Wicker Valley, episode 39: Finale

We had a quick look around Uncle Dwyer's cabin. We found several PS5s - he always did enjoy scalping in every sense of the word. His bookshelves held several first edition copies of Mein Kampf, all of which strangely disintegrated the moment Elizabeth got there them, an autobiography of Donald Trump, and a pretty detailed book on skin removal, which I kept for future reading. Not that I plan on taking up the hobby, but it's always useful to know what my family are up to.

There was nothing else useful though, and we needed to get back to Wicker Valley and get a few hours of sleep before everything went down. Elizabeth had a message from her coven requiring her to meet up with them at lunchtime, which didn't exactly give us much time. On the way, Eddie had a vision, and it wasn't good. A giant gargoyle, perching on the roof of the church, protecting Wicker Valley while the rest of the world was going to ruin around it. Of course, Michael still had the coin of Phylaxis, and it seemed he was talking to both Michael and Eddie now.

I met the others at the museum the next morning, with a big flask of espresso. We needed to find Alabaster, and scrying with our new map of the town seemed like the fastest way. We soon tracked him down to what Michael and Eddie recognised as his mum's house. Time to pay a visit.

First though, Elizabeth's phone was buzzing with messages from her coven asking where she was, so I teleported us to the meeting place. Which was the entrance to the fae court, of course. Which did give me the chance to have a chat with Jeeves, and find out exactly what the terrible weapon the fairies had that was so scary it caused my Uncle Dwyer, not exactly a nervous skin-flaying demon, to allow himself to be possessed by the Darkness. It was Michael.

Of course it was Michael. Michael the chosen one, with his divine protector who'd been teaching him how to fight. I tried to convince Jeeves that the war didn't need to happen now, because we'd already dealt with the demon problem, but that didn't change anything for them. That just meant that they were going to win.

He wanted me to bring Michael over straight away, and made some pretty tempting offers, but as I reminded him, when it comes to temptation, I'm a pro. And I told him how they were being manipulated by the chaos orb, and none of this plan was under their control. He didn't seem to think this changed anything, as stopping the orb would require a child of Merlin to create the magical rings needed to bind it. I had no intention of telling the fae any more than I had already, and just said that I could be extremely resourceful when required. I negotiated us 24 hours to sort things out, and managed to get Elizabeth back as well.

We all met up again outside Alabaster's mum's house, and knocked and asked to see him, but she wouldn't let us in. So I teleported to him, and threw my arms around him, with the intention of teleporting him somewhere more useful to us, but that didn't work, as somehow we ended up right outside his house again, and a moment later he'd gone back inside. Without opening the door.

I wasn't sure what that was all about, but I did know something else. When I'd teleported to him, it wasn't to the house, but one of the old warehouses. We came up with an idea for a trap. I'd do the same thing again, this time taking Michael with me so that Alabaster wouldn't realise I was doing the same thing again, and Elizabeth would be waiting to spring a magical trap when he came back to the house.

Except that didn't happen. I lost Michael somewhere in the teleport and didn't land where I intended. So that plan was a loss. But we had a much better idea of where to actually find Alabaster now, so I texted the others and we met up at the warehouses.

Adam set up outside with his rifle - I think he was still excited about it from shooting those giant centipedes in the Darkness - and me, Elizabeth and Eddie went in. We had tasers, provided by Elizabeth, along with very specific instructions about what part of his anatomy we should aim for. Which I promptly forgot about, deploying my bag of demons instead. Kevin popped out in a little ball of fur, and while I'm not entirely sure what he did to Alabaster, he was certainly enjoying himself.

Meanwhile Elizabeth, who I'd expected to completely lose it at this point, threw herself at Alabaster with her knife. I thought she'd missed for a moment, but then realised she'd actually cut off a bag he had on his belt, which became visible once she'd taken it away from him.

Fortunately Eddie was on the ball and deployed his taser. And with Alabaster temporarily paralysed, I cast the same binding spell we'd been planning on using earlier. I put everything I had into it, and didn't just stop him moving, but managed to bind his nastier magical talents at the same time.

We also found Michael, who'd landed almost on target, in a cupboard. Elizabeth let him out, and I don't know why she felt the need to destroy the door with magical entropy rather than just opening it, but it did have an interesting result when some of the flakes of ash landed on Alabaster and made him scream.

I turned on my full Voice of Temptation and started asking questions. He didn't seem to think much of Elizabeth's requests regarding tasers, but I pointed out that was just what she wanted us to do, and that she had much bigger plans. Especially since I was pretty sure she was a lich now. It didn't take long to establish that a) the chaos orb was inside the bag Elizabeth had taken from Alabaster and b) there was no way to open that bag without being Alabaster. Which was a problem, but so were the horrifying wraiths that the orb was summoning up around us.

Not one of my finer moments. I ran in terror, completely forgetting everything else in that moment, just blindly trying to get away. But then there was the sound of running feet behind me, and a moment later Michael had caught up with me. He held me and kissed me, and suddenly all the fear melted away in the flames dancing in his eyes.

He told me he loved me, and all I could think of was a quote from some old movie. "Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!" And we were going to save the Earth, I realised. We ran back to the others, calling to Elizabeth to give me the bag. She threw it, I caught it, and teleported to the junk yard to shove it into the oubliette.

After that it was just a lot of cleaning up. By the time I got back to the others, the wraiths were already gone and Alabaster was looking defeated. Elizabeth used her entropy power to drain the magic out of him. We didn't know if that was going to be a permanent solution, and in any case we certainly couldn't trust him. But I did happen to know of a demon prison, and I couldn't help thinking Uncle Dwyer would be interested to meet the person at least partly responsible for his recent poor choices. This was not the time for a risky teleport though, so instead we had an extremely awkward drive out to the slate mine.

Then it was back to the fae court to make sure that they were calling off the war, and introduce them to Eddie who was going to be making the binding rings. And between his magical skills and the antimagic of Adam's oubliette, the orb was bound once more.

*****

So that was all five years ago, and a few things have changed around here. Adam's given up the junkyard and has moved into classic car restoration. He's got several projects on the go, and keeps assuring us that one day he will actually finish one. Michael's doing freelance work for him, giving the cars decorative paint jobs.

Elizabeth's moved into Wicker Valley properly at last, and has opened a shop on the high street selling crystals and other new age type stuff. We knew there was a market for it from a previous timeline when Aunty Agnes had a shop here, and she's doing well. Eddie's been travelling, learning as much as he can about his magical heritage, in between keeping the museum up and running. Compared to the demonic fire of my magic and the necromantic chill of Elizabeth's, it's extraordinary to see a talent so perfectly balanced. No wonder he made everything better.

Arthur still drops by to see us, although his family's kept him pretty busy. And talking of family, Robin also came by. Riding his bike, alongside his best friend, who never got killed in this timeline, and his partner and child. Of course he didn't know who any of us were, but it was good to see him happy.

Then of course there's the big change. Last year, after a lot of planning and working out contingencies for all kinds of supernatural mishaps, Michael and me got married. We got the museum licensed for weddings, and held it there. His mum wanted it to be at the church, of course, but I already knew I was inviting Rusty and it's not a good look at a wedding for the bride's brother to spontaneously combust. Elizabeth asked to be a bridesmaid, and wanted to wear a black dress. We compromised on purple.

And I've made one more change - my job. I knew I couldn't work at the Wicker Stop forever, so I've been training as a therapist. If there's one thing this town needs, it's someone who can help with trauma, especially the supernaturally induced kind. I'm told I have a remarkably soothing voice and a real talent for getting clients to open up to me, and should have my accreditation in no time.

But Wicker Valley is still Wicker Valley. We dealt with the chaos orb, but between fairies, demons, witches, and every other kind of what Adam still calls 'weird bollocks', strange things still happen here and people still need help. And when they do, our team is ready.

Wicker Valley, episode 38: Catching up with the uncles

With everything calming down again it was time to follow the problem to its source - my uncles. Michael had tracked down Uncle Dwyer to a remote cabin where you could supposedly book events, although no events seemed to ever take place there. It was an unsettling drive. Even though I don't seem to have any physical problems with the stuff any more, sitting in a van full of anti-demon supplies was still rather uncomfortable. It was quite a relief to arrive.

We scouted out the building, approaching from different sides to see what was going on. I saw my uncle Dwyer, busy about some kind of arcane practice with a magic circle and everything, while Uncle Mac was stuck to a wall and didn't seem to be enjoying it. We regrouped, reported back, and then I teleported into the kitchen to scout inside.

My wings were the now familiar swirl of feathers as I teleported out, but when I arrived inside they were back to the old leathery bat wings. Odd. I'd been warned of something snoring near the back door, and I could hear it inside as well. Two somethings, at least, maybe more. Definitely more, in fact, when I got closer. I had just enough time to take a photo and teleport out.

Hell hounds, we all agreed outside as we looked at the pictures. We were going to have to deal with them, preferably not in a confined space. And there was another issue. The place had been warded. A pretty hefty ward, meant to keep out everything except demons.

We lured the hell hounds outside for an absolutely brutal fight. By the end we were in serious need of patching up, and I even allowed Elizabeth to do some of her spicier healing magic on me, it was that bad. Hopefully that scar will give Eddie something to talk about at parties for years to come. We were also covered in hell hound bits, and we wondered if that would allow the non-demonic team members to bypass the wards.

It didn't. So I went in and dismantled the wards, knowing that this would absolutely alert Uncle Dwyer to our presence, but it had to be done.

You know, I'd never thought about it before, but it turns out that demons can be possessed. Especially if the demon in question is dumb enough to invite the possessing entity inside. Good thing I'd been reading up on banishments in alternate timeline me's grimoire. I kicked that thing right out of him. Uncle Mac made a run for it. I'm not sure what happened to Michael. Passing out and having weird visions isn't unheard of for him recently but this seemed a bit different.

Fortunately Elizabeth managed to locate the evil book that was responsible. My claws did nothing to it, and Michael's magic knife was equally useless. Then we realised that the problem was that we were all still inside the house, which was suppressing anything non-demonic. We all went outside and shredded that book.

So my idiot uncle's been stopped, and dropped off at one of the family's 'secure facilities' to think about what he's done. Which means there's hopefully just one other player left in this game: Alabaster.

Wicker Valley, episode 37: Bugs

We were a bit injured after the centipede fight. I don't what Adam and Elizabeth were up to as they attempted to heal each other, but there seemed to be some kind of argument involved. I ignored them, and called on my magic to heal Eddie.

It wasn't long after we convinced the centipede to leave that Michael showed up. I'm not entirely sure how, but I'm pretty sure he was holding a magic flower and wearing a chainmail shirt he definitely didn't have before. Apparently someone thought it was more important for him to show up to help us in the darkness than to keep him out of it. And now we were sure that the way the darkness siphoned power was at least partly through hurting people. We were going to have to protect as many of the villagers as we could.

The darkness was bigger than it had been on the previous incident, and was covering more of the town than we were expecting. We got into Vanessa and towed the floodlight into the middle of the village to try to lure the creatures away from the people with the lights. Then we had to go into the houses.

We couldn't rescue them all. Some of them were already dead. But some we managed to get to in time, and kill the creatures threatening them before getting them out of the mass of sticky web. I had Elizabeth enchant my claws before we went in and I'm glad she did.

Then Adam and Elizabeth came up with an idea. We were fighting giant bugs, which were attracted by light. Could we make a giant bug zapper?

Eddie, Elizabeth and me took Vanessa to the allotments and got out a lot of copper wire that Adam had in there for some reason. We set up a circle, connected it to the metal fence around the allotments, and began the ritual. Elizabeth acted as the focus, channelling her lightning magic into the fence, while I added my own power and Eddie balanced the flows. Once again nobody caught fire. At least, nobody we didn't want to catch fire. Once the bugs realised what we were doing, they attempted to disrupt things, but Eddie and me fought them off so that Elizabeth could hold her focus.

At last it was coming to an end, and instead of darkness above us we began to see stars. Michael and Adam came back from where they'd been continuing the rescue effort. I had to concentrate on helping Eddie recover from some nasty injuries, so it took me a while to notice that Michael was a bit subdued after the fight. When I did, I then spotted the hole in his chainmail where one of the centipede's stingers must have got through. Even as I was watching, a few more links disintegrated. I managed to convince him to lift up the shirt and let us have a look, and then called on my magic once again to purge the poison out of him. I'd seen some nasty things that day, but that had to be the worst.

Not the worst thing for Elizabeth though.That would be when Alabaster showed up and thanked us for dealing with some of his competition. He didn't stick around long, but it was long enough for Elizabeth to yell at him for killing her. Which Eddie didn't know about, I then realised, and I explained that that's why I keep calling her a lich.

So now we were going to end up having to deal with Alabaster as well as with Uncle Dwyer. We gave Eddie the brief run-down on Alabaster, since that had all happened in a different timeline. The funny thing is, looking back, Alabaster was actually a good influence on me. He really helped me work through some things. This timeline's version of him seems to have taken a different path though. I think we might actually have to kill him.

Wicker Valley, episode 36: Ley Lines

We had some idea what the darkness was now. Basically hoovering up power wherever it touched down. And we'd been tipped off by the fae that it would be a very bad idea if Michael were to end up in its path so he was temporarily relegated to research duty while the rest of us prepared to go in.

We had some idea where it was going to touch down next. A small village with a neighbouring caravan park. I suggested we book a holiday. But there was something else. There was a pattern to the thing's movement. It seemed to be following lines but not entirely straight lines. And it dawned on us that Rusty had been following up on ley lines running into Wicker Valley. It was time to pay my brother a visit.

Rusty was living in Manchester, so we piled into Vanessa and drove down. He'd picked a pretty rough area to live in, and the block of flats didn't smell too great. He had taken the trouble to draw an extra 6 on his front door so that it read 666, and frankly I was annoyed at how much that amused me. We knocked at the door, and got sucked into his real apartment, which was obviously a lot nicer. The others asked me why I didn't have one of those on my home. Honestly it seems a bit pretentious.

Rusty wasn't happy to see us. I think we'd interrupted something. He took us out again to a pub. I ordered what he was having. Thankfully nobody else thought that was a good idea. Demonic beverages can be pretty weird. He invited me to a party with a few of the family, coincidentally at around the time when Wicker Valley might be being engulfed by the darkness, and suggested that we shouldn't interfere if we enjoyed having skin.

That was actually pretty useful, as it narrowed things down to some of my more skin-removing focussed uncles, so I downed my drink, sneezed out a few snowflakes (like I said, demonic beverages can be weird), and we left him to whatever mayhem he was up to. Time to check in on my uncles. Fortunately it's pretty easy to find demons these days as they're all on the internet. Uncle Mac and Uncle Dwyer were both active on social media, posting all kinds of ridiculous conspiracy theories while claiming that only true friends would share them. Uncle Dwyer had gone unusually silent of late.

First though we had to deal with the imminent touchdown of the darkness in the village. Research had told us that magic weapons would be useful against the creatures within it, as would my own claws, and light would be a valuable defense. Adam got online and rented a portable spotlight, the kind used for late night sports games, while Elizabeth and me enchanted some weapons.

The caravan park was easy enough to deal with. Reporting a severe weather warning convinced the caretaker to get all the other residents off site. Nothing we could do about the village though. Adam set up the spotlight and got ready with a rifle. And down it came.

The spotlight worked well, as did the road flares Adam had brought along. But it did attract one of the creatures - some kind of enormous centipede that wrapped itself around the light. Fortunately with our enchanted weapons we were able to deal with it, although not before taking some significant injuries. That thing was poisonous.

Wicker Valley, episode 35: Darkness

Samara didn't hang about when it came to making her presence felt. Elizabeth put up a wall of ice, which slowed her down while she melted her way through it, which meant I had time to throw one of my tiny demons at her, which dug into her quite effectively. Eddie finished her off by hosing her down with one of the holy water supersoakers.

We needed another look at the house. Or rather, at the tree at the back of the house, which was bad enough. The whole area seemed to have a spooky aura, which was making everything very dark and cold. I was thinking about my next move when something happened to Michael. I couldn't see what was doing it, but something had him by the throat and was trying to choke him.

I ignored Elizabeth telling me to give him the kiss of life, and told the entity exactly what I thought of it in the infernal tongue. Not a permanent solution, but enough to make it go away for a bit. While the others looked around, I decided to try something riskier and look into the past to find out what really happened here.

I saw Ann Deltrose carrying a squirming cloth wrapped bundle, forcing it into a wooden box in a grave. Then flames erupting from the box, engulfing both of them. She'd never got the chance to use that rope. I let the vision go, but Samara had other ideas. It was a brief battle of will, and I managed to evict her pretty fast, but not fast enough to stop her using my claws to shred Michael's jacket. That could have been very nasty.

Michael had found the grave site. Adam got some shovels from the van, and we started digging. Burning the remains would have been our usual approach, but we were pretty sure it wouldn't help here. Salt and holy water was the way to go. We found Ann's bones first, and Michael spread out his ripped clothes to rest them on.

But unsurprisingly, Samara wasn't going to make this easy for us. Michael pulled out his weird knife. I threw another demon, then went in with my claws. But it was Eddie who finished her off, with some kind of magic I'd never seen before, which seemed to surprise him as much as everyone else.

We finished digging, and scattered salt and holy water over the remains, and gradually the spooky aura lifted and it was a bright sunny afternoon once more. The scouts were going to be able to have their bonfire after all.

We all needed some time off after that, which largely consisted of going to work, but that didn't mean things were peaceful. Tornadoes aren't exactly uncommon in the UK, but they're usually further south, pretty small, and don't usually do much beyond dislodging a few roof tiles, so having a whole bunch of them in the Lake District was definitely weird, especially when one destroyed a RoadChef services, and a bunch of people were injured. Between that and Eddie and Michael reporting on a lot of demonic portents, we were going to have to investigate.

Investigation wasn't easy though, as the police weren't our local police, and weren't letting anyone near the place. We had another option though. A woman called Martha had claimed to have been stabbed during the tornado and was in the hospital. I was pretty sure I could charm my way into getting us a chat with her.

I overdid it again, and now one of the nurses is my best friend and I'll be taking in a basket of scones for the staff to share. But we got in, and Martha was very happy to have someone believe her. She'd been plunged into darkness, and she hadn't been alone. It had lasted for hours - much longer than the time that had passed in the outside world.

We knew what we were dealing with now. It had happened before and it was called the Darkness. And not the fun kind.

Wicker Valley, episode 34: Firestarter

We needed to look in that house. Elizabeth cleared a path to the door through the greenery, using her lich powers, and we started the search. It wasn't a big place, but people had obviously lived here once. The skeletons of furniture remained. I headed upstairs. There was a bathroom, although it didn't have plumbing, just an old bath and a broken wash basin. And two bedrooms.

I looked in the master bedroom first. Not much there beyond the remains of the bed. If anything was hidden in there, I figured it would be under the bed. I was kind of right. There was a loose floorboard down there, and hidden under it was a diary with a name on it. Ann Deltrose. I only glanced at it for the moment, as there was the other bedroom to look at. Three beds, the remnants of old toys, and some odd black scorch marks above one of the bed.

I was almost down the stairs again, when Michael caught fire. I panicked, obviously, and tried to put the fire out with my hands and wings, which probably wasn't too pleasant for Michael. And I couldn't figure out why miss frosty lich hands was picking this moment to continue her aggressive shipping instead of using her magic to put the fire out, until the flames disappeared and I realised it had just been a vision. Something in this house really didn't want us to be here. There was a presence here with natural fire magic. Not taught like Elizabeth's magic, but something inherent. Like mine, except I'd certainly know if there was a demon in the house. As it was, it was Elizabeth who seemed the most aware of it.

Eddie had found a photograph of the family who used to live there, and between that and the diary, we decided we had enough for the moment and got out. We had a look around outside instead. There was a big tree at the back of the house, with the remains of what must have been a rope swing still tied to one branch. And one single rope.

I went up the tree to see if I could see anything interesting. I spotted the way into the cellar, which Elizabeth cleared away with a bit more necromancy. Sometimes I think she only does that when she wants a facelift. Anyway, the cellar didn't seem to like us much more than the rest of the house, and it was a long time since any of us had slept. Eddie, for one, seemed to be falling asleep on his feet. So we decided to give it up for the night, told the scout leaders to keep everyone away from that area due to sinkholes, and went home for some sleep.

The next morning, the photo and the diary got us some answers. The family in the photo were Jack and Ann Deltrose, their twin sons William and Arthur, their adopted daughter Samara, and a dog. I guess back then alarm bells didn't start ringing at the name Samara. Jack and Ann had married in the 1890s but struggled to have children, and eventually adopted Samara, who was the survivor of an orphanage fire, and I'm really starting to appreciate all the important lessons that horror movies have taught me. Much better than Doctor Who's approach to time travel, which wasn't helpful at all. And then had their two sons, about ten years later.

We went looking through town records, and much to our surprise, Jack and the two boys didn't die in a fire, but in a boating accident. We couldn't find graves for them in the cemetary, and it seemed pretty likely that those two crosses under the tree were grave markers. No record of what happened to Ann or Samara. We got Ann's maiden name, Welch, and as it happened there are still Welches living in Wicker Valley. We had a little chat with them, using the excuse of our museum, as of course we would want to feature the history of local families there.

But we still needed to figure out what was going on at the scout camp, so we packed up anti-ghost supplies and headed out. Things clearly weren't going well there, with several kids going home after unpleasant encounters. It was certainly sounding like ghosts. We decided to try the tree first. The spirits of the boys seemed a bit friendlier than Samara. There were some questions from the scout leaders about what exactly we were up to with all the candles and stuff, but between me and Adam we managed to convince them we were doing a geological survey to check for the release of underground gases, with the candles serving as a visual warning of carbon dioxide.

The boys were pretty sweet. One was pretty nervous and hung onto the dog, but the other talked to us. Their father was there too, which didn't surprise us as Michael had managed to find the third cross on the far side of the tree, although he stayed hidden. The dog was keeping people away from them. They were scared of Samara, which didn't surprise us. We asked about the boating accident, but it didn't seem to involve anything particularly suspicious like the boat catching fire.

We knew now what had happened to Ann. Sadly it came down to that single rope hanging from the tree. That poor family. And now we were going to have to go up against Samara. Ghost, firestarter, both. Either way, this was one battle that was definitely going to have theme music.

Wicker Valley, episode 33: Dogs and Ponies

It's all been a bit chaotic recently, starting from when we all got an invitation to dinner from Arthur's family. It all started out pretty normal, with Elizabeth and me getting taken to the conservatory for some girl talk, but then the storm started. The others had been taking Michael out to the stables, which I doubt he was too keen on, and then the storm in the shape of a horse with a glowing eye happened.

Most of us got out of there pretty quick, and after a bit of teleportation taxi services, so did Arthur, along with a mysterious box. The glowing eye in the cloud horse was supposedly some kind of chaos orb, and it needed finding, so Elizabeth and me set up the scrying circle. There were a few suggestions about what to use as a focus, but given our tendency to set things on fire, I didn't want to use anything important, and got out a My Little Pony with twinkle eyes.

Good thing too, since it caught fire. We didn't locate the orb, but I did have an exciting vision of some kind of wizard putting things in a cauldron.

Then, if things weren't complicated enough already, Rusty showed up, which meant explaining my jerk of a brother to Eddie. Chaos orb bad, we new that, but he did have a lead for us. One of my uncles had got hold of it at some point, and it had done bad things to him. So talking to him meant paying a visit to the slate mine.

I could see how creeped out everyone else was as we made our way down into the darkness, which is fair enough. My family are bad enough when they're in their right minds. It wasn't hard to find my uncle. We knew the orb made people's worst fears manifest, which reminded me a lot of last Halloween, so I wasn't surprised to find him shouting about angels. I couldn't remember if he'd ever known me as Scarlet so I introduced myself as Agnes, and he did know who I was. I wouldn't say we learned a lot, but it was a start.

We had other things to deal with though. Strange monsters being seen at the local scout camp. Arthur was staying with his family for the moment, but the rest of us loaded up Vanessa and went on our way. The only description we had was of a big dog, so we grabbed a few books to read along the way. We learned of two types of black dog sightings - malevolent ones like Black Shuck, and protective ones like church grims. Not very helpful so far.

At the campsite the scout leaders were doing their best to act normal while we took a look around. Michael found a pair of crosses concealed under grass at the base of a tree. A little further off we found an old cottage, almost completely covered in plant life. Then we had a collective vision, of two little boys, probably twins, running hand in hand. But Elizabeth saw something more. An older girl, with part of her face burnt.

Wicker Valley, episode 32: Big Magic

I got to work on the book with Arthur, but it wasn't long before another black car, like the one Great Aunt Gertie showed up in, pulled up next to the van and a bunch of people got out. Arthur assured me it was fine and went away with them. I was starting to get a handle on what we needed to do to close the portal, when I got a text from Michael telling me to bring the water feature.

I teleported in to find him fighting an absolutely massive spider, put down the water feature, and went right in with my claws. It didn't like that, and made a horrible screeching noise, which I ignored, then sank a fang into my shoulder, which was harder to ignore. Michael sliced some legs off it, which separated it from me, and then I'm not sure what happened as Elizabeth put up a wall of ice around me and Michael. I suggested to him that we should start trolling Elizabeth, but I didn't have any good ideas for how to do that.

Anyway, by the time I got out of the ice wall, the spiders had disappeared. Outside, Adam was patching up Eddie who'd had a rough time with the spiders before I arrived. Elsa added a little healing magic, and he looked a lot better.

Back at the junk yard we collected everything we needed for closing the portal. It was a mobile portal, I'd learned from the book, so first we needed to move it close to some water. Specifically, Wicker Lake, which oddly enough some people seemed to have forgotten the existence of. It was going to take three of us, and I was a bit worried about that, as that morning's curse-delaying aside, Elizabeth and me didn't have a great track record of working together, and Arthur was out of the picture. Elizabeth assessed the other three. Adam was a no-go, and Michael kept insisting he wasn't magical despite a certain amount of evidence to the contrary. But Eddie, she said, had talent.

I suggested he cover his hair, to make sure we didn't accidentally set it on fire, and helped Elizabeth set up the magic circle. Then the three of us held hands and began the chant, and soon had the portal relocated. Then it was mostly a matter of holding it open while all the various yokai were pulled back into it, although the fact that they were trying to stab us on the way past made it pretty uncomfortable.

Adam and Michael were kept busy fending things off, and Adam clearly wasn't ready to use his flamethrower again after the djinn incident. Unfortunately, Michael wasn't ready to use it at all. Fortunately being right by the lake there was plenty of water handy. Now we had to try to keep going while being bitten by spiders and that was much tougher, as we had to sit there and keep the magic going while they swarmed over us. But in the end we got there. Big spider back in the hole, the hole closed up, and nothing on fire except some of the grass nearby. Apparently Eddie was exactly what we needed to balance our magic.

Adam tried to patch up my spider wounds after that, which I wasn't keen on, and it's only because of my demonic nature that he didn't make things worse. So I took myself to the hospital, where a lot of staff were suddenly freed up as the unconscious people started waking up. Kenji got his mum back. Not his dad though. He woke up again, but the spider curse had hurt him too badly, and he died later that day.

I got another visit from Toby the definitely not a gargoyle while I was at the hospital. He told me that since I had continued to not do the thing I was supposed to be doing regarding Michael, that I was getting my armour confiscated. Which I wouldn't mind so much if whoever They are would stop being so bloody enigmatic and just tell me what I was supposed to be doing!

I got the answer that night, via a dream. Combat training. Teach him to fight with weapons other than a cricket bat. Well that I can do. I normally rely on my claws, but you don't grow up demonic without learning a few weapons along the way. The challenging part is going to be getting Michael on board. We're in a different timeline, but he's still been chosen by someone for something, and I know it's important, even if he's still in denial.

Once we were all out of hospital, we met up again and discovered that Eddie has quite a collection of interesting items from the history of Wicker Valley. We decided it was about time our town had a museum, and since there's that abandoned warehouse full of teeth and scorch marks that nobody wants, we managed to get a venue for a good price. Elizabeth still doesn't have a job, so she's going to run the place. And once we've installed the scrying map and the healing water feature, it should be very useful.

Wicker Valley, episode 31: Big Spiders

During the house search we'd found some kind of dimensional portal, which Arthur had temporarily disabled with one of his magical wards, but we knew that wasn't going to last. Up the ladder we went into the loft, where Arthur immediately got bitten by a giant spider.

There were a lot of spiders up there, and they were big ones, with human eyes which did this thing where blinks were rippling around the attic in a kind of Mexican wave of awful. Eddie made an attempt to communicate with them, and got bitten. They didn't seem to understand either English or his polite gestures. So I pulled up a translation spell from my grimoire.

Hive minds are the absolute worst to communicate with. Voices slightly out of sync, coming from different directions - it's enough to give me a headache. I couldn't persuade them to leave, but I did get out of them that they had a queen, who was going to be out and about pretty soon, and also that we were going to be in big trouble if we didn't leave ourselves pretty quick. The others did not seem to need to be told that. I asked if they were fae, given the mention of a queen, but clearly not. They were yokai.

Outside, Eddie spotted something - an old man with a gourd shaped head, slipping away towards next door. But first we had to deal with Arthur's spider bite. Eddie and Michael had both been bitten but it didn't look too bad. Arthur looked bad. I tried laying on hands, but all I got was a bit of magical curse backlash. Which did at least tell me it was a curse.

Adam took Arthur and Eddie back to the junkyard to do some research, while Michael, Elizabeth and me followed the mysterious figure. Michael recognised it as a Nurarihyon, which he'd seen in an anime before. It had got into the neighbour's house, despite it being locked. Fortunately I could see enough through the window to teleport inside and let the others in.

We found it soon enough, leaving cracker crumbs all over the floor and heading upstairs to use all the toilet paper. I asked it if it was the kid's grandfather, just in case, but no, just another yokai. Michael distracted it, and Elizabeth and me made use of that for a magical banishing.

I tried to teleport us back to the junkyard, but must have thought of Adam at just the wrong moment, and we ended up in a heap in the back of Vanessa, which was a bit of a surprise for everyone, especially Adam.

We had the right books and gear for the kind of curse breaking magic that Arthur needed, but neither I nor Elizabeth were feeling at our best magically, so Arthur called his great aunt Gertie for some magical assistance. Gertie arrived in a chauffeur driven car, wearing a hat with a full size vulture on it, which I'm sure looked at me. I offered to assist, and frankly I nailed my part of it. Shame Gertie didn't. She got hit by even more backlash than me, getting flung across the room.

Gertie left, leaving instructions that Arthur needed to be kept close to running water. Adam made him up a camp bed in the oubliette, and I put on a disguise and teleported to the garden centre to 'borrow' a water feature. This tracked with what the research team had dug up. They had a name for the queen spider: Tsuchigumo. And being near running water was the only way we'd be able to kill it.

The next morning Arthur wasn't better, but wasn't significantly worse, so Elizabeth and me had another shot at the curse breaking. I'd really got the feel for it by now. Elizabeth found it a bit tougher, but with some help from the mystical library we managed to de-curse him enough that he was going to live long enough for us to have a shot at taking out the big spider, which was going to be the only total cure.

One thing was clear. We needed to talk to the kid again. He'd mentioned a book, and that was probably going to have all the answers we needed in it. So we went to his aunt and uncle's house again, to deliver the Switch which we'd completely failed to hand over during the previous day's excitement, and offer to take Kenji to the park for a bit. The utterly exhausted looking uncle answered the door. His wife was at work - apparently the hospital was busy with more coma cases. He was only too happy for us to take Kenji away for a bit.

Kenji wanted to play hide and seek, and I don't think we've ever had such a united chorus of "No!" before. I suggested the assault course on the adventure playground, in the hope of tiring him out a bit. Nobody was particularly keen to talk to him. How we managed to assemble six people with absolutely no skill in talking to children, I don't know. Anyway, I was forced to use my demon voice, and ended up overdoing it a bit, and now I'm Kenji's new best friend.

He told us about the book, which had belonged to his grandfather, and which he was 'given' in very much the same way as I 'borrowed' that water feature, after his death. He didn't know Japanese well enough to read it properly, but he was able to read the words out loud. So it was pretty clear that his grandfather had been a bit of an expert on yokai, and had used the book to summon them to play pranks and stuff, but Kenji had no idea what he was doing and had just opened a random portal and all sorts of awful things were coming through.

I tried to discourage him from doing things like that, saying it might be dangerous, which he argued with, saying that I wasn't dangerous. Which didn't seem to be something I should argue about, despite it being very much not true. Then he mentioned my armour, which surprised me, since I didn't think I was wearing it. I wasn't wearing it.

But we knew where the book was now, so we delivered Kenji back to his uncle who looked much better after a shower and a coffee. We reunited the kid with his Switch, and peace reigned once more.

Back at Kenji's house, Arthur used his scrying knife to take a look at the book and check for spiders. There were spiders. Spiders that looked back at him, and for a moment I thought it was all going to go a bit The Ring, but he covered the knife up quickly. I teleported in to the room, but when I looked under the bed, the book had gone. I teleported back out quick.

Another scry, and Arthur said the book was now in the under stairs cupboard, but there were a lot of spiders. This time we went in as a group, Adam bringing his shotgun, which wasn't the best idea as he accidentally shot the book and then had to explain to our police friend why he was getting reports of gunshots from Eddie's mum.

One very unpleasant spider fight later, we had the book, but we also had a massive hole in the wall where Tsuchigumo had left before we got there.

I got back in the van with Arthur, who was still feeling pretty rough, and we got to work on the book. Opening the portal was a simple matter of reading some words. Of course. Closing it was going to be a bit more involved, but we could do it. Meanwhile, the others were pursuing the spider, with instructions to call if they needed us to teleport in.

Wicker Valley, episode 30: Jack in the box

A few weeks passed peacefully in Wicker Valley. I was kept busy at the Wicker Stop, while fully expecting some kind of Christmas fairy to show up and make December very complicated, but no. We actually got through Christmas quite peacefully. No, it was January, just as I was getting to the last of the cranberry scones I'd been keeping frozen for the Whisper Sisters, when things started happening again.

Two people taken out of their house in comas, leaving a young child to be cared for by his aunt, not long after the kid's grandmother had died. Not much to go on, but it was Eddie's neighbours. He thought it was worth a look, and his instincts for this kind of thing seem pretty solid. Also Michael was acting a bit weird, which usually means something's up.

Anyway, we had two lines of inquiry - the house, and the child. It was a while since I'd done any breaking and entering, but we decided on visiting the child first. Eddie had an in with the aunt and uncle based on being neighbours, so I packed up a nice cake from the café and off we went.

It was soon apparent that while not technically demon spawn, the kid would have been right at home in my family. To be fair, his love of pranks were a little less insect themed than Rusty's, but I could see why his aunt was so stressed. Then the kid started dropping bombshells. An invisible hand buzzer, or possibly just an imaginary one that still worked. Something that came out of a jack in the box. A big spider. And something about a yolk eye, which I didn't understand but hoped Adam would.

We got around the breaking and entering by offering to pick up the kid's Nintendo Switch, which was still at his house, since Eddie would be going that way anyway, and borrowed the keys. We found the Switch easily enough, but looking for the jack in the box was trickier. Notably, the kid's room absolutely did not look like the room of the hellspawn in all but name we'd just encountered. He had to have a separate play area.

Then Adam found a demonic lantern face thing in the under stairs cupboard, and that's where things got complicated. There was a snake, and something about Michael drawing a picture of a spider with human eyes, and naturally there was the usual coin toss between attic and basement, this time settling on attic as there was no basement.

Anyway, we found the jack in the box, and apparently it's spelled 'Yokai'.

Wicker Valley, episode 29: Dancing with Djinns

My new ex-cultist friend, whose name was George, helped me get the remaining injured cultists out of the building. Michael was trying to interrogate one of them and not getting very far, possibly because the guy didn't actually know very much based on how little George was able to tell me. He clearly didn't know what he was getting into. He'd been promised having wishes fulfilled but hadn't exactly believed in all this magic stuff. Well, he did now.

Adam and Elizabeth showed up in Vanessa, and I couldn't have been happier to see them. Arthur, who was proving quite talented at magic, set up a ward to keep the scarabs inside, and Adam incinerated the scarabs while Elizabeth set up an ice wall to make sure the building didn't catch fire.

Michael and me had both been a bit shot during the fight, and while neither of us were looking too bad, we did spend a few minutes bandaging while the others did a bit of scrying with dead scarabs, something that really put me in mind of a prank my brother played on me once. Then it was back in Vanessa and Arthur's car, along with George, as we followed the trail to a shepherd's hut holiday home. Definitely the right place. It was covered in scarabs. Arthur did a quick divination and confirmed that the leader was inside and in the middle of some magic.

We left George in the van, and Adam started hosing down scarabs while the rest of us went round the back to the door. It was magically locked as well as normally locked. Michael's cricket bat took care of the regular lock and I was starting to get a handle on alternate timeline me's grimoire enough to make use of it for a quick unbinding on the magical defenses. That gave me the confidence to try something else new - I enchanted Eddie's gun to give it a bit more oomph if necessary. Arthur put a ward around the building to stop the leader from leaving, and in we went.

Well the enchanted gun seemed to work out well for Eddie, who managed to both intimidate and slow the guy down considerably with a shot to the leg. Between that and Michael's cricket bat, they did separate him from the bottle and his magic book, and while he tried to teleport away, Arthur's ward meant he ended up slamming into the wall of the hut and getting knocked out.

Eddie relieved him of his collection of magic seeing in the dark stones, and we took everything back to the junkyard to put in the oubliette. We weren't done yet though. We still had a djinn to trap. I got to work reading the book. It was in some strange text that Google Lens told me was Semitic. That's the problem with Google Lens. It's handy for me, but does make it far too easy for regular people to stumble onto arcane secrets best left alone. Anyway, I found what we needed:

• At least three people to do an arcane chant.
• One person to dance with the djinn.
• A pair of flaming torches for the dancer to wave.
• Quite a lot of silver.
• A large mammal to sacrifice. A camel was suggested. We decided on a cow as significantly easier to obtain in Wicker Valley, and also we could eat it afterwards.

Eddie got on the cow issue, calling some friends to help out. Adam dug up the necessary material for flaming torches and silver and Michael slipped off somewhere, presumably to practice his dance moves. Then it was back into the van once more, and we drove to the warehouse, as that seemed like the place best set up for dealing with things without causing trouble elsewhere.

Then things went wrong when we got out of the van and a sudden wind picked up most of us and dumped us back at the junkyard, as apparently djinns are really petty. And when I say 'dumped' I mean some way up in the air so we all crashed into the ground. Elizabeth and me got to work magically repairing Arthur and Eddie until George showed up again to drive us there a second time. This time things went a little less dramatically and we all got inside.

Elizabeth, Arthur and me started the chant, Michael danced with the torches, Eddie and Adam stayed close at hand to deal with problems and apply the silver to the bottle when needed, and George handled the cow. Not the smoothest magical ritual we've ever done, and we almost caught fire a few times, but we got there. Michael ended up with tiny flames burning in his eyes, which I thought looked lovely, although other people seemed to find it unsettling. I'll have to find him some of my old dark glasses from before I got a proper handle on my human form.

Then we just had to clean up. The bottle went into the oubliette. George went on his way, and I asked him to keep in touch, since knowing a friendly antiques dealer could very well be useful. I butchered the cow, perhaps not very expertly as my training was in dismemberment, not so much this kind of thing, but it should keep us in burgers for quite a long time. We fired up the barbecue back at the junkyard, and while Adam seemed oddly less keen to be the grillmaster than usual, we all got a good meal.

Then we all sat down for a proper talk, the first chance we'd had since this all kicked off. Eddie talked about some of the strange experiences he'd had as a child. Michael told Eddie and Arthur about our time travel adventures, and Elizabeth told the story of how she became a witch. A lich. She's totally a lich. And I talked about growing up in a family of demons.

I think we're going to make a good team.

Wicker Valley, episode 28: Teamwork

We gathered at the junkyard again. There was a bit of trouble with the police after our antics to retrieve the lid of the djinn bottle, so Adam and Elizabeth went off to deal with that while the rest of us hit the books to try to work out what to do next. Michael suggested using the bottle lid as a focus to try to find the rest of the bottle, so I got out the map and candles.

Not the best scry I've ever done. I think all the time travel was causing me confusion between the way part of me thinks it should be done and all the things I wrote in my grimoire from a different timeline. Long story short, I knew roughly what area to look in, but I was going to need a new map. At least nothing caught fire this time.

Toby the definitely-not-a-gargoyle put in an appearance, and he was looking in a bad way. Apparently I was supposed to be training Michael in something. I asked for some guidance about exactly what I was supposed to be training him in, but didn't get much of a response. Hopefully he'll come back with some answers. In the mean time I offered him a hug because he really did look a mess. I didn't know creatures made of stone could get black eyes.

Meanwhile Eddie was showing off some serious research ability. He figured out we were dealing with a fire djinn, that our best option for hurting it was with holy things, and that djinns had a nasty habit of granting wishes in the worst possible way. A check of the police scanner (after a check to see if we actually had a police scanner) showed strange goings-on involving a swarm of insects at a farm not too far from the area I'd picked up from the bottle lid. We were definitely going to have to check that out.

First we needed transport though. Adam had taken Vanessa the bat-van. Arthur had a car, but it was still parked at the Wicker Stop. Of course I had a way of getting to it, but not exactly a subtle one. But Eddie and Arthur had both just seen me do a scrying ritual, so what was the point of pretending to be normal? I put my arms around Arthur, and teleported us both to the Wicker Stop. The swirl of wings was back to being leathery, not feathery. Maybe that was just a glitch and I hit a seagull mid-teleport last time?

Anyway, Arthur had to sit down for a moment after his first teleport, but soon had us back to the junkyard. Michael had been through Adam's costume cupboard, a thing he has now, and found a bunch of backpack style supersoakers labelled with little crosses. I don't know what happened to cause this timeline's Adam to have that much holy water on standby, but it was probably going to be very useful here.

We tooled up. Overalls as a bit of protection from bugs and general dirt, which had the added bonus of making us look a bit like the ghostbusters. Although Halloween was some time ago now, so perhaps wandering around in costumes would look a little weird? What time of year was it anyway? With all the time travel, I'd completely lost track. I was happy enough with my regular weapons, and Michael was sticking with his cricket bat for this one, but the other two brought out guns! Arthur had a sniper rifle and Eddie had a 9mm? How on earth had they managed that? I'd had to go on a course just to get my shotgun license. Not that I was complaining. With Adam and Elizabeth still tied up dealing with the police we were down quite a lot of firepower.

We got back in Arthur's car and drove out to the farm where things were happening. Ranger Tom was there, and was clearly pleased to see us, which was quite a relief. The farmer was furious though, so I went to have a chat with him using my best soothing voice to calm him down. While I defused the situation the others went to check out a mysterious cloud of smoke. When they got back, Michael looked OK but the others were a bit green. They'd found a homeless person who'd wished that he had wheels. It hadn't gone well for him, and he'd died when his new engine stopped firing. From what we were hearing from the police, he wasn't the only one in a bad way.

We were going to have to stop this before anyone else got hurt. Eddie, again proving himself absolutely invaluable, figured out straight away where the cloud of scarabs were heading. Arthur drove us to the old warehouse district where we'd previously dealt with the tooth monsters. Scarabs were crowding on the roof, and I teleported myself and Eddie up there to have a look around and see if we could deal with them. I saw nothing, as I was far too distracted by scarabs trying to bite me.

Arthur got himself set up with his rifle, and the rest of us snuck in around the back. Cultists. Not really surprising, as Michael had a strong hunch that's what we were going to find. Michael managed to surprise one of them and knock him out. Unfortunately I don't think Arthur has had proper training with his rifle yet, as his first shot hit me. Fortunately I'd already armoured up by then, so it was time to pop the claws and get down to business.

Absolute chaos, with people hiding, and a sudden cloud of black powder which Michael went running into, and more missed shots. I'd managed to rake one of the cultists pretty badly, but then I remembered the conversation we'd had right before we went in. Top priority was finding the djinn bottle. So I spoke to the cultist I'd just clawed, putting every bit of temptation I could muster into my voice, and told him if he wanted to live, he should help me find the bottle.

I might have overdone it a bit. I seemed to have a new best friend. But that's exactly what we needed right then. He gave me his magic stone that let him see in the dark and I followed Michael into the black cloud to try to retrieve the bottle. With what I can only call some really excellent teamwork, we took down the leader, dispersed the dark cloud, scared off the remaining cultists, and then realised that we hadn't actually found the djinn yet, the leader had teleported away with the bottle, and we were still surrounded by very angry scarabs.

Wicker Valley, episode 27: Back to the Present

We left the persuasion to Michael. He was the best at it, and I was getting terrified of turning completely into a spider. And he did it, and with some effort we all came back to the present day.

I was back in the Wicker Stop, in the basket room, in the middle of teaching a class. Could have been worse. Weaving felt very natural at that point, and I kept on top of any urge to eat flies. I got through the class without doing anything weird, and then it was time to figure out what state the world was in now.

I no longer owned the Wicker Stop, although I did seem to be a manager now, so that wasn't too bad. And Michael was still working there, although he seemed to just be bussing tables now, and there was a new guy, Eddie. I'd seen his face around town maybe a couple of times, and Michael seemed to know him.

Adam showed up on the team Whatsapp group saying that he had an apprentice now, to which the only thing I could say was 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. We arranged to all meet up for coffee the next morning and catch up. It had been a long day.

Eddie brought us our coffees in the morning. Adam had brought his apprentice Arthur along with him. With both of them hanging around it was hard to properly talk about anything, although I did suggest that next time my brother suggested going on 'holiday' we should all say no. We did manage to establish that Adam was somehow still working for the Foundation, hence the sudden arrival of Arthur, and that life had turned out rather differently for Robin, who'd disappeared when he left the oubliette and was now on some kind of motorcycle tour of Britain. Michael was back living in his old place with his housemates and no longer had a car. Elizabeth...she was still Elizabeth.

Then the Whisper Sisters walked in.

Michael hugged them, and it was all I could do not to join in. I had to settle for making sure they were well supplied with coffee and scones. I never thought I'd be so happy to see them.

No time for getting properly settled back in though, as there was trouble out at the motorway services. We piled into Vanessa, which was getting increasingly crowded with six of us in there, as it was becoming rapidly apparent that Eddie in this timeline knew a lot more about goings on in Wicker Valley. At least Arthur seemed a bit more impressed with the interior of Vanessa than he had done with us. I guess we're not quite the professional outfit he was expecting from the Foundation.

I ordered KFC on the way, because if we were going to visit the services we might as well enjoy ourselves. While I picked up popcorn chicken for everyone, the local police officer escorted some of the group in to see the body. Between that, the CCTV, and Adam's extensive knowledge of such things, it seemed pretty certain we were dealing with a djinn. Not that I could pay any attention to that though, as something was wrong with Michael.

He'd had another one of his visions, and needed to get back to town urgently to check on his brother. Urgent in an 'ask me to teleport him there' kind of way. I think Elizabeth was telling Eddie and Arthur something about the hotel as we got out of the van, but I could deal with her weird shipping later. Michael needed me. And much to my relief, I got us both into his mum's back garden without anything going amiss.

Something was different though. I was used to the swirl of my wings each time I teleported, but my wings were different. Instead of being leathery, they were feathery.

By the time I'd got myself sorted out after that surprise, Michael had confirmed that his brother was fine, but he was still worried. So I built a ward around the house. Not a great one, given that I was short of time and feeling downright weird about the feathers, but I did manage to make it resistant to djinn, fairies and demons, while leaving my usual backdoor in case I needed to get in or out.

Then it was back to business. Causing distractions while retrieving bits of djinn bottle.

Wicker Valley, episode 26: Preventing A War

We regrouped at the junk yard for a sit down and a coffee, and to check on the current state of the various factions now the ward was down. Michael had a chat with the fae via his communication stone, and managed to convince them not to invade just now. Adam called James at the Foundation, with similar results. We had some breathing room, but not much.

I found myself checking for large open areas outside of town, just in case there did end up having to be a massive battle, in the hope that they could at least not have it on the Wicker Valley high street. Elizabeth said something about a scene in a movie, and I thought she meant the Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit, but apparently it was something from Twilight. I wouldn't know. Some things are too much even for a demon.

After some careful consideration, and making sure that Robin was OK and well supplied with biscuits, we concluded that it would be a good idea if Agnes and Elsa were to retire to the south of France. A lot of people wanted Agnes dead, and for all we'd been through recently, I don't think any of us wanted that. She's still my aunt, after all.

So we met up with Mary for a nice friendly chat and to talk about what was going to happen next. We had some answers now. Mary was figuring out all the things she'd forgotten because of Agnes draining her, and it was now pretty clear that she was the one who'd called for a chosen one, resulting in the current state of Michael and me.

Mary had a less France-based suggestion though. One that would resolve our current problems, most of which were a result of Agnes' abnormally long lifespan. She could send us back into the past again, to undo repairing her heart.

We really didn't like that. Yet another death didn't sit right, especially one that we could - and did - prevent. But we had another idea. How about if instead of killing her, we did something to protect her from Agnes' magic, so that both of them would live out their natural lifespans?

It's amazing, just how big rats look when you're a spider, even when you're quite a big spider. It took me a while to get all my legs sorted out too, and as for producing silk, that was just downright weird. Still, we had a job to do, and that started with finding our way through a house full of magic doors based on a map that one of us had stored in their memory, since we couldn't bring anything back.

After some rather embarrassing efforts at silk production, or butt string as we all ended up calling it, we got out into the garden. Elizabeth located the herbs we needed, and having finally got my spinnarets under control, I wove them together into a charm. Then we had to find Mary, and convince her of what was going on, who we were, and so forth, which was all rather complicated, although simplified considerably when it turned out Mary could use magic to speak to rats.

It was looking like it might work. Just so long as we all managed to hold onto our own minds. I was getting dangerously close to fully embracing spiderhood.

Wicker Valley, episode 25: The Ward

Before I could do anything though, time seemed to freeze. As in, everything stopped, but I could still see what was happening. I saw Agnes go to each of the others in turn, and talk to them. Finally she came to me. I think she could tell I'd been able to see, even though I couldn't hear the conversations, and I don't think she was happy about it. But she put her hands on me and gave me a vision.

It was Michael and me, fighting side by side in a battle. We were winning, but at the same time, I was changing. I saw my claws fall away, and my wings shrivel up, and when I tried to remove my armour, it wouldn't go. That was my future, Agnes told me as the vision faded away. But it didn't have to be. She could give me what I really wanted. The thing I tried so hard to find. A normal life, with Michael alongside me.

I know a thing or two about temptation. That was a good one. I wanted to believe her. But if there's one thing I've learned since I came to Wicker Valley it's that I don't get to have a normal life, because I'm not normal. So that's what I told her. And I told her that there was a war brewing, which was nothing to do with us. I wanted to protect this town, and right now that didn't mean siding with her.

Then she was back by the fallen tree, and time was moving again. I looked at the others, and asked if we were all on the same page. We all were except for Robin. And Alabaster. I did wonder where he'd been since he ran off after we came back from the past.

Elizabeth was understandably focussed on Alabaster. He did kill her after all. And Michael was trying to stop Robin in some way that didn't hurt him too much. I went for Agnes. I took her by surprise - I think that was the first time she'd seen me teleport - but it didn't help. My claws didn't even seem to make contact with her. Then Michael was calling me back, and magic was flying and Robin was screaming and Agnes had some kind of little bag with her like the ones she planted on us, and I tried to take it off her but she hung onto it. Agnes sent that nice little demon that's been hanging around with Elizabeth to attack her, and I had to yell at him to go away. Which he did, just in time to stop him stabbing Elizabeth in the face. And then Mary showed up.

Mary took Agnes away, and I asked her to look after my aunty, because she is still one of the few members of my family I've ever managed to get on with. We bundled the tied up Robin into the van and took him back to the junkyard for a lie down in the oubliette while we had a rest in the panic room.

We shared the different things Agnes had offered us. Michael had been offered restoring his brother's ability to walk. Adam was offered being made the head of the Foundation - or destroying it completely. Which made me feel pretty damn lucky that we'd all ended up on the same side.

After I shared mine, Elizabeth started in on the comments about me and Michael having found true love, which seemed a bit premature after one kiss. I could see Michael turning bright red. And I ended up telling them the reason I'd been holding back all this time. I was afraid of ending up like Agnes. My family do things to extremes, and while I didn't know what that looked like when it came to love until I met Agnes, that thought has been there since the day I had to stop Rusty from killing Michael.

After a nice cup of tea and a sit down, we remembered that the point of all this was to bring down the ward, and we should check on that. I teleported to just inside where the ward had been. It was still there. And it was stronger now. Enough that I could just about see it shimmering away. And I couldn't get through it, by teleporting or otherwise.

I went back to tell the others and we got back in the van and drove to the nearest road accessible part of the ward. There we found a car that looked like its insides had been painted red. Obviously the ward had stopped the people but the car had kept going. The police were there, and we encouraged them to set up barriers on all the roads out of town to make sure this didn't happen again.

So now we had to do our part and take down that ward once and for all before anyone else died. We'd got the focus, but that wasn't all. And then there was the matter of that bag Agnes had been using. It felt a bit weird asking Elizabeth to sniff my hand where I'd been holding it to see if she recognised the herbs, but she did. A hex bag, used to drain power off someone. In this case, clearly it was being used to drain Mary.

We were all pretty sure that Agnes' basement was where we needed to go to disrupt the ward, but how to get in there? Adam suggested I just teleport right in, but I couldn't do that. I'd never seen her basement. Adam then had an idea involving sending in a drone, but I had to explain it didn't work like that. I could go to places I'd been before, and people I knew well, but somewhere I just saw on camera wouldn't work. And this turned to be academic, because it turned out that in this timeline, Adam kept biscuits in the drone box.

They were chocolate hobnobs though, so we all ate some while we came up with a plan.

Michael was the distraction, with Elizabeth watching from nearby for backup. He took some cinnamon bun cake from the Wicker Stop as a peace offering while I snuck round the back with Adam. I got inside and went down to the basement. It was dark down there. Unnaturally dark. I wouldn't have known what to do if Toby the grotesque hadn't shown up again. At some point I need to ask him some questions, but for now I needed his help. He said there were dead things on the floor. And some things that weren't dead. He guided me across the room, and there I found the casting circle.

The sigil was drawn in blood, ringed with plant bits and hair, probably hers and Mary's. I wondered if I should just plunge my claws in to tear it apart, but decided on a more scientific approach. Peroxide. Now I'd been here once I could teleport back in, so I went to the chemist, bought some peroxide, and came back to destroy the circle. I got a bit too close to some of the other stuff down there as I did so, but my armour activated and that was OK.

Then Agnes was down there with me, grabbing onto me, driving her claws into my shoulders, and a moment later there was a sudden pain in my back and a much worse pain in my soul. She'd ripped off my wings.

She was standing there holding them, saying "what have I done?" over and over, and all I could do was say the same thing. And then we had a whole lot of company.

Mary seemed to be a whole different person when Michael was holding her arm. I was in too much shock to really understand what was going, but Agnes's hex bag got taken off her and disintegrated, and Mary did some kind of magic to reattach my wings. She also had some answers for me about the armour. She called it the armour of the divine protector, and said something about me being a protector for Michael. And she seemed to know something about why or what Michael had been chosen for as well.

Mary seemed to think it was strange that a hellspawn had ended up with this armour, but for me it was starting to make sense. My family take things to extremes. I guess for me that meant extreme rejection the roll of the family matriarch that they chose for me. Something to think about in the future though, because first we had to check on the ward again. At last. It was gone.

Wicker Valley, episode 24: Surprises

Over fried chicken, fries and sides we discussed our next move. We needed to do something about Agnes. Both generally and specifically. We couldn't have her messing with our minds like that. Adam had a notification that his new set of books had arrived, so we could do some research on both shielding spells and on wards. But Michael had had a text from the fairy queen, and wanted to visit her again, and Elizabeth was very insistent that he shouldn't go alone. I happened to agree, but I wasn't sure why she was making such a big deal of it.

Anyway, Adam and Elizabeth went to hit the books, and I went with Robin and Michael to see the fairy queen. We ran through the rules since it was Robin's first visit. Don't eat or drink anything. Don't accept gifts. Don't tell them your real name. And don't fall asleep. The door to the fairy realm seemed to have ditched most of its special effects. Or maybe someone was just in a hurry and couldn't be bothered to impress us. Either way, we got in to see the queen with minimal fuss. Robin was careful about his name, and all in all it went pretty well.

I found that when I relaxed a bit, I felt less itchy and the queen's voice lost some of its intoxicating quality. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. The queen asked me a strange question, about whether my transformation was permanent. I didn't know what she meant, and I didn't know if I should ask in case I said the wrong thing, but she said that I was becoming something different. And she's right. I've tried to ignore it, but between the teleporting, the armour and the strange glow, it must be pretty obvious to everyone.

We learned that the fae court was working with the Foundation, of all people. They even had one of their pet werewolves, which was really quite embarrassing to witness. It was clear we were running out of time. A supernatural war was brewing, and the only chance we had of avoiding it was getting rid of Agnes's ward. According to the queen, we all had the smell of Agnes on us. It was time to get back to the others and see what they'd found out.

Back at the junkyard, they'd got some useful info on dealing with the ward, but first we had the magical contamination we'd apparently picked up to deal with. Elizabeth could see it on all of us except Adam. We had a number of ideas for getting rid of it, and I think my idea of getting us into running water by visiting a water park was the best, but before I could book tickets, Toby the grotesque, not a gargoyle because he's not a drainpipe, showed up to tell me we had smelly bags on our shoulders.

We couldn't see or feel them, but Elizabeth's pet demon Nick could, and soon we were all cleaned up. Next up was a shielding spell, in case we ran into Agnes and needed to not immediately reveal all our plans. I attempted to help Elizabeth with the spell, and managed to set my own hair on fire this time, but fortunately she was fine without me.

I think being the chosen one is getting to Michael. We managed to talk briefly while Elizabeth was casting the spell, and he thought that it should have been me who was chosen and that someone just got it wrong due to patriarchy. I said that maybe they'd just been told to look for a redhead and got the wrong one. I don't believe that though.

Adam and Elizabeth's research had confirmed what we half suspected. The source of Agnes's ward was the tree. We were going to have to bring it down. We loaded up Vanessa with iron spikes, chainsaws and a flamethrower, and off we went.

The tree was in the middle of a playground, which was rather inconvenient. Toby was still hanging around, complaining that he couldn't even touch the thing. I found it was quite an effort to get near it, but that once I did my armour seemed to weaken the effect. I quickly backed off to avoid any sudden glowing in front of the children playing.

Elizabeth attempted to try a bit of lichcraft, I think, but that didn't go well. Her hand suddenly turned black, and the blackness began creeping up her arm. I had a sudden hunch about how to stop it, reached out to take hold of her arm, and tried to drive it back. Not all the way, but at least she still had all her fingers.

We donned some hi-vis jackets and began clearing the playground, claiming that the tree was dangerous. Which was true, after all. Adam got to work hammering iron spikes into the tree to weaken it, but I had other things to worry about. Michael was having a seizure. He didn't seem to be hurt, so I just did some regular first aid, but he didn't wake up when it ended. Elizabeth could see it was no normal seizure, but Agnes doing something to him. Elizabeth said that he needed a shock to wake him up and suggested that I should kiss him.

At which point I realised we were being shipped by our own teammate, but I couldn't think about that right then because Michael needed help. So in my mind I screamed at Agnes to get away from him, and I kissed him. And he woke up.

I think we were both a bit surprised, and must have said out loud that this wasn't how I'd imagined it happening, because Michael was surprised again that I'd imagined it. But while we were having this moment, Elizabeth and Robin were laying into the tree with ice magic and chainsaw, and it was about to come down. I kept hold of Michael and teleported us back to the van out of harm's way.

The tree crashed down. Adam shoved Robin out of its path and we regrouped at the van. I think we all knew what was coming. Agnes didn't waste any time. She was there in a moment, and for the first time she let her little old lady façade drop to show us the winged, clawed hellspawn beneath.

Wicker Valley, episode 23: Intervention

It had been a long day, and I hadn't exactly had the best night's sleep, and it would have been nice to be able to go and get some rest before having to deal with Aunty Agnes again, but fate intervened when Michael had another vision. The Whisper Sisters, dead.

We didn't know where the sisters' home was, but Agnes did. Right next door to her. We were already too late though. When we got there Mary was in floods of tears. Robin was there too, back from whatever he'd been off doing for Agnes for the last few days.

We checked out the scene. Not that there was much to check out. Elizabeth picked up the lingering traces of fae spirits passing on. Robin stretched out his wolf nose for a sniff about, and Michael took hold of one sister's hand. That seemed to freak him out, enough to make him run for the door, but before I could go after him he ran into the arriving paramedic, who immediately started freaking out in turn at the sight of Robin.

I thought I was going to have to use the Voice of Temptation, but somehow I found something else within me. A few calm words about how we were friends of the deceased and staying with the bodies until they arrived, and attention was off Robin and nobody was panicking any more.

We finally decided we needed sleep before we tried to look into things any further, and agreed to meet up at the junk yard in the morning. Nobody had found anything useful beyond what Michael had seen - a vision of the sisters' hearts being washed out of their bodies by a tide of water. Horrible, but it was something. We were going to have to do some research. First though, there was the matter of Robin.

I didn't notice it at first, but the others did. I was talking about Agnes the way I normally do. She's nice, but as Terry Pratchett said, nice isn't the same as good, and when it comes down to it, she's the same hellspawn as me and Rusty. I like her but I don't trust her. And the others seem to be on the same page, with even Elizabeth having grasped that Rusty is bad news. Robin, on the other hand, was being overwhelmingly positive about Agnes in response to all my less enthusiastic comments, and Elizabeth quietly suggested a quick banishing rite.

We gathered up what we could in the way of supplies. You can do a lot with some sage and salt. Or you can, if your assistant doesn't set your hair on fire with the burning sage, and you don't completely fumble the salt and mess up your words. That took some explaining, and to make it worse we were getting messages from Agnes wanting to see us at the Wicker Stop.

I took the quick route. I landed myself in the basket room, which wasn't the best choice as it was locked. I should have gone with the toilets. But there I was, getting a big hug from Mary which I wasn't ready for, and a more cautious one from Agnes who seems to have figured out her timeline's version of me was a little more enthusiastic about hugs than I am.

Agnes wanted to know all about the business with the tooth fairy, and I was trying to hold back and not tell her too much, but somehow ended up spilling all about how they were going to use the teeth to open a portal. Fortunately I spotted it in time to hold back when she started asking where the portal was. I told her truthfully that I'd assumed it was going to be in the warehouse where we'd found the tooth creatures, and managed not to mention that we'd later found out where it really was.

Robin and Elizabeth had taken the more conventional route, arriving on Robin's bike, so as soon as I could I slipped off to the toilets and teleported to Adam and Michael to tell them what was up, giving them a bit of a surprise since they were in the van. Agnes was doing things to my mind. I only got the hang of the Voice of Tempation a few weeks ago and already I can do some pretty nasty stuff, and Agnes has had hundreds of years to practice. It was clear that we needed to try again to clear Robin's mind.

Adam's plan was to do it outside the ward. He was convinced that was what had interfered with the first attempt, and not total incompetence on my part, and it certainly wouldn't hurt. I teleported back into the toilets (definitely the best teleportation space) and went to find Robin and Elizabeth. Looking at the way Mary was behaving, I was starting to realise that something was off. I had a nasty suspicion she had also been affecting by Agnes's mind magic.

And of course Adam and Michael had managed to figure out what had killed the Whisper Sisters. What Michael had seen had been a ward washing over them. A strengthened ward, targeting the fae, doubtless in reaction to the tooth fairy being taken out of the ward. Agnes had done it.

By the time Robin arrived at the Premier Inn the hotel room was all set up for a magical intervention. And this time I didn't mess up. Adam made sure everything was set up properly. I knew what I was banishing. It was weird, being surrounded by the kind of religious iconography and not feeling immensely uncomfortable, but it was doing the job. Michael and Elizabeth got Robin into the right place and I pushed Agnes' influence right out of him.

And then we all had KFC, because if we were going to drive out all this way, we might as well.

Wicker Valley, episode 22: What the tooth fairy does with the teeth

Note: due to leaving it too long to do the last update, I couldn't remember what order things happened in. I've now updated that post so that it actually ends at the point this one starts.

The tooth creature might have been cute, but it had one hell of a bite. Fortunately we managed to separate it from Michael's arm, and Adam wrapped it up in iron chain netting. It wasn't happy about it, and we managed to use that to our advantage. It wanted to get somewhere, so we went in the direction it was trying to go. I thought maybe we could use the acid bombs we'd used for the stone creatures that were definitely not gargoyles, but as the others pointed out, that was our timeline. It didn't happen here. We were stuck with sugar cola.

We ended up at an old warehouse. Not many options for a stealthy entrance, but Michael spotted the pile of teeth inside, along with a few more of the tooth creatures. I armoured up, popped the claws, and in we went.

That was a nasty fight. Taking down the tooth creatures wasn't hugely difficult, but then they started reforming and combining into larger and much nastier versions. Adam took a nasty blow when one of them spat a tooth at him. Elizabeth did a good job with her ice magic, slowing them down and putting up a shield, although she did go all evil Galadriel and really isn't convincing me that she's not a lich. Michael's new spiky bat thing seemed pretty effective. So did my claws. More so than I expected somehow.

We were just getting to the point where we were on the point of ending things when reinforcements arrived, in the shape of the tooth fairy who'd dragged Michael off, and a couple more tooth creatures. Adam got his iron net out again and managed to grapple the fairy. The combined tooth creatures were getting even worse though, and one of them hit Michael so hard he went flying back against a wall. I saw red at that point, and threw myself into the fight, not even caring if I got hurt. My claws went through it like butter and it collapsed into a pile of teeth.

I checked on Michael, but Elizabeth was already there with a bit of magical wound closing. He was going to be fine. Funny though, it seemed brighter in the room around me. Like my armour was glowing.

We needed to get the tooth fairy back to the fairy queen fast, but he was freaking out about the ward. Fair, I remember what it's like trying to get through a ward. Adam came up with an idea. If we drove up to the ward, and then I held the fairy and teleported to the other side, he technically wouldn't actually go through the ward.

I was still nervous about something going wrong, and this would have been a very bad time to lose the fairy. Fortunately Elizabeth was on hand to give me a little arcane assistance and we crossed the ward without incident.

Once on the other side, the fairy's whole attitude changed. He warned us that there were even more of the tooth creatures out there, and the plan would keep happening if they weren't stopped. So Michael and Elizabeth took the van to drive out to the fairy portal, and I teleported Adam and me back to the warehouse. We didn't know where the creatures were, but at least we knew where they were going.

After a fight so brutal that even I got hurt, the last of the tooth creatures were dismantled. Adam asked if I could do some magical healing, and I gave it a go, but something about my magic felt weird, and from the way Adam was looking at me I think I might have also been looking weird. Anyway, I closed his wound, but a bunch of teeth grew out of it, which was kind of gross.

I got a text from Agnes. Unsurprisingly she'd noticed me teleporting through her ward. I was going to have some explaining to do.

Elizabeth and Michael pulled up in the van, and we swept up the remaining teeth and took them all to the junkyard to put in the oubliette. Or the bat cave, as Adam now calls it. Just one problem remaining: the portal. We drove around until Elizabeth found it, and there we were back at the bloody church.

The crypt felt even weirder this time. It wasn't just the lack of the usual skin crawling sensation. It actually felt nice. Even the pain from my injuries went away. And here, in the one place in Wicker Valley that Agnes' magic couldn't touch, was the portal that was about to be used for the invasion. We'd bought some time by dealing with the teeth, but we still needed to get it closed.

Elizabeth took the lead, marking out the cardinal points. She took water, and told me to take fire, which is stereotyping, but at least it was the opposite side to her. She wasn't sure about where to put the others, but I thought Adam should be earth. After all, he'd shown up normal to a weird fight. That's pretty damn grounded.

The portal was closed. And I got even more suspicious texts from Agnes.

Wicker Valley, episode 21: Tooth Fairy

Somehow we managed to wake up Adam and get out of there. Presumably because the fairy queen had a job for us. Well, a job for Michael. She was missing a tooth fairy and wanted him found. Adam had some dubious ideas for how to find a tooth fairy, but fortunately Michael was able to overrule him in favour of putting up notices that only the fairy would be able to see in places where teeth might be lost, asking to meet him.

With that done, we all went home to get some sleep. Not that I got much sleep. Every moment I'd spent in that fairy realm had made my skin crawl in a way I normally associate with churches, and I ended up lying awake for what felt like hours. When I finally did manage to drift off, I got woken up again pretty quickly by a knock at the door. I almost ignored it to try to get back to sleep, but I realised anyone knocking on the door at that time probably had a good reason.

It was Michael, dressed in pyjamas and soaked through from the rain. I brought him inside, and he told me that the tooth fairy had found him, and then dragged him out of the window, and he was now locked out of his house. And I was the closest person that he'd be able to explain his predicament to.

I suggested teleporting him home, but he wanted to know what could go wrong, and I realised I hadn't done all that much experimenting yet. It seemed to work very well when I was on my own, but I hadn't had much practice in taking people with me yet, and this was not the time to be ending up in the wrong place. And even at this hour of the night, flying him up to the window was too big a risk.

So he got in the shower to warm up, and I got him some towels and bedding so he could sleep the rest of the night on the sofa. In the morning he called Adam to ask him to bring him some clothes. Which meant I had to answer the door to a grinning Adam.

"Whatever you're thinking, it's not that." Not that he believed me, of course.

I had no intention of going anywhere near the fairy realm again, but Michael was going back and there was absolutely no way I was letting them get their hands on him, so we all went. Except they immediately took Michael off into a different room. They did feed us, after first giving us assurances that the food was free of obligations. Elizabeth said it was legit, but I still didn't eat anything until she did.

Three hours later there was still no sign of Michael and I was getting extremely antsy. Finally we got the news that something bad was going to happen in Wicker Valley and they wanted to keep Michael there to keep him safe. I wasn't letting that go and demanded to see Michael. He was fine, although pretty reluctant to stay. In the end they came to some kind of agreement. We would all go back and try to sort things out. And if we hadn't done in time, Michael would come back. I'm glad to say he didn't say anything about staying.

Bloody fairies. They're as bad as my family. Which is why the idea of Agnes and Mary basically running this town is so unsettling.

Dragging Michael out of windows wasn't the only strange thing the tooth fairy had been up to that night, as we soon found ourselves at a crime scene. Being slightly worried about tooth golems, we'd packed full sugar coke in addition to some fairy-fighting tools. It seems in this timeline we get routinely called in for weird crimes, as the police let us right in. Nasty business. The father was dead, and had lost all his teeth as well. The mother and daughter, at least, seemed unharmed. The victims left, and we took a look around.

There was a tooth creature, but it was a lot cuter than I anticipated.

Wicker Valley, episode 20: Looking for Answers

By some miracle we'd actually managed to deal with the kobold with some evening to spare, so back home I picked up the grimoire my alternate self had and tried to make sense of it. It was tough going. I seemed to have some muscle memory but not actual brain memory. In the end I gave up and shoved it back into the drawer. There was a rattle, and I realised there was was a false bottom.

I pulled out the hidden book. A journal. Seems other me likes keeping track of things too. Except mostly what was in there was concerns about Agnes. We were on the same page, metaphorically as well as literally. I like aunty Agnes a lot, but when it comes down to it, she's hellspawn. We have a tendency to take things to extremes, whether that's violence, love, or anything else.

The next morning as well as checking on the cafe (where Michael was finding himself suddenly having to deal with holiday request forms) I decided to do a bit of experimentation. I'd acquired a belt pouch from somewhere, and even though I hadn't put it on in the morning, I was still wearing it. So that needed investigation. I went out into the woods, partly for privacy, partly in case anything dangerous happened.

What happened was that after concentrating a bit to make some of the armour appear (I just got the shoulder things, which made me feel like a video game character), I reached into the bag and pulled out a tiny demon. Not a hellspawn like me, but the kind of cute little guy who gets assigned as a familiar. At least, I think they're cute. People who weren't brought up with a very literal fear of God might disagree.

There were five of them in there, which was impressive given that the bag definitely wasn't big enough to hold five ten to eleven inch tall demons, but I filed that under more Doctor Who nonsense. They were ready to fight, and were quite disappointed that there was nothing there to fight. I thought about directing them towards the local squirrels, but decided against it and put them back in the bag, telling them maybe next time.

Then there was the matter of the wings. A bit of practice showed that I could teleport anywhere I could see with ease, but I wondered if there was more range on it. I focussed my mind instead on my bedroom, opened my wings, and I was there. Unexpected, but convenient.

I had a text from Adam who wanted to meet up for a chat in the oubliette. I gave him quite a shock when I teleported into the junk yard, but he immediately saw a practical use. He'd had a call from Michael, whose bike had vanished, replaced with a car that he didn't know how to drive. Adam had been going to pick him up in the van, but maybe I could pick him up instead?

Michael was no less surprised to see me, and there was some awkwardness as we tried to figure out the practicalities. I'm not really a hugger outside of extremely stressful situations, plus it was Michael, but we managed to figure it out and a moment later we were at the junk yard in a swirl of leathery wings.

Once Elizabeth had arrived via more conventional means, we all agreed that the next step had to be talking to Rusty again to find out why he'd been sending us into the past in this timeline. I sent him a text, and it seemed like he'd been waiting for me. It took him ten minutes to reply though.

Adam drove us out to the Welcome Break services. Rusty seemed surprised and not entirely happy to see the others with me, so I joined him for a quick private chat while the others ordered at KFC. This version of Rusty seemed as scared of Michael as Michael is of him. I confirmed that he had tried to kill Michael in this reality as well, so I don't really know what his problem is. Unless he knows more about Michael that we do.

Anyway, I convinced him that I did trust the others. Well, I'm still not completely sure I can trust Elizabeth not to do stupid things, but mentioning that would just encourage him. He asked how far back in time we'd gone, and I told him about the village full of gnomes - real ones, rather than the lawn gnomes in the lake. He looked shocked. We were only supposed to go back a few decades, to try to figure out where the convergence of ley lines was in Wicker Valley. What could have caused things to be out by several hundred years? Possibly the convergence of ley lines, Elizabeth suggested. Yeah. That would do it.

There were other problems besides our wibbly wobbly timey wimey issues though. Agnes is demonic like us and Mary is some kind of fae, and our previous encounter with the moss hag showed us how dangerous it is when those things combine. Meanwhile outside the town, tensions are building between our family and the fae. Mary is suspected to be the reason that Agnes has lived a lot longer than our kind normally do. And of course our lot always take things to extremes and have been experimenting on the fae, who naturally responding in kind since they're better at being reasonable than we are and did something unspeakable to cousin Harriet.

Ahh well. I never liked her anyway. There's a reason my arsehole of a brother, who actually winked at Elizabeth while we were leaving, is my favourite family member.

Next stop: the fae courts. Michael had had a vision of armoured fae marching through Wicker Valley and we needed to know more about that.  Elizabeth knew how to find them, and led us through some kind of portal out in the countryside near the town. We ran through the rules first. Don't accept gifts. Don't eat or drink. Don't fall asleep. We avoided giving our true names, and didn't eat any of the offered food. But then Adam fell asleep.