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[personal profile] froodle
At 3:33 a.m. on a wet Wednesday morning in June, every church bell in Eerie began to chime.

In the Eerie Cemetery, stiff-necked corpses rolled over in their coffins, moaning in protest and pressing skeletal hands over shrivelled ears while beneath Lake Eerie, things with tentacles and gills and other, less-easily described attributes clutched tight to crucifixes made from driftwood and barnacles. Janet Donner pulled her coverlet over her head, ears straining for the tell-tale clink of milk bottles, and Melanie Monroe awoke shrieking out a scream that only she could hear.

Mary B. Carter was getting married. Again.

Ongoing Verse: Andrea/Marisea

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Ongoing Verse: The Children

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Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Euclid

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[personal profile] froodle
The wooden handle of the spatula was smooth, sturdy, and slightly warm to the touch, as though the ghosts of every chef who'd come before her had left some trace of themselves upon it. The head was a glossy rounded curve of smooth and flexible rubber, supple and unbroken.

And yet...

"Tod," said Janet, trying to pitch her voice at it's most un-judgemental level and probably failing, "Do you have any kitchen utensils without skulls and bats and pumpkins all over them?"

The smile of the grinning jackolantern on her spatular seemed to fade a little.

"Nope," said Tod. "None."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The moray eels in their human skin suit surveyed the locked doors of the Eerie Museum of Aquatic Mysteries with suspicious eyes and downturned mouths. They carried a backpack, though technically not on their backs, and the straps hung strangely over lopsided and sagging shoulders supported by no scapula or collarbone.

In the backpack was a recipe book, old and worn and much-repaired with sticking tape and the best efforts of creatures without opposable thumbs. Or any thumbs. Or digits at all, really.

"1001 Atlantean Delicacies for the Discerning Piscivore" was a best-seller, and they were determined to use it.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The dandelion wine tasted like summer, the sort of summer that Sara Sue had read about in those children's books which had left her sitting, sad and angry, in some secluded corner of the Eerie Library, back when she was Sara Bob and her life was her father's house, her brother's demands, and an almost unbearable need to escape from it all.

"Cheers," said the woman from the Ladies Society for the Beautification of Eerie, raising a glass in one white-gloved hand and clinking it against Sara Sue's own.

"Cheers," said Sara Sue, deciding then and there to sign up.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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[personal profile] froodle
Janet Donner stood at the edge of the lake, feeling the salt breeze play across the exposed skin of her bare arms and tug at the loose curls of her long red hair. In one hand, she held a bottle that had once contained a tiny replica frigate, a frigate that was even now setting sail from the dock outside the Eerie Baitshop and Sushi Bar.

In her other hand, she grasped a clump of wet sand, which she poked into the narrow mouth of the now-empty bottle. It might not work, but she needed what help she could get.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
Janet was screening audiobooks for the three puffer fish who now lived a life of coddled luxury in a softly-lit and securely locked room at the back of the Baitshop.

"I don't want them to hear anything too shocking," she said, setting an eighteen-cassette unabridged reading of Watership Down into the "no" pile.

"Do puffer fish have a concept of fiction?" said Melanie. "Come to think of it, do they even understand human languages?"

Janet thought about this.

"The Mackerel Soldiers know rudimentary English," she said. "So do the mermaids. Puffer fish are at least as smart as them, so..."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
Melanie let herself in through what, Janet had reliably informed her, was called the Eel Hole.

Apparently in the olden days, long before fishing was invented, a man on a horse-drawn aquarium would call once a week to deliver thousands of live and wriggling eels directly to the Baitshop's basement levels, tipping his squirming cargo into a little hatch 'round the side of the building. From there they would slither onto the waiting blades of the Baitshop's staff, to become chum or sushi depending on the cuts made and the quality of the meat.

Janet had probably been kidding, though.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
There was no reason it should have sunk so completely, Marshall thought. A little pleasure boat, sixteen passengers and two crew members, would be easy prey for the quick and hungry things that lurked under the green and pleasant water of Lake Eerie in the summer.

But still, he would have expected to find... something. Wreckage, perhaps, or the solitary limb covered in bite marks that the coroner either could not or would not identify the origin of. Even a survivor or two; it did happen occasionally.

He stared out over the open water, trying not to think about it.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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[personal profile] froodle
The lake was hungry. Not just the things in the lake, the mermaids and sea hags and the squishy squid-like things that signed her paycheques, but the lake itself. Janet could feel it, gnawing at the pit of her stomach and sending a cold ache through her bones, turning her muscles to rusted tangles of barbed wire that caught on the underside of her skin with every moment she spent above the waves.

"I'm not ready," she whispered into the white and hissing surf, and, "I need more time." And, perhaps most damningly, "the tourist season will be here soon."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The doors of the Eerie Baitshop and Sushi Bar were locked, and the ghosts of two enormous catfish traced a slow infinity circle in front of them, a wake of faintly glowing ectoplasmic bubbles following them in the cool night air. Inside, the open-fronted refrigerator with it's display of over-priced soft drinks was the only source of illumination.

Melanie pulled into the parking lot, taking both hands off the wheel in order to wave at the guardian spirits. They in turn regarded her with downturned mouths and moustaches that drooped with disapproval.

Catfish. Always so judgey, especially after they died.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
"Fine, ghosts," Marshall said, apparently to empty air. "I'm going. But I'll be back, and I'll be bringing my bed."

Tod, who had replaced Simon on the evening's stakeout due to a scheduling clash with some turn of events that involved Harley, one of the higher-ranked Courts of Hell, and a truly staggering amount of seaweed forced into and then out of a very small blender, blinked.

"What?" asked Marshall.

"Nothing," said Tod. "Just, you could have phrased that literally any other way and it would have sounded less weird."

"They're ghosts," Marshall explained. "They're more comfortable with the weird."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Holmes Brothers

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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[personal profile] froodle
"What?!" Melanie began to shout, but found Janet's hand clapped firmly over her mouth before she could get beyond the initial inhale.

"I know," Janet whispered. "I was shocked too."

Melanie examined the three puffer fish bobbing amidst the softly-lit waters of the huge tank.

"I never knew inflating themselves gave them organ damage," she whispered. "That's horrible!"

"That's why I built this place," said Janet. "It's going to be a haven of only calm and lovely things, and it's going to be full of puffer fish living out their days in peace."

Melanie grimaced.

"Sounds a bit boring, though."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
"Oh good," said Janet, with the sort of sarcasm that would have struck the nigiri dead in their tanks if she'd turned it towards them. "The sun's out, so obviously it's time for every idiot in Eerie to stand around their idling cars with the radio blaring. Apparently this year's Sound of the Summer is just dipshits and exhaust pipes."

"You could just drown them out," suggested Melanie, motioning to the Baitshop's ancient and dusty tape deck.

"I could just drown them, period," said Janet. "But management have said I need to wait and see if they buy anything first."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
Deep below the surface, the Sea Hag raged. Bent and swollen fingers curved like the ribs of sunken ships, tearing at the lake bed. The gouges became furrows, deepened still to become trenches, changing the topography of the World Beneath the Waves and, as a consequence, changing the currents around it.

The waters became treacherous, routes that were easily navigated now twisted out of true or vanished entirely, and vicious storms sprang up out of nowhere, capsizing ghost ships and sending their crews to a second, permanent death.

And the mermaids sighed, and fetched their shovels, and went to work.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
"It's not surprising, really," said Melanie. "Apparently all the land around the Loyal Order of Corn lodge is fake."

"...fake?" said Simon, eyes wide.

Melanie shook her head.

"Sorry, not fake... like when it's world that isn't really world? It used to be part of the lake and the town just kept dumping soil in until some of it stuck."

"Oh," said Tod. "Reclaimed land."

Melanie snapped her fingers.

"That's the one," she said. "Reclaimed. Although I imagine the things in the lake take a different view of it." She glanced at Janet, eyebrows raised.

"They certainly do," said Janet.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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[personal profile] froodle
The ghost of the drowned man stood amidst a growing puddle of phantom seawater. His eyes were clouded, jelly-grey and unseeing, and his blanched white skin bubbled and bulged. Marshall raised the clunky Instamatic camera to his face, his hands shaking so badly that his eyes could barely find the viewfinder, and managed to hit the shutter button on his third try.

The flash was blinding on the dark shore, and the drowned man turned. His jaw hung slack and black water poured out of his gaping mouth. He screamed like waves thundering on bare rock, and finally, Marshall ran.


Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The sun was high and hot, and around the lake the air smelled of salt and had a thick, cloying texture that coated the inside of her mouth with every breath, leaving her throat dry and her tongue tingling.

Janet Donner stood at the end of the boardwalk, wooden planks warm against her bare feet, feeling every minute shift of the water around her as it worked with slow and endless patience to erode the rotten pilings that sank deeper into the muddy lake bed with each day that passed.

It would get her eventually, she knew. But not yet.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
On the sunniest shore of Lake Eerie, twelve small whitewashed cottages stood in neat rows of four, each row running parallel to it's neighbour and the first running parallel to the lake.

In the summer, smoke would rise from a dozen barbeques as tourists and locals alike made use of rented kitchenettes and fold-out sofas and reasonably-priced canoe rentals. But now, in the dead of winter, the pale blue rooms looked cold and empty, and the large picture windows with their drapes all taken up and put away stared at the grey water like unfocussed eyes.

Janet loved them then.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The raw and weeping thing at the bar jumped a little at her outburst, as did Janet, though she controlled hers in time to stop the neatly-plated nigiri from sliding off her serving tray.

"There you go, sir," she said to the skinless corpse, setting the dish down in front of it. "Wasabi, soy sauce and ginger are on your left. Let me know if you need anything else."

She smiled, bright and breezy, then turned to Melanie.

"Mel," she said carefully. "Are you doing okay?"

Melanie took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. This was not the time to go all Marshall Teller on her best friend just because...

Just because...

Because there was a revenant sitting at her place of work, carefully separating a set of disposable chopsticks with bloody fingers that left red-brown smears over the cheap alder wood.

Janet's expression became one of concern.

"Do you need to sit down? We're kind of crowded today because of the King Tide, but there's room at the counter."

Melanie swallowed hard, shook her head, and forced her expression back to something that, if not cheerfully unconcerned, was least pleasantly neutral.

"No," she said. "I'm good. Just stopped by to say hi and pick up some takeout is all."

"It'll be a bit of a wait," said Janet. "Fred's compulsively impersonating a high-strung perfectionist right now, so there's a lot of drama going on in the kitchen. I'm actually hanging out with the customers for some peace and quiet, if you can believe that."

Melanie Monroe looked from her friend, to the heavy steel door that lead to the kitchen, to the bloodied tatterdemalion peaceably eating sushi dipped in way too much soy sauce, and raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"Trust me," said Janet. "It's that dire."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
Melanie Monroe had not grown up in Eerie, and she tried not to think about the possibility that her haunted heart meant that she might never be able to leave, or, at the very least, might not be able to take Devon with her when she did so.

That was why, when she pushed open the cheery red-painted double doors that lead into the Eerie Baitshop and Sushi Bar and saw the skinless corpse sat at the counter, she didn't say "Holy Corn!" or "by my ever-lasting husk!" or any one of a dozen colourful local sayings.

"Jesus fucking Christ!"

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The ground beneath the Eerie Municipal Pool had collapsed, sucking two dozen swimmers and thousands of gallons of water down into the echoing chasm below.

Marshall Teller peered out over the raggedy edge of the hole, feeling broken blue-white tile crunch beneath his feet and wishing there was a safety rail to hang onto.

"What's your theory?" asked Dash. "Giant moles? Shoddy workmanship? Human sacrifice to something with an aquatic theme? Do we need to call your ex down at the Sushi Bar?"

Marshall shook his head.

"Smell that chlorine?" he asked. "No way Janet's bosses eat anything that tainted."

Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
"Miss Donner," the Mayor said. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you before the next King Tide. Do I have a delivery on the way or are your calling on behalf of your... senior management team?"

"Have you refused to let any members of your tax base leave town lately?" asked Janet. "Been rude or condescending to a new prophet or recently-arisen messiah?"

Chisel hummed, as though mulling it over.

"Not that I recall," he said. "Though I suppose if they were very new, I might not have known it at the time. Why?"

"The lake has turned to blood."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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[personal profile] froodle
There was a pause on the other end of the line, during which the static crackle of Raudive voices increased in volume and urgency.

"I take it you mean something more dramatic than the usual unfortunate predation of mermaids upon the Summer People?" Chisel asked.

"Yes," said Janet. "This isn't a case of blood in the water, it's blood literally replacing all the water. There's a herd of vampires over by the boat shack already, and come nightfall they'll be like antelope at an oasis."

Chisel sighed.

"Tell your Gods that I'll have a team down there shortly," he said.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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[personal profile] froodle
Janet Donner glanced out of the Eerie Baitshop and Sushi Bar's floor-to-ceiling windows and grimaced.

She set down the partially refilled bottle of soy sauce and ducked behind the curving hardwood bar, carved to look like the prow of a great ship, that ran the full length of the building. Rummaging in the cabinets beneath the cash register until she located a Rolodex the approximate size and age of the average church bible, Janet flipped through it with shaking fingers, searching for the most ornate, most luxurious, most over-the-top business card in the bunch.

Chisel answered on the first ring.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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[personal profile] froodle
"Thanks for helping me out," said Janet, as she and Tod dragged the unwieldy sheet of corrugated metal across the slippery and still-bleeding earth around Lake Eerie.

"It's cool," Tod told her, navigating a small copse of trees who glared at him from a thousand yellow flower eyes. "I was planning a trip out here anyway - I'm planning to make blood pudding with some of the lake water."

"Bert and Ernie will love that," Janet said, her enthusiasm for the idea almost making her miss a shallow pool of leeches lying in wait in the shade of a bush whole leaves were lined with tiny human teeth. She dodged it at the last minute and continued, "They're getting really into this local sustainability thing."

"Bert told me they're going to reach out to the 666H Club again," said Tod. "See if they can lay to rest some of those old rivalries, get some community gardening off the ground. Or, into the ground, I suppose."

"That'd be cool," said Janet. "Let me know if you need a hand." She nodded over his shoulder. "Little to the left, just by the boat shack."

Tod changed the direction of his carful backwards shuffling, backing up until the heel of one heavy black boot bumped against the salt-warped boards of the boat repair shed.

"Made it," he said, letting his corner of the heavy metal sheet drop with a sigh of relief.

Janet set her end down too, then moved towards the red and viscous tide that lapped at the shore.

She rapped lightly on the closed door of the boat shed. There was no answer, though Tod thought he heard something move.

"Hi," she said. "I'm from the Baitshop. We thought, as long as the water is blood anyway, you might like some shade between here and the lake."

A susurration of voices, mingled with the distinctive sound of dozens of high-collared black silk robes rustling in agitation, burst from inside the rickety structure.

Finally, after what sounded like a short but intense debate, a single voice piped up.

"Yes please," it said. "That would be very nice."

Another voice, older and somewhat crackly, mumbled something, and the first voice added:

"You're not going to leave any iron nails lying about the place, are you?"

"No," said Janet. "No iron, no garlic, no scattered seeds or grains of rice. No tricks."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The fog rolled in, bringing with it the wet salt scent of the phantom ocean, the loud hooting of the foghorn and, of course, the ever-present call of the seagulls.

Behind the polished serving counter of the Eerie Baitshop and Sushi Bar, Janet Donner pulled on a stainless steel hairnet and hurried outside to the patio, warning diners who had a moment ago been enjoying delicious teriyaki long pig rice wraps in the warm summer evening that they should consider taking the rest of their meal inside.

Some refused, of course. Some always did, at least until the screaming started.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
"You know," said Melanie, eyeing the pile of bloodstained jewellery on the counter with something that was as close to fear as she came these days, "Just because I technically have a dead man's heart doesn't mean I want everything I own to come from corpses."

Janet shrugged, continuing to pick waterlogged flesh from between the links of a fine gold chain.

"Suit yourself," she said. "I thought those earring would look good on you, is all."

"You found them in a human skull," said Melanie. "Half it's face was still on. You had to rinse brains off them first!"

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The breakwater was littered with bodies and already the seagulls that had all but destroyed Eerie's native population of pterodactyl were out in force. Eyes were plucked out and swallowed, abdomens pierced and torn and entrails tugged free, and even the hardest wearing denim was shredded so the scavenging hoard could access the meatier parts of the human anatomy.

Janet Donner tucked her hair up under a wide-brimmed hat, exchanged her clean white apron for one of hardwearing leather, and grabbed a bucket. Much of the ocean's spoils were hers by right, and she would claim them for the Baitshop.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
"We're just clowning around," giggled the evil clown, around a mouthful of yellow and splintered teeth that curved the serrated knives from grey-green gums. "Just trying to have a little fun."

"Have a little fun in your own territory," said Janet, who was holding a very large cleaver but didn't want to risk chipping it on evil clown bones if she could help it. "This place exists to feed something other than you."

The clown simpered in mock sadness, and Janet thought it might be worth the loss of her favourite bladed instrument just to cut it's horrible face off.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
Soft light, filtered and dim and comforting, filled the room. Soothing piano music tinkled faintly on the air, combining with the bubble and hiss of air filters and water pumps.

Janet Donner paused at the doorway, slipping her shoes off and motioning for Melanie to do the same.

"Don't make too much noise," she warned, her voice soft. "I don't want to scare them."

Melanie made a zipping motion across her lips, then toed off her scuffed black penny loafers before following her friend to a huge fishtank in the centre of the room, where three puffer fish bobbed gently.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The doors of Grandma's Kitchen were open, and the sugar-sweet smell of patisserie cream wafted down Front Street, drawing pedestrians on their way to work towards the little shop, windows glowing yellow-gold in the early morning gloom of a winter's day.

The four identical old ladies who worked the counter were in full flight, packing pretty pink boxes full of crackling baker's parchment before laying them in sticky treats. The beaded curtain that led to the actual kitchen swayed slightly in the heat from the ovens hidden behind it, and customers queued patiently beside great glass cabinets that gleamed hungrily.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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[personal profile] froodle
"Forecast said it's supposed to be stormy today," said Melanie, lounging at the customer side of the long polished counter that ran the length of the Eerie Baitshop and Sushi Bar.

Janet Donner leaned around her friend to glance out through the floor to ceiling windows that overlooked Lake Eerie. The sky was blue, with only a few picturesquely puffy white clouds scudding gently along at high altitudes. The water, however, was grey-green and threatening, and it's surface bulged rather than rippling.

"I'm going to take in the boats," she decided.

"And the passengers?"

"They'll have to swim for it."


Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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[personal profile] froodle
"Okay," said Devon, a spark of genuine enthusiasm colouring his voice, or at least the memory of his voice that had played in Melanie's head since the day she'd stolen his heart. "Now this is better."

"I remember these photos," she said. "I had some of these, before my parents decided it was probably unhealthy and put them away."

She walked among the various snapshots of Devon as he had been in life, candid Polaroids of him in motion next to moody black and white studio shots.

"This was my favourite," she said, stopping beside one mounted on an easel.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The mermaid wore tall platform shoes, though lacking any legs, she wore them around her neck, the laces knotted to form a makeshift chain. The thick soles were made from some sort of transparent plastic, and inside the soles a dozen tiny human figures floated, suspended in clear jelly. They jiggled and drifted with every small movement of the mermaid's body, and it was because of this that it took Janet so long to realise that the tiny humans were alive.

Although, she thought, watching them thrash slowly about in their choking viscous prison, probably not for very much longer.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
"It's a bit morbid, isn't it?" said Devon, standing in and around and a little to the left of Melanie as he always did.

As she always did, she turned to face him, although he was never there, and probably never had been there, and never would be there again.

"You think so?" she said. "I kind of like it."

Devon tipped his face up, saw the banner through her eyes.

"'Welcome to the Eerie Museum of Horology's Exploration of Lost Time'," he read aloud. "'An exploration into those Eerie citizens who died too young'."

He grimaced.

"Sounds kinda gloomy."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The Angler Fish was mottled white and pink, and it's smooth flesh had a greasy rubberized sheen to it. Melanie Monroe walked slowly around the fluted pedestal on which it sat, moving first clockwise, then anticlockwise. She sniffed, then wrinkled her noise.

"Jan?" she asked. "What did you say this thing was made from?"

Janet Donner glanced up from where she was folding napkins into an diorama showing the sunken city of R'lyeh rising from the deep.

"Spam," she said. "It was what Radford had on hand at short notice."

Melanie considered this.

"Hamgler fish," she said. "I like it."
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[personal profile] froodle
"How do you know so much about ovens anyway?" Melanie grumbled. "You work at a sushi bar. Sushi doesn't even need cooking."

"No," said Janet. "But it does need a degree of patience, which is something I never thought applied to preheating an oven until I met you."

"Patience," said Melanie, in a tone of voice that made the unspoken "pffffft" extremely clear. "Ovens should just know how to be. I don't see you preheating a puffer fish before you cut him up."

"I'd never cut up a puffer fish," said Janet. "Ever seen one? Way too cute to eat."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
After a hundred and five and a half years, the Milkman had experienced many things, witnessed even more, and thought that he'd have an appropriate response to most.

This, however, was a new one.

"What?" he asked, half-expecting that after over a century of running, time - and senility - had finally caught up with him.

"I said," Melanie repeated, with what was for her a remarkable display of patience, "Can you bend time so that I never have to preheat an oven ever again?"

It was such a Melanie Monroe sort of question that all the Milkman could do was laugh.

Ongoing Verse: Milkman

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Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
"I don't preheat," Melanie said. "I never preheat. Preheating is for cowards and members of the slow-squad only."

"First of all, that's not a real squad," said Janet, taking the tray of chicken cutlets out of the still-cold oven and setting a clean sheet of cheesecloth over them. "Secondly, messing with the cooking times on raw chicken is a good way to become part of the 'died from diarrhoea' squad, and there's no way that leaves a good looking corpse."

Melanie grimaced, but allowed the temperature to be set and timer activated.

"Stupid murder chicken," she muttered. "Just cook already."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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[personal profile] froodle
The man-eating water horses that made their homes in the clear streams and babbling brooks of Deadwood Park were out in full force today, sunning themselves on wet river banks where the dark mud and verdant green plant-life made a fetching backdrop for candy-coloured coats and showed off glittering manes to their best advantage.

Janet Donner watched as one pastel-pink pony kicked a blood-stained picnic basket behind a nearby rock before resuming it's artful posing beside a child-sized waterfall, and shook her head.

"Every summer," she said. "You'd think people would learn."

"I'm going to ride one," said Melanie, grinning.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The tiny rowboats which made their home along the cracked and crumbling boardwalk running out back of the Eerie Baitshop and Sushi Bar were encrusted with barnacles that Janet was almost sure had not been there when she locked up the previous evening.

She returned to the kitchen, checked the clipboard that hung on the door to the stockroom, and flipped through it until she found the checklist that showed when the boats had last been descaled.

She glanced at it, then out of the round porthole-like window of the back door.

The barnacles opened their eyes and stared back.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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One of the sugar mice had died in the night. Tod had come downstairs that morning, pulling away the dark cloth that shielded the cage from the great pancake-griddle eyes that the four identical old ladies who ran Grandma's Kitchen used for scrying, and seen the little pile of powered sugar huddled in the far corner.

Already the green glow of whatever candy magic had given it life was fading, and even as Tod watched he could see it's shape slipping away, the tiny corpse dissipating into a mound of fine, crystalline white that shivered and scattered, and finally dissolved.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The weather was turning, and the four identical old ladies who worked the counter at Grandma's Counter were knitting. They had been knitting for days, and already a thick skein of purple-red fabric had gathered about their feet and tangled amongst the curved runners of their four identical rocking chairs.

"Hypothesis one," said Marshall. "They hibernate for winter and those things are their cocoons."

Simon dutifully wrote it down.

"Hypothesis two," he said, still scribbling, "They're Eerie's version of the Fates, knitting the New Year."

"Hypothesis three," said Tod, "They're Grandmas, and that's just what Grandma's do near Christmas time."

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Christmas

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The lighthouse hung down from the ceiling, a vast man-made stalactite gleaming pale against the dark rock of the far-distant cavern roof. Janet Donner pushed wet hair out of her eyes, spat out a mouthful of briny water and several mouthfuls of curses, and froze.

Dark against the yellow glow of the lamp, the silhouette of something not quite human was moving along the outer railing, it's gait smooth and assured despite hanging upside down deep in the muck below Lake Eerie.

Her fingers scrabbled in the thick and cloying mud as she struggled to her feet, swallowing her screams.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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She was only ten minutes into her shift when the gravity stopped working.

The soft clatter of side plates rising from the neat rows they'd been left in the night before mingled with the deeper rumbling of the serving platters shifting in the cupboard beneath the hand-washing station, and soon the whole kitchen was alive with the clinking and tinkling of a thousand sharp or breakable things straining skywards.

Moving like her sturdy rubber-soled server's shoes had magically transformed into seven-league boots, Janet lunged for the maki tanks, snapping heavy-duty locks into place just as the banging started.

Fucking gravity.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Janet loosened the pristine white laces holding her new-to-her pink and purple sneakers in place, and gently pried them off, wincing as she did so.

Beneath cute and colourful socks bearing the likeness of a slightly sinister cartoon dog her feet were callused and blistered, the result of long hours waiting tables and wrangling semi-aquatic rice-monsters onto plates decorated with artfully arranged slivers of ginger and corralled with whisper-thin walls of wasabi.

At the end of the dock, the mermaids bobbed in the surf, needle-sharp teeth flashing as the setting sun reflected in the water.

"We can help," they whispered.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Janet stared down into the forty-gallon bucket filled with vigorously-churning, slightly vinegar-scented water in silence. Something tentacular and many-eyed blinked back at her, visible for a single moment amidst the sloshing waves before it was re-submerged under the salty foam.

"Stock options," burbled the thing wearing a clip-on tie despite a noticeable lack of either a collared shirt, or a neck. It had a palm-sized scrap of driftwood pinned directly onto it's clammy skin, a rough approximation of the word "manager" scrawled upon it in black and stinking ink.

Janet shook her head.

"Pay rise," she countered. "And sick leave."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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The dragon roll reared up, avocado scales gleaming wet and slick and already turning an unappetizing grey-brown along it's smooth-cut edges. It's white and pebbled jaws swung open and it huffed out a great cloud of black sesame seeds, which scattered across the floor.

Janet scowled.

"I don't suppose you plan on cleaning that up," she said.

The great sushi-beast indicated without words that no, it did not plan on cleaning that up.

Janet reached beneath the counter, past clean dishtowels and spare till rolls, finding the set of emergency chopsticks that always nestled there.

"Fine," she said, and leapt.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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"How are the hazelnuts?" asked Tod.

"They're good," Marshall said. He set the spoon down, the chocolate-hazelnut roulade on his plate still mostly uneaten.

Tod looked pleased.

"Harvested them myself - did you know they grow wild in the Eerie Woods?"

"I didn't," said Marshall, whose experiences within the borders of the Eerie Woods did not generally lend themselves to foraging.

"Every now and then, you find a sweet one," said Tod. "It's because that hazelnut lived a good and kind life, and it affected it's taste."

Marshall blinked.

"Are you messing with me?" he asked. "Because I can't always tell."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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"If I ask you a question," Janet asked the bulging, amorphous thing that swam beneath the surface of the blue glass buoy, "Would you give me a straight answer?"

The thing in the buoy had no eyes; nevertheless, something about the rippling, random indents in the shifting mass managed to convey the distinct impression that it had given her 'a look'.

Janet sighed. This was likely to take a while.

"Okay," she said, reaching one hand beneath the counter and retrieving a well-stocked cleaning caddy. She pulled out a soft polishing cloth and waggled it.

"Make it worth your while?"

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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