This episode we talked about The Final Reckoning by Robin Jarvis from 1990, the third 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 audio samples used in this episode are as follows:

zagi2 - Doomed House

FoolBoyMedia - Fear Bringer

metamorphmuses - 1217 phantomCreaks

tim.kahn - deidddra

cheesepuff - sad song

toiletrolltube - menacing thing, (4)

Andrewkn - Cosmic Glow

aoristos - funeral bell-cloche funèbre

Transcript

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.

Adam: I’m your co-host Adam Whybray.

Ava: And I’m special guest Ava Foxfort.

Ren: And we’re here to talk about the second part of The Final Reckoning, which is the final book in the Deptford Mice series by Robin Jarvis.

As you can tell there have been a few episodes before this, so definitely go back and listen to them in order to get the full effect.

Enjoy!

Ren: Good morning my dear exhausted friends!

Adam: (tiredly) Hiiii. Urglest of burgles to you.

Ava: It is the time of the midwinter death, isn’t it?

Adam: I’m feeling it! It’s been a while.

Ren: It has been a while, we’ve all had a certain amount of life happening.

Adam: Urgh, life. Sorry, listeners.

Ren: But I don’t want to keep the listeners hanging a moment longer, so I need to ask if we have any important scotch egg related news we need to share.

Adam: Oh god. Uhhh…. I did read an article about Waitrose bringing in vegan scotch eggs, and there was some kind of outcry? Oh, maybe that was pork pies.

Waitrose doing vegan pork pies apart from in Melton Mowbray which is the home of the pork pie, and there was an outcry about not respecting the dead flesh traditions of Melton.

Ava: No, I’m sure you couldn’t. Someone went to Melton Mowbray recently and they said you definitely can’t have anything other than an immaculate pork pie.

Adam: They came back, right?

Ava: They did.

Ren: In a pie?

Adam: They didn’t end up as the ‘special stuff’.

Ava: I’m trying to think who it was and if I’ve seen them since, actually. There was vegan Scotch pie at the cafe we were at yesterday, but again a scotch pie is not a scotch egg.

Ren: Or a pork pie.

Adam: I’ve really dropped the egg on this one.

Ava: The only thing I can half-remember is someone saying that there was a posh restaurant in London that was selling venison-wrapped scotch eggs for £20 a pop as a starter.

Adam: Oh gosh. I am impressed by your commitment to the format, Ren, but I will note that last time you made quite a to-do about the scotch egg related talk distracting from the amount of plot we have to get through.

And before we started recording you noted how much plot you have written down, so it feels somewhat perverse and masochistic that you have launched straight into the scotch egg talk.

Ava: It’s a renegade intro approach. I don’t think we’ve even said the name of the book.

Ren: Deptford Mice.

Adam: Which one?

Ren: The Final Reckoning. Part 2.

Ava: Or rather, the second half. It’s not actually split into two books, there’s just a lot of plot in it and a lot of misery and a lot of snow.

Adam: In fact, if you’re listening to this…. no, there’s no way we’re going to get this done before the election results. So enjoy your misery! But at least the aesthetics match up, eh.

Ava, Adam, Ren: assembled groaning

Ren: So, listeners might recall out intense mid-season finale, where Jupiter —

Adam Aka Boris Johnson.

Ava Boris the Unbeest.

Ren Using the starglass to put out all hope in Britain, or light from the stars.

Ava Is the ghost army of rats the Lib Dems, or is that too far? They’ve been led by their leader to a horrendous trickery to find that they’re actually just going to be turned into tories.

Anyway. Anyway. Spoilers. Either for post-election negotiations or this book.

Adam I’m just impressed that Jarvis was able to anticipate this all in his allegory.

Ava This is going to sound ridiculous if Labour win.

Ren Good, I’ll take it.

Adam I’ll definitely take the small embarrassment of the podcast. I think it’d be worth it, on balance.

Ren So we pick back up at Chapter 8, Re-Enlisting and surprise! Piccadilly is not dead!

Ava Yayyy. That’s good news!

Adam He did seem to die, so I guess he was just concussed.

Ren Yeah. He’s been knocked out cold and rolled beneath the railway tracks and just lain there for a while.

Adam Like a roly-poly pudding.

Ava You shouldn’t be eating roly-poly puddings from underneath the railway tracks, Adam.

Ren But his immediate relief at not having been caught by the rats quickly turns to dread as he thinks about Holeborn and the great tide of rats that was rushing there. He approaches the gate and corners Barker, demanding to know what happened to the mice inside.

Barker wails and pleads, and sobs that he had nothing to do with it, but tells Piccadilly that the mice stood no chance against Old Stumpy’s army. Piccadilly renews his oath that Morgan has to die.

It’s a grim sight when we get inside Holeborn, where Morgan is perched on the Thane’s throne gloating over the gory destruction his army has caused.

And it’s truly disturbing!

In terms of Jarvis really going there, we have this description:

Ava: ‘The rats told crude stories and cracked wicked jokes at their victims’ expense. Three black-hearted vermin seized some skins and used them as grisly puppets, acting out parts of the battle, relishing the killing and torment. A crowd gathered about them and raucous laughter shook the hall. Nearly everyone took up a mouse fur and placed them on their heads like ghastly hats. They peered through the blank eyeholes and poked their tongues out of the mouth spaces. They were a debauched, disgusting sight. ‘

Includes its own commentary there, because my word.

Adam: I mean, realistically, it’s not so bad. Like, say a group of people were flayed and their skin was used to create costumes and puppetry and a performance was put on, re-staging this killing with their very remains still wet and twitching from the butchery, I don’t think it’s that big a deal? Ultimately, I’d just think: ‘Okay. Fair enough.’

Ava: Remind me never to accept an invite to a party at yours, Adam.

Ren: Morgan bends down to drink from his bowl of mice blood, but instead of his own reflection he sees Jupiter’s eyes, and hears Jupiter’s voice saying that he has come ‘to claim his lieutenant’.

Morgan tries to struggle against Jupiter’s thrall, but he becomes bewitched once again, and promises that he will bring his new rat army to worship at Jupiter’s feet in Deptford. He gathers the rats around and tells them about this and they’re sceptical, but Morgan wins them over with tales of more plump mice to skin and eat.

All except Smiff and Kelly, who are the rats who were tormenting Barker in the first half of the book, who prepare themselves to take command if Morgan leads them astray.

Picadilly’s still outside Holeborn when the rat army stomp out, and he thinks he’s about to go down in a blaze of glory and maybe scratch one of Morgan’s eyes out but Barker squashes him behind him against the wall, so that the parade of rats don’t notice Picadilly behind Barker.

Which probably wouldn’t have worked if it had been anyone but Barker, but the rats are not surprised to see Barker acting peculiarly, so somehow it works.

Adam I found this really intense, this bit. It’s like a sneaky bit in Thief or another stealth game.

Ren We also get the first clue that Barker’s not who he makes himself out to be, and that he has some sort of plan for Picadilly. It says: ‘For a moment the rat straightened his back and was unrecognizable, tall and grim with a knowing gleam in his sharp eyes’.

And we start to get these little hints.

Ava There’s something going on with Barker!

Ren Picadilly still has hope that his friend Marty escaped the carnage, so Picadilly goes into Holeborn.

Ava: ‘He forced himself across the threshold and saw the first victim. It was the sentry, or rather the bits that were left of him. The ancient spear had been seized and taken victoriously away but the battered tin hat had been too small to fit a rat.

All that remained was a crushed lump of bent metal in a dark, grisly pool. In a state of shock Piccadilly wandered into the entrance hall.

The rations were strewn wantonly around and with overwhelming grief he discovered Agnes Trumper’s discarded apron. Small fires crackled here and there, over which little black pots had been hung. Piccadilly was not foolish enough to go and inspect the contents – the smell was enough.

He staggered up the passage to the main hall. The rats had scrawled awful, crude pictures daubed in blood on the ancient tiled walkways. The carved pillars had been defaced: all the marvellous wooden animals were now missing ears, legs or heads and here and there some beast had coarsely whittled shapes of his own and stuck them on with lumps of fat.

Piccadilly looked into the Chapel of the Green Mouse. It was a wreck and they had torn down the children’s paintings from the walls. It was worse than he could ever have imagined. Here was a love of destruction and baseness he had not thought possible.

He stumbled on towards the hall. The tapestry curtain was torn to shreds. Piccadilly stepped over the rags and passed within. The large hall looked like a battlefield; the floor was strewn with well sucked bones and a pile of skulls was heaped in one corner. Tatters and scraps of fur littered the place and the huge brewing pans which had been dragged from the kitchens were now capsized, licked clean of mouse broth and ear crisps. ‘

Ren: groan

Adam: Urgghgghhh. I can’t even make a joke out of that one.

Ren: It’s really, really grim.

Ava: I’m kind of tempted by ear crisps, I’ll be honest with you.

Adam: I have to admit, I’ve never eaten a mouse. I mean, obviously I’ve been a vegetarian for a long time, but even as a kid, I don’t think I ever plucked a mouse from the garden and ate it, to memory.

Ava: Let alone fried up its ears as crisps.

Ren: You missed out.

Adam: Maybe there’s a lesson for us in this book, you know.

Ava: Did Robin Jarvis ever release a mouse cookbook?

Adam: To be fair, that does seem like something that Robin Jarvis would do. If you’re listening, Robin, there’s your next book lined up.

Ren: Piccadilly almost succumbs to complete despair at this sight, and ‘the comforting maze of lunacy’, but Barker pulls him back from the brink. Piccadilly realises the rats are going to Deptford, and he speeds off after them, followed by Barker, who’s chuckling sinisterly, although we still don’t know why.

Morgan marches his rat army into the freezing water to swim to Deptford, while he rides atop a raft. Piccadilly realises that they too will need a boat, and commandeers a pudding bowl with a broken wooden spoon and a gull’s feather as paddles, and he and Barker paddle wobblingly off into the blizzard.

Adam: It’s very picaresque.

Ren: It’s very Borrowers. The description of the rats’ swim to Deptford is particularly icingly evocative. There’s a lot of cold in this book, a lot of very grim winter, and you really get a sense of the frozen swim along the river.

Morgan and the rats that haven’t drowned in the icy river break land in frozen Deptford. Smiff and Kelly, icicles in their fur, have had enough of Morgan. They confront him, and Morgan cackles triumphantly as he tells them that he’s led them to Jupiter.

Smiff is about to kill Morgan and take leadership, but Morgan tricks the rest of the army into believing that Smiff and Kelly were going to betray the rest of them and take the best pickings for themselves. The army unleash their blood-lust on the two rats, and they surge forward with Smiff’s head on a pole.

Ava: They’re not nice to each other, are they?

Ren: No, they’re definitely not.

Adam: Where’s the rat camaraderie?

Ava: No solidarity.

Adam: But, I have to say looking at my Deptford Mice almanac here, which is a brilliant companion piece to the Deptford Mice and I thoroughly recommend it. That says: ‘infamous maggot rats include Morgan and Fletch’, and that’s because the maggots is a sign of the rat zodiac, and there’s a great illustration of this constellation of writhing maggots in the night sky.

It says: ‘Mab is the dark lady of midnight slaughter, yet also the bringer of pestilence as this constellation reminds us. A rat born at this time will be corrupt and rotten right through, with no redeeming virtue. He is a loner who shifts his allegiance to whoever is in power, and must never be trusted. Yet this faithless quality is considered to be a worthwhile trait in this barbaric society. Many rats are proud to be ruled by rats with this particular sign.’

Ava: Huh. Typical geminis? I’m allowed to say that because I am one.

Adam: Are you a gemini?

Ava: Yes, a very typical gemini. Because I don’t really believe in the horoscope but deeply believe that I am a typical gemini.

Anyway. I don’t think I’m that maggoty, actually.

Adam: You’re not a maggot!

Ava: Aw, thanks.

Ren: Picadilly and Barker reach the same ice-platform soon after, and Barker wheedles his way to carrying on with Picadilly, while making remarks that show he is much more lucid than he appears when Picadilly is out of earshot. They reach Deptford power station, and Picadilly resolves to go inside, still on his quest to finally kill Morgan.

Morgan leads his drenched, bone-cold rat army into the power station, which has become an ‘immense cavern of crystals’, and finally reveals his plan, calling triumphantly out to Jupiter that he has brought him his subjects. The rats realise they’ve been tricked, and start to turn on him, but just as the first blows rain down on Morgan’s head, the giant, ice-cold eyes of Jupiter emerge from the ceiling.

At once, the icicles hanging from the ceiling break, and drive themselves into the chest of each rat. Rather like a jet of frozen piss from an aeroplane. And as they do, the spell wears off Morgan, and he sees that he’s led his triumphant army to their grim deaths in an act of cruelty from Jupiter. And Picadilly, having watched all this from the window, scurries away in immense horror.

And it’s at this point that we come back to Arthur and Thomas Triton, who we last encountered being knocked out by the sheer power of Jupiter.

Ava: Jupiter sucking all the stars out of the sky.

Adam: Knocked out by unthinkably awesome horror.

Ren: Pretty much! They eventually come round and make it back to Deptford, and tell the Starwife and assembled mice what they saw when Jupiter stole the stars.

Groups of mice are praying to the Green Mouse, but Audrey knows that it is no use, because as long as Jupiter is making it always winter and never Christmas, Aslan, I mean, the Green Mouse, will never wake up from his hibernation.

Adam: Aww, the Green Mouse is much nicer than horrible Aslan! The Green Mouse isn’t all scratching at the backs of young girls and condemning other girls who like nylons to go to hell.

Ren: I think I would rather have the Green Mouse as a deity, than Aslan.

The Starwife tells them that once Jupiter has gathered his strength to use the Starglass again, his next plan will be to steal the sun. At this point Piccadilly turns up, with Barker, who causes an immense commotion running around and scaring the mice who are terrified to see a rat.

Ava: It’s quite enjoyable watching him revel in that when he’s clearly not supposed to.

Ren: The light relief is Barker menacing mice.

Ava: Because he thinks it’s all a game. Which when we find out that there is more to him than there seems, actually becomes very creepy. But at this point it’s just like, ‘Oh, he’s a crazy old rat!’.

Adam: Whereas actually he’s deep into method.

Ava: Very very deep in method.

Ren: Piccadilly catches the Deptford mice up on his story, and they have a meeting. Barker reveals that Morgan has Audrey’s mouse-brass, the cat-charm that killed Jupiter in their first battle, in the first book —

Adam: So long ago!

Ren: So long ago can we even cast our minds back that far. The mice catch a glimmer of hope that they could pull of the same trick again, if they could get the mousebrass back from Morgan.

We haven’t had so far any catch-up on the ongoing thwarted romance between Audrey and Piccadilly, but we get an interlude of that as Gwen Brown catches Audrey making herself pretty for Piccadilly, and sadly reminds her that she is a married mouse, even though her marriage to William Scuttle was a split decision in the moment to save Audrey’s life. It’s still a legally-binding mouse marriage!

Ava And specifically why it was used was because it was in the eyes of the Green Mouse, and the Green Mouse is apparently quite strict about this stuff.

Ren Thomas Triton, Arthur, Piccadilly and Barker leave to go and get Audrey’s mousebrass from Morgan. Piccadilly and Audrey struggle to communicate their feelings towards one another.

Audrey almost tells Piccadilly everything, but he has to leave, and he goes off to battle convinced that Audrey doesn’t like him after all.

Adam: Is that the last…? Yeah.

Ren: Mmm. Yeah.

At the power station, and they’re to use Barker to draw Morgan out of his fortress, as Barker is someone who Morgan knows and doesn’t think is a threat.

Barker wails and flails, and throws his voice, showing more of his actorly qualities.

Adam He’s just using the moment to showcase!

Ren Does a bit of juggling…

Adam And then passes over his resume.

Ren Morgan with the mousebrass ventures out into the blizzard, anticipating an easy sacrifice to Jupiter. But he’s ambushed by Piccadilly, Morgan and Piccadilly fight, and Morgan taunts the mice, saying that Jupiter has grown far too powerful to be defeated by the mousebrass this time.

And then, we get the return of the rats:

Ava ‘Before him was a host of hideous phantoms. All of Morgan’s slaughtered rats had returned in spectral form. Their eye sockets were empty and they stared blankly out at the frozen world.

The faces of the apparitions still held the tortured look of their hideous deaths and hollow wails echoed into the night from their gaping, dead mouths. In their haunted claws each held the spear that had killed him and the icy spikes were stained black with their own blood.’

Ren Damn.

Adam: I still maintain that this book is the most metal of the three books.

Ren: Yeah. Is there a metal concept album on the Deptford Mice?

Adam: There really should be, to be honest!

Ren: I recently got into singing The Rhime of the Ancient Mariner by Iron Maiden on Rock Band. Because that’s a thing you can do on Rock Band, apparently, is sing 13 minutes of The Rhime of the Ancient Mariner by Iron Maiden.

Ava: I’ve been at a party where someone’s done a dramatic reading of the whole thing. A lot of people got very bored.

Ren: Yeah. But I’m just saying that I have a new found appreciation for overwrought long metal set pieces, and I think this should happen.

Thomas slashes at a phantom with his spear, but as he hits the starfire in its chest, his weapon is transformed to brittle ice, and the blood in his hand freezes.

They try to run, but a ghostly spear slices Thomas’s leg, poisoning the wound with a ‘festering frost’. They’re overwhelmed by the undead army, but Barker, who’s once again lucid, throws a can of oil, Thomas lights it on fire, and the ragged line of flames hold off the phantoms long enough for them to escape.

And at one final jab at the heart for Piccadilly, he looks back, and finally sees the flag that the undead rat army are bearing as their standard. It’s the skin of a grey mouse with a jagged mark of dark fur like a thunderbolt. His friend, Marty.

Adam: I think my best friend Peter, I think he’d be all right with his skin being made into some kind of horrible flag. I think if anything, he’d be proud.

Ava: I mean it gets you on the cover of the metal record doesn’t it? At the end of the day you’re going to be a cover star if you get flayed by the right people.

Adam: It’s more interesting than a book, right? Which is normally what happens.

Ren: Your skin’s normally made into a book?

Adam: Ooh, my skin’s being used as the binding of the Necronomicon or whatever. I think I’d rather be a flag.

Ava: Weirdly, we did actually have a book in Brighton library that was bound in human skin.

Adam: Argghhhh! What!

Ava: Yeah. It’s part of the rare books room and one of the old collections. Didn’t get it out that often. It was hard to get access to it and you weren’t allowed to touch it.

Adam: Did you ever lick it?

Ava: Probably the only book in Brighton library that I never licked.

Ren: ‘Buddy, they don’t even let me lick the book’

And with that, nothing will stop Piccadilly from revenge. He sprints off into the flames, followed by Barker, who had been manipulating this situation all along.

Piccadilly has his final, desperate showdown with Morgan, and just as he’s poised to kill him, Morgan gives himself up. He tells Piccadilly to just kill him, that it’ll be a quicker death for him that was Jupiter had in store, and that Piccadilly should give in to the anger and bloodlust within him. They’re not so different, after all.

And that Piccadilly realises what separates him from the rat. He’s not a killer, and he believes in the Green Mouse. But as Piccadilly puts his knife down, Morgan grabs it and kills himself, with the last words: ‘this rat’s no cat’s paw any more’.

Ava: It’s a strong line.

Ren: That’s the title of one of the songs on the concept album, for sure.

Ava: I’m really resisting trying to sing it in a Bruce Dickinson voice.

Ren: I’m watching Ava trying to resist.

Ava: I’m not going to do it because I can’t work out if I should go for a big wail or the rat-a-tat delivery.

Adam: This is where we need a Patreon account, because that would definitely be a patron extra.

Ava: A patron extra, us trying to sing lines from this in a Bruce Dickinson Iron Maiden style.

Adam: That’d get the money in!

Ava: Please get in touch if you’re interested in this deluxe content.

Ren: I just noticed that we have an illustration of Piccadilly, with his knee on Morgan’s chest and his knife in the air, about to drive it into his throat.

Ava: It’s very, very metal. Not to labour the point, but. That’s your cover right there.

Ren: That’s quite a good Piccadilly as well, he has this kind of tousled boyband hair.

Ava: It is quite weird, isn’t it! The ways in which these mice are made slightly more human is often really unsettling.

Ren: Piccadilly takes the mousebrass and enters the power station. Barker watches, lucid, whispering ‘everything depends on this now. Get rid of him for us.’

So Piccadilly enters Jupiter’s frozen cathedral, and the great spectral cat face appears. Piccadilly holds up the brass and shouts: ‘My name is Piccadilly. And by the power of the Green Mouse I banish you forever!’. He flings the charm, but Jupiter’s ghostly frozen breath cracks it in midair, sending it plummeting to the floor in fragments. Piccadilly tries to run, but meets the undead army at the door.

And that is, finally, the end of the brave grey mouse.

Ava: sighs

Adam: He was a really spirited mouse.

Ren: Really spirited mouse.

Ava: And no resolution on the Audrey-Picadilly love situation.

Adam: Of course not!!

Ava: It’s been going on for three books!

Adam: It was just set up to give something to haunt Audrey for the rest of her days!

Ren: Arthur struggles with the injured Thomas Triton back to Deptford, but Thomas is delirious, and the agonising frost in his leg is spreading.

Arthur shouts of help to the sleeping mice, and Gwen holds Triton by the fire helplessly. The Starwife appears, and proclaims that Triton has the winter sickness, unleashed by the spears of Narmoth that Jupiter has brought back once more.

The Starwife says that they should kill Thomas, to put him out of his misery, but Audrey reads on her thoughts that the Starwife might be capable of healing him, and confronts her. The Starwife says that she will attempt to save Triton, if Audrey will help her.

More Starwife trickery going on here. As the ritual is happening, the Starwife complains that she is too old and feeble to complete the spell, and right on cue Audrey rushes forward to offer to hold the silver acorn.

And then… her power is transferred to Audrey. The ritual is complete, Triton wakes up, free of the curse, and Audrey realises that she has been tricked again.

Oh, that tricksy Starwife, what’s she like.

Adam: Almost as bad as Barker.

Ren: The Starwife prepares for her death, builds her ritual in the frozen garden. And as she is preparing, she’s visited by Barker, who isn’t Barker, the barmy old mouse, but Bauchan, the old god, returned in these end of days.

And the Starwife isn’t the Starwife anymore, but returned to her name when she was a squirrel, a black squirrel, the very last of them. Audrey. And so she dies.

Ava: It is very, very sad. This is a second chapter ending in a horrible death in a row. Although actually one of the things that I noticed in flicking through was that every chapter apart from the last one ends in the bleakest possible paragraphs imaginable.

If you just want to feel bleak for a while, just skip to the end of each chapter of this book and read the final paragraph. It is hard work!

Adam: You can make yourself ‘Ava’s Bleak Book’.

Ava: And it’s just the last paragraph’s of Deptford Mice chapters.

So Picadilly’s death is: ‘The small body lay motionless on the ground, the face turned heavenwards. Piccadilly’s little paw was closed tightly around his own mousebrass kept fastened to his belt – it was the sign of Hope, but with his life that too ended in that dark place.’

It’s sad! It’s heavy! And then let’s jump to the poor Starwife:

‘The snow fell monotonously and her chin dropped to her breast as she succumbed at last to the cruel weather. The night grew old and a stark, grey dawn appeared on the horizon. Through a break in the clouds a slender ray of pale sunlight shone.

For a second it touched the squirrel’s cheek and all traces of age were smoothed away, but the gap closed and the beam faded. Even as the light left her face the figure in the circle of stones gasped and expired. The midwinter death harvested her.’

Ren: (quietly) Harvested her?

Ava: It almost sounds like things are going to be okay for a moment there, there’s a ray of light, but then it’s like no, you’ve been harvested by the midwinter death. It’s bleak! End of every chapter so bleak!

Ren: It reminds me of, there’s a lorry for the supermarket Iceland—

Adam and Ava: laugh

Ava: Harvested by the midwinter death?

Ren: Well, it has a picture of frozen peas on it and the slogan is: ‘Fresh as they day they were… Harvested’

And there’s just no way to read that that isn’t incredibly sinister. Anyway. Abrupt tonal shift.

And the next day, Thomas Triton fulfills his promise to her, and builds her a funeral pyre to ‘Speed (her) to the Green’.

Adam: Woah, I’ve just realised! Is pyromaniac…like pyre?

Ava: Pyros is fire in… Latin or Greek, I never know which.

Adam: Well, don’t say we’re not edutaining as well!

Ava: Well, I say it’s Latin or Greek, I only believe that because it’s one of the Gods in Ultimate Eight.

Ren: What is Ultima Eight, Ava?

Ava: Generally considered to be the worst in the Ultima series of roleplaying games. It’s the only one I’ve played. It had a weird little bug that meant that you could drop objects from your package onto some lava and it wouldn’t burn, so you could put a blanket down on some lava so you could get to places you weren’t meant to.

Adam: Aw, like playing the children’s game of ‘The floor is lava’.

Ava: Yep, literally just doing that with a tiny animated knight.

Ren: As we’re digressing anyway, I’m going to suggest we do Texture of the Week.

Ava: Well, it works because my texture is—

Adam: Woah woah, we’ve got to do the jingle!

Ava: Alright! Sorry!

(rattling and scraping noises)

Ren, Adam and Ava: Mouth noises, groans Text…..urree……offfff…..theee….weeeek……

Ren: That was great. Ava just improvised with a kitchen roll.

Ava: I think I’ve ruined your kitchen roll.

Ren: Ava.

Ava: Oh yes, where was I. In my tradition of doing textures that aren’t really texture textures but social textures or something.

There’s something very textual to me about the way they describe the Starwife ambling about and building the ritual circle for herself, that feels very exactly the texture of my mum pottering about and trying to finish some task quite grumpily.

'The Starwife ambled to the fence and furtively prodded the snow with her stick.

‘Charts and dreams,’ she tutted, bending over and foraging in the bare, stony soil, ‘how jealously we guarded them: all those scrolls and tatters of parchment we believed to be so precious! What use were they in the end?’

She held up two good-sized rocks and tossed them into her round clearing.

‘Never trust a prophecy written on paper,’ she murmured gruffly to herself as she poked about for more stones, ‘some clever so-and-so’s bound to have fiddled with it and copied the ruddy thing down wrongly, adding twiddly bits of his own that are completely irrelevant.’

The Starwife picked up four more stones and rolled a further one along the ground with her tail.

‘Oral traditions,’ she declared, dropping the rocks into the circle and tapping her nose with her forefinger, ‘things preserve best from mouth to ear, should’ve known that.’’

So, the pottering texture —            Adam: (spluttering incredulously) Pottering texture?!

Ava: Pottering! It’s a texture! It’s a mobility texture, isn’t it?

Ren’s got quite a face on right now. ‘What are you doing coming on my podcast and ruining my textures?’

Ren: No, no, I’m all for expanding textures.

Ava: I just think everything’s a texture! And I kind of blame you for that.

Adam: It’s a sort of monomania, really.

Ava: I now view everything through the lens of texture. It’s my grand narrative, if you will.

Ren: Hey, textures are my vocation!

Ava: — Some people are Marxists, some people are psychoanalysts —

Adam: — You’re a texturist.

Ava: Texturist.

Ren: Follow my instagram account texturesaremyvocation for more textures!

Ava: Yeah, but those are actual textures. Not these ridiculous textures of literary theorists: ‘Ahh, a Lacanian texture’

Adam: Groans forecefully

Ava: Oh no, I think I broke Adam!

Adam: I’m in physical pain! Right, Ren, do you have a proper texture?

Ava: A little Delusian rouche…

Adam: God! Ren — Do you have a texture?

Ren: I do, I have a sensible texture, it’s about the winter.

‘Deptford was tightly locked in the bleakest night it had ever known. The rooftops glistened with frosty ground glass whilst icicles spiked and skewered down from the gutters, looking like the eyebrows of some stern, ancient creature. The pavements were smooth, treacherous traps for the unwary and the roads rivers of black ice.’

It’s the icy eyebrows I was particularly keen on.

Adam: Yes, yes, bristling and… would you be able to snap off icy eyebrows?

Ren: Yeah? But then they might grow back. They would be easier to pluck.

Adam: To be fair, I’ve kind of cheated with my texture, after all that. So my texture is from the Deptford Mice Almanac. It’s from the entry for September the 22nd. I’ll quickly note actually, September 23rd is the birthday of Thomas Triton, so if you’re not doing anything this September 23rd 2020, raise a tankard of Berry Brew to our good friend Thomas Triton.

But the entry for September the 22nd reads: ‘Rats are incredibly superstitious. Most will always carry at least one lucky charm with them. Should a rat approach you in this season, take care. They believe that one of the most effective talismans is a mouse’s little toe. Other ‘fortune bringers’, as they are known, are hedgehog teeth and toad skins. Both of which must be removed while the creature is still croaking or squealing on a moonless night.’

And the illustration here of a toad skin, is one of the most horribly textured drawings… it’s really quite deeply unpleasant. I don’t know what kind of disease this poor toad had, but how Jarvis’s drawn it it looks simultaneously dried out and parched, and also bulbous and mottled, and it has this kind of black speckling that looks like mould or mildew.

And it has these awful floppy arms and legs. It’s really quite unpleasant. It looks like something from a Junji Ito manga. It’s an impressively horrible toad skin. That’s my texture. I might have to take a picture of it. There really are some brilliant illustrations.

Ren: Okay, so back to the old house in Deptford. The undead army bang on the door and the mice, led by Triton, flee into the sewer towards Greenwich. They’re on their way when Audrey is suddenly compelled to turn back and go to the garden.

She reaches the great hall and there is no sign of the undead army beyond the destruction of their attack. Audrey makes it to the yard and sees a single green shoot sprouting from the ash of the Starwife’s pyre. She tucks the tiny plant into the waistband of her dress as a symbol that Jupiter has not already won.

She is about to sneak back into the grill but the ghost army are there, slashing their frozen claws at her. She escapes them and runs into the garden, but there she encounters our very first victim of Jupiter’s ice spear, all the way back in the prologue, the ghost of the peddler Kempe.

He lunges at her with ice spears, starts to strangle her, but in doing so she drops the silver bell from her tail that she had found broken on the kitchen floor. The sound of the bell is enough to break through to Kempe for just a moment, and he lets go, allowing Audrey to escape.

Right back in the prologue he was going to bring the other bell back to Audrey.

Thomas and the rest of the mice are back at the Cutty Sark, and from there they see Jupiter moving at the power station, ready to use the Starglass for the final time. The phantom army surround the Cutty Sark, and it looks pretty dire for Thomas.

And at this point we come back to Oswald and the bats, and we catch up with what happened with the book of Hrethel all that time ago. It turns out that although the pages were empty, Oswald realises that the energy of the spells is still held within the book. So he makes himself a suit out of the pages of the book, and asks Orfeo and Eldritch to fly him into Jupiter’s amorphous wintery heart clad in the magical pages of the book.

Ava: It has quite dark, beacuse it is a bit like a mystical suicide bomber attack, strapping paper around him. There’s a lot going on in the imagery there.

Ren: As the bats are on their journey, they spot the tiny figure of Audrey, half-dead from cold in the garden. A bat called Hathkin swoops down and scoops her up.

The bats arrive at the Cutty Sark just as it seems the mice will be totally overwhelmed, and join their forces against the undead army. Oswald starts scrunching up the pages of the book and throwing them at the apparitions, and instead of sailing through them they hit, being the one thing capable of destroying the ghosts.

Orfeo and Eldritch scoop him up to take him to Jupiter at the observatory, and Audrey invokes the power of the Starwife to insist they take her too.

And at the observatory, Oswald plunges into the heart of Jupiter, surrounded by flaming scraps of enchanted paper. But it is not strong enough, and It seems that Jupiter has won.

Ava: "‘Are you ready Master Pink Eyes?’ Orfeo cried. Oswald nodded resolutely. ‘Yes,’ he replied with a ferocious shout. ‘Then a curse on the abomination!’ screamed Eldritch as they veered down.

Jupiter twisted his corpulent bulk round to see what the annoying, tiny insects were up to. He held his breath in surprise and apprehension when he saw them come charging at him. The papers of the tatting suit began to glow as they raced towards the devilish monster and he growled suspiciously.

The remains of the Book of Hrethel burst into golden flames around Oswald. Their radiance cut through the dense fog Jupiter wrapped about himself and scorched his wintry eyes.

Down plummeted the bats and Oswald was transformed into a figure of divine majesty as the spells took him over. ‘Die carrion of the void!’ he commanded forcefully.

Like a flaming dart the bats sped towards the great enemy and a path of gleaming sparks trailed from them. Into Jupiter’s heart they plunged. The huge spirit screeched as they speared into him. Golden lightning bristled from his chest and he rocked precariously on the misshapen dome.

‘I cannot die!’ he screamed, ‘I am Jupiter – Lord of Death!’ The crackling yellow bolts wrapped round his body, tormenting him with their heat.

At once the battle on the Cutty Sark ceased as the ghosts dropped their weapons and the starfire spluttered in their breasts. Thomas stared at the storm beleaguered hill breathlessly – the fate of the world depended on the outcome of what was happening there.

Suddenly the starfire welled up inside the spectres once more and all hope died in the midshipmouse. Jupiter raked his claws through his spectral fur and the flames died. He drew himself up to his full height and laughed harshly. The Book of Hrethel had not been strong enough.

From out of his vastness two brittle-winged shapes flew. Orfeo and Eldritch were covered in scales of frost. Jerkily they careered through the air, gliding fitfully on frozen wings. But they were not carrying Oswald. The albino was lost, swallowed by the abyss of the eternal void.

The Unbeest’s might had proved too strong a force and the valiant mouse’s sacrifice had been in vain – the attack had failed and Oswald was no more.

Jupiter watched the bats fleeing aimlessly and chuckled to himself, secure in the sweet knowledge that nothing could hurt him now. A deadly silence fell, he turned back to the crimson sun and lifted his claw. The Starglass blazed and the horrendous spell continued. The sky became livid as the sun turned a sickly purple. Jupiter had won."

Ren: So just one main character death after another.

Adam: And that’s the end of the book!

Ava: That’s it, all done. Jupiter wins and the curtain falls.

Adam: But sadly Jarvis’s editor insisted that…

Ava: It really does manage to do that in the book, because there’s so few pages left at this point that you’re watching this fight thinking that it’s the final confrontation. It really does feel like: ‘Oh God’. It’s surprisingly hopeless to have something that should have worked go that badly, so late in the day.

Ren: Because you’re kind of like: ‘Oh, that cat charm’s not going to work. But this…’

Ava: They can’t use the Macguffin from the first book, that would be ridiculous, but this one has to work.

Adam: And Piccadilly and Oswald are both very likeable characters. Maybe Oswald dies thinking that he’s won? Hopefully?

Ava: I mean, I do get the impression that he knew that he was going to go out doing it.

Adam: I don’t know if his last image is Jupiter gloating in ascendance, or… I hope not!

Have you got your list?

Ren: Role call of the dead? I do.

Adam: Is that how we’re going to end it then?

Ren: Yep. We still have Audrey —

Adam: — And a few pages left!

Ren: As Audrey approaches the observatory, Hathkin’s wing is hit by an ice spear, and he falls to the ground, breaking his neck. He dies, and Audrey has to find a way up to the observatory.

Back on the ship the undead army break into the hold where most of the mice are hiding out. Thomas Triton strikes and lunges with the piece of parchment attached to his sword, but eventually he has used it all up.

Audrey is just starting to climb the jagged concrete of the power station, when she turns to find the undead spectre of Piccadilly.

He lunges at her, starts to strangle her, but she implores him to fight the enchantment, and he remembers who she is. They hear a voice that both of them recognise, Arthur Brown, Audrey’s dad and Piccadilly’s companion from the very beginning of the first book. He tells Piccadilly it’s time for him to join him, and tells Audrey that he is proud of her. quiet whimpering

Audrey faces Jupiter and says ‘I come to call down my destiny - and it is tall and dangerous!’

She reaches into her waistband, and pulls out the tiny green shoot from the Starwife’s pyre. The power of spring, and of the green mouse is represented in that shoot, and it erupts in Jupiter’s ghostly stomach in bright white light.

And with that, Audrey, our final girl, dooms Jupiter to eternal life, eternally incinerated by the spring but never consumed by it.

And with a mere couple of pages to go, green spring and summer life spreads joyously out over London, and in the hold of the Cutty Sark appears the Green Mouse himself.

He hands Oswald’s parents a mousebrass in honour of their son, who didn’t live to receive his, and it’s the sign of courage and bravery.

Audrey tells her mother that her father wishes her and Thomas Triton happiness, and so they are married, by the green mouse himself.

The mice go back to the old house in Deptford, but it’s been too damaged to live in, so they take their belongings back to the Cutty Sark. Audrey finds the necklace with the little silver acorn and ties it around her neck, for now she is truly the Starwife, Handmaiden of Orion.

Ava: Now that we’ve got through all of the horror and death, my other secret Texture of the Week that might actually be a texture —

Adam: Ooh, you led us down one road!

Ava: — I led you down one road, and now there’s another! Just the burst of spring and summer and growth as Jupiter is cursed to his eternal life is just brilliant.

"The infernal spirit realized then that this was the end, the mouse had conquered him. He was doomed to be incinerated by the spring till the end of time but never to be consumed by it.

He burst into a terrific blistering rush of flames and became a towering effigy of fire then he rocketed, howling, into the air.

Higher and higher he soared into the freezing reaches of space, screeching his suffering and fury. Like a green comet he shot up, chased by the forces of life through the universe until he was only a faint blur between the stars. Consigned to the vacuum of the void he suffered in the agony of spring throughout eternity.

Audrey dropped with fatigue, her energy spent. A rosy light glimmered on the horizon as a fresh, new day dawned. The golden rays of the reborn sun shone over the dissipating clouds and stretched over the land, ushering in a beautiful morning.

The world was awakening fast. The snow dissolved rapidly and patches of snowdrop-freckled grass appeared. The burgeoning greenery flooded over the park, the frost-locked trees thawed and glowing blossom burst out with vibrant colours.

A glorious chorus of grateful birds took flight and soared into the pale blue sky. All the seasons met as summer roses popped open and gave their perfume to the breeze. Fruit swelled on blossom-burdened boughs and leaves of autumn gold shone in the sweet air.

It was a heady sight and Audrey absorbed it breathlessly. The Earth was thanking her and putting forth all its blissful delights in homage. She bowed her head and wept."

It’s just nice seeing Jarvis’s really gorgeously rich, thick prose being put to the forces of good for once. Describing something nice, rather than something horrific, or bleak, or sad.

Adam: He can use his forces for good!

Ava: He just leans into it and really goes all out with that description, and I love that.

Ren: So that’s the end! The end of the Final Reckoning, and the end of the Deptford Mice trilogy.

Adam: It’s been quite a journey!

Ren: It has!

Adam: I think next time we’re just going to have to do ‘Baby’s First Spooky Alphabet’ or something.

Ren: The epic that has been quite an absorbing challenge.

Adam: I think hopefully this coming year we can… I don’t want to besmirch the Deptford Mice, because it’s a brilliant feat of writing, and it really is quite astonishingly epic and emotional. But maybe a few things with rather less plot might be coming up next.

Ren: Yeah.

Adam: Slightly fewer notes for you to take, Ren.

So…

Ren: I did just want to give a role-call of the characters that we have lost throughout this journey, and it’s extremely high death count.

(A bell tolls after each name) Starting with, of course, Albert Brown, right at the beginning of the first book.

Whortle and Jenkin in Fennywolde.

Madame Akikuyu, of course, at the end of the Crystal Prison.

Kempe, the trader, who was a bit rough around the edges but definitely didn’t deserve to be speared to death.

The Starwife, Audrey.

Piccadilly, our dear brave grey mouse.

The whole community of Holeborn… yeah.

Piccadilly’s best friend, Marty.

Algy Coltfoot, who died in the battle of the Cutty Sark.

Hathkin the bat.

And Oswald.

They were good mice, and bats, and squirrrels….

Adam: And rats!

Ava: I’m not even sure that’s all of them. Not only have we lost the entire rat population of Deptford in the first book, but then also the entire rat population of London!

Adam: I’m worried about the biodiversity loss!

Ren: I didn’t even mention the squirrels of Greenwich!

Ava: Loads of the squirrels fell.

Adam: I will note that the squirrels do go on to have some ascendancy over our mouse friends. Obviously Robin Jarvis couldn’t leave things on a wholly positive note, that wouldn’t really be in keeping.

So while the Deptford Mice almanac mostly recounts the books of the Deptford Mice and the Alchemist’s Cat, with little tidbits and sketches from his notebook, etc. It does also continue the events at the end of the Deptford Mice, and I’m afraid they’re not wholly positive for Audrey!

Audrey has obviously become the Starwife, and the Deptford Mice almanac is presented as being from the sketchbook journals of Gervais Brightkin, who does look a bit like Ricky Gervais, interestingly, who is a red squirrel who is none too happy about the fact that a mouse, rather than a squirrel, has become the Starwife.

And he’s not alone in this, it’s not wholly approved of by the squirell community. So the end of the year, December 30th and 31st, end with these entries:

‘A day of revolt. Supported by a host of my grey cousins, led, I might say, by Fitz Montequi, barged into the Starwife’s chamber and tore the silver acorn from about her neck. Then the usurping mouse, as she was called, was driven away, pelted by empty acorn shells and shot at with arrows.

Oh the outrage, the defaming insult! Then did the strange Morella ascend to the living throne, and the amulet was put about her throat. A black squirrel once again holds the highest office. And now I know why she appears familiar, and why the true Starwife delayed any action against her and her scheming father. In her face, Morella is very like the young Alison Sedge. Surely there is some devillment here. What is to become of us all now?’

And then on the 31st:

‘On this last day of the year and my final entry in this almanac I must try to look to the future with hope. It is said that the passing year represents an old friend who is giving way to the new infant of tomorrow. How appropriate is that belief with the Starwife gone.

What sinister darkness lies ahead for us all? Audrey Scuttle was placed upon the living throne by the Green himself. A madness has consumed the folk of Greenwich, and I fear for what will undoubtedly befall them. A dismal, unpleasant place has this become, and I shall not spend an eve here.

Farewell now, often is repeated that dire perils and uneasy times unite old enemies. I’m now going to prove the truth of it, for I am away to the Cutty Sark, to patch up my quarrels this darksome night with Thomas Triton.

May the reader of this almanac fair better than I in the days to come.’

Ava: Oh dear! So Alison Sedge turns into a black squirrel??

Adam: Well, Alison Sedge possesses a black squirrel? And claims the throne and usurps poor Audrey.

Ava: I can’t believe he managed to get more judgemental about Alison Sedge! We get it, Robin! You don’t like a femme! Alright.

What an epilogue.

Adam: Hopefully my old pal Audrey is okay, she’s driven off by acorns and arrows, but I rather suspect she goes on to become a kind of Madame Akikuyu figure.

So, on that bombshell!

Ren: Thank you everyone, for accompanying us on this epic journey through the Deptford Mice, and thank you very much Ava. This became rather more extended than we expected.

Adam: It became quite a commitment from you, so thank you.

Ava: I’m very happy to have done it.

Adam: And especially your reading of Jupiter, which was magnificent.

So good luck for 2020, and if you’re British and the future is looking bleak, remember the example of the plucky Deptford Mice who held on through the bleak winter.

Ren: Yep, let’s call down our destiny —

Ava: — And hope that the green mouse can save us.

Ren: See you next time spooky kids, wherever we may be.

Adam: And may the green keep you safe, and a happy new year to you all!

Ava: Speed to the green!

Ren: Bye!

Adam: Bye!

(over ending theme)

I hope that Boris gets consumed by green flames for all eternity.

(outro music plays)