mean, I don’t think that means he deserves to burn. Poor King of the Field, Mr Woodruff. He’s generally been very solid throughout the whole thing, a strong voice of reason and kind to the outsiders, but he sacrifices himself to try and save his folk.

A bit monarchist, this society.

Ren: They bury Madame Akikuyu in a place where a ray of sun will shine on her grave.

Ava: Ahhhh. It’s so sweet. For all that we’ve just been complaining about how bleak this is, the description of Madame Akikuyu’s resting place and the fact that people go there to make wishes, and if the sun is shining at just the right point they come true. That is lovely. That’s my kind of countryside. I mean, I don’t mean magical dead rats necessarily, but.

Ren: Yeah, it’s a really lovely touch. So Audrey and Arthur leave Fennywolde, forever.

Ava: Despite the fact that Audrey just got married, full breach of the Green Laws. Audrey abandons her new husband, and he does seem quite sad. William Scuttle is just a love.

Ren: Ava’s got their hand on their heart.

Ava: Throughout this whole thing he’s just constantly pulling stuff out of the bag to save people. He’s such a sweetheart, and is clearly quite tearful at not being with Audrey, which is entirely unprecedented, but he sees her on her way after having saved her.

I just want to —

Ren: Give him a cuddle!

Ava: I just want to give my boy William Scuttle a cuddle.

William Scuttle, mostly known as Twit throughout the book. But I like that Audrey calls him William as he’s saying goodbye, that’s a nice touch. And the name is just entirely unjustified!

Ren: He’s quick-thinking to know how to save Audrey!

Ava: He’s an expert in Green Laws, what are the odds!

Adam: Right, shall we do Texture of the Week?

Ren: We’re nearly at the end!

Right at the end, Alison is playing with the soot-blackened crystal ball that had been used in the ritual, she drops it and it rolls down the bank and cracks, and the last line of the novel is:

‘a hidden great shadow rose up from the ditch behind her. Jupiter soared into the sky — free at last from the crystal prison’.

Ava: Oh dear!

Ren: Uh-oh.

Adam: Interesting choice to have the book title name-dropped right at the end.

Ren: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered that before!

Ava: I really like that this marble has travelled so far and gone through so much. My assumption is that in The Dark Portal there’s a ritual on Blackheath common that involves Jupiter, and my assumption is that a chunk of Jupiter gets left behind in it from there.

Ren: Like a horcrux.

Ava: Or a phylactry, if you don’t know Harry Potter. Sorry. Being weirdly smug about not reading Harry Potter is enough to distract me from my point.

But Jupiter’s soul goes up into the sky and his soul is successfully burned away by the unnamed builder, but because something of his has been kept in the crystal prison he’s still there.

I quite like that throughout the book Nicodemus/Jupiter is calling on various unnamed and unexplained evil spirits with odd names and ‘the darkness between the stars’ at one point. So presumably now all the spirit of Jupiter that was in the sky got in the prison along with the rest of him, and escaped. Setting us up to know what the Big Bad is in the final book.

At the beginning, they set up the tree bulb that Mahooot lives in as a dark and ominous place that the mice shouldn’t go near. Like the dark portal and the grill was in the first book. But that’s not it at all, it reveals an owl who is quite quickly done in by Madame Akikuyu. I like that the book doesn’t reveal immediately that it’s going to be a similar story to last time.

Adam: That’s another unpleasant part, isn’t it, that Mahooot gets seemingly beaten to death by the mice.

Ava: Yeah! Mahooot’s just an owl! Like, I get that we’re seeing this from the perspective of mice and mice are the victims of owls, but. He gets a horrible time!

Ren: Add that to the body count! As well as the frog, fish and baby bird.

Ava: A frog boiled back to its bones! Must be alive. You can’t treat Nicodemus with a three-day old dead frog.

Ren: Speaking of three-day old dead frogs, shall we do Texture of the Week.

Adam: That’s a fair segue.

Ava: Strong.

Adam: I’ve got my guitar because this is kind of folksy, isn’t it.

(Adam strums guitar and sings : ‘Oh texture, texture of the week’ Ava and Ren join in with various degrees of tunefulness.)

Ava: That happened! Who wants to go first?

Adam: Well, I’ve got quite a nice one this time. Because last time you too did nice ones, and I did the horrible one.

Arguably, it’s more of a consistency than a texture. But I don’t think that’s stopped us in the past.

Ava: (Sings ‘consistencyyyyyy consistencyyyy of the week!’)

Adam: ‘The floor of the ditch began to get softer. Instead of dry choking dust it had become a rich brown mud, which yielded under her little pink feet like a dark fruit cake that had been cooked too quickly. The surface was crusty yet underneath it was still gooey and spongy.’

Ren: Mmmm. That’s a good one.

Adam: Mud pie!

Ren: Ava?

Ava: Mine’s actually similiar to last time, I just can’t get over London at night, apparently: ‘The rippling river was dark, and cool air drifted lazily up from its shimmering surface. It was a clear, clean night pricked all over by brilliant stars. Greenwich Pier huddled over the lapping water like a tired old lady. Its timbers were creaky, its ironwork rusted and yellow paint flaked and fell from it like tears.’

Ren: Oooh yeah! So good that that was also my Texture of my Week.

Adam: Oh no!

Ren: No, it’s fine! I think unanimous textures are a good thing! But I did chose a back-up texture because I thought there might be a chance of that.

Which is also a very nice texture, because I was very taken by their nests in the hall of corn, which we had to skip over for expediency but they build this very elaborate structure to sleep in in the summer, and it’s storeys of nests that they climb up into. This is Audrey in her nest:

‘Her nest was snug and warm, and the moss which lined it was soft and scented. She nuzzled down into the cool fragrant feathering which smelt of the green earth and shady forests.’

That’s just lovely!

Ava: I think it’s good that when we’ve focussed on just how horrific the book is that we’ve all gone for quite lovely textures.

Adam: Because it is often quite a pretty book despite all the abject horror.

Ren: I did do a Claim of the Week.

Adam: (booming voice) Claim of the Week!

Ren: My claim is mostly just Isaac and his notions about offending the Green Mouse. On Audrey’s corn dolly: ‘Thy craft speaks for itself. It is a blasphemous effigy and mocks the design of the Green Mouse’

I think that’s quite a claim.

Adam: It is, because for all we know, the Green Mouse, or God, does look like a giant corn dolly.

Ava: I’ve got a picture of the Green Mouse! There is an illustration. I don’t know why I’m searching for it when we’re on a podcast and no-one can see what I’m looking at.

Adam: Can you describe it?

Ava: Just a giant leafy mouse.

Ren: A big leafy mouse face in the sky.

Ava: A big old smile and a crown of leaves and stuff. It looks quite jolly and soothing, I can imagine the Green Mouse sounding a bit like Brian Blessed.

Adam: Or like the Green Giant, maybe.

Ava: Ho Ho Ho.

Ava: I can see that. You can’t see that, because you’re listeners to a podcast and that’s not how they work.

Ren: So, as we’re getting to the end, we now have a few threads unwrapped up for the last book. What’s the last book called?

Adam: ‘All the mice are dead’, ‘The death of Deptford’, I don’t know. Oh, here it is: ‘The Final Reckoning’.

Ava: That does sound ominous!

Ren: So for The Final Reckoning we have Thomas Triton Midshipmouse and his heavily-hinted at backstory. (Thomas Triton sting plays).

Ava: It was a name, wasn’t it. He called Twit by the wrong name.

Ren: Yeah, he claimed in this book that a certain ghost had been put to rest, but the Starwife warns him against entwining reality and memory so closely.

Picadilly was left quite abruptly.

Ava: It was sad. There was a part of me that was like ‘Oh God, straight people are so boring’ but Audrey and Picadilly failing to express their love to one another at the big old dance to celebrate Oswald getting well… all cross-purposes, and Audrey says that she’s grumpy and Picadilly says he’s going to head out, and neither of them… anyway. I grumble over teen drama a lot.

Ren: Hoping for some Picadilly resolution.

Ava: We’d better get more Picadilly.

Ren: And Audrey’s destiny, her special role.

Ava: Has she not had enough destiny?

Ren: I don’t think she has! I think she has more destiny to come.

Ava: There’s still the rest of Orfeo and Eldritch’s prophecies. Some of them have come true, but we haven’t seen all of it. And I think there’s most stuff that was seen in the crystal ball.

Adam: And just more death, generally.

Ava: There’s probably going to be some more deaths. Do you reckon our main crowd are going to survive?

Ren: Probably not!

Adam: I mean, Arthur could go. He’s a bit expendable.

Ava: Ahh. Yeah. I reckon their mum might got and I think that’s going to break me.

Adam: Can you imagine if they get back home and after all that Oswald’s died?

Ava: ‘You didn’t look after Madame Akikuyu, what did you expect to happen?’

Ren: No, just like, fell off a banister.

Ava: They come home and their house is going to be demolished isn’t it! There’s some implication in The Dark Portal that they’re squatters, and I wonder if the council are going to come in. I mean, I’m not expecting the baddie in the final book to be The Council. That seems like more of a Diana Wynne Jones thing.

Ren: I think we might have to read a litany of names at the end of the third episode, for all our fallen characters.

Ava: Mouse day of rememberance.

Ava: That’s made me sad.

Ren: Well, I’ll tell you my the final thing that made me laugh, which was when Mr Woodruff, the King of the Field was getting very fed up with Isaac Nettle, and he said: ‘You’re talking out of your hat, Nettle’.

Ava: We should use that more.

Ren: Right. So, thank you for listening to our podcast. Thank you to Ava for joining us again.

Ava: Thank you for having me!

Ren: Do you have a sign-off for us Adam?

Adam: Yeah! Sleep well, mouselets and don’t get turned into owl pellets!

Ava: Sound advice.

Ren: See you next time, spooky kids!

Adam: Bye!

Ava: Bye!

(Outro music plays)

  • I’ll let Wikipedia handle this for me: ‘Tsundere is a Japanese term for a character development process that describes a person who is initially cold (and sometimes even hostile) before gradually showing a warmer, friendlier side over time.’

Comments


New comment

By submitting your comment you agree that the content of the field "Name or nickname" will be stored and shown publicly next to your comment. Using your real name is optional.

About this podcast

A podcast in which one film lecturer and one scaredy-cat discuss creepy, spooky and disturbing children's books, films and tv.

by Ren Wednesday, Adam Whybray

Subscribe

Follow us