This is a story about Halloween.
It’s a story about the dark realities that often lurk beyond our innocent traditions. It’s a story about legends, and myths, and the consequences that come from tempting these things. Most of all though, it’s the story of the worst night of my life– October 31st, 2022.
It goes like this.
The trees swayed, creaking in the cold breath of autumn. The three of us marched through scattered leaves, hiking deeper into the inky darkness of Charmouth Wood.
“Hard to believe it’s Halloween,” Eli muttered, pulling his jacket tighter about him. “It’s freezing out.”
Jacob laughed, his voice low and booming. “This? This is nothing. Come visit me in Alaska sometime and I’ll take you ice fishing. Now that’s real cold.”
Years had passed, but Eli and Jacob were the same as ever– always bickering, always arguing. I walked ahead of them, leading them into the heart of the forest. A small cooler swung in my grip. It felt heavy. Far heavier than it should have.
“Takes you back, doesn’t it?” Eli said, gesturing to the crowds of children. They were dressed up for Halloween as skeletons, ghosts, and everything in between. They were ferried by their smiling parents, who held jack o’lanterns stuffed with flickering candles. A Charmouth tradition.
“Careful!” a young boy called to us. “The Maestro’s out tonight!”
“Thanks, buddy,” Jacob replied with a thumbs up. Then he lowered his voice so only Eli and I could hear, “We’re counting on it.”
A short time later we crested a hill, coming upon a creek. Water trickled lazily over scattershot stones. A makeshift log bridge led across, and children passed the bridge single file. As they did, they paid us more warnings. New words of caution. They claimed that they’d heard the Maestro’s song out there in the woods, and if we weren’t careful, we’d wander far enough to hear it too.
“Nice to see Charmouth’s local boogeyman is still alive and well,” Eli said.
“Charmouth’s a small town,” I told him. “Tradition means a lot in a place like this. It’s not too surprising.”
Past the bridge, the forest became quieter. Lonelier. The sound of chatting families, of laughter faded and was replaced by the slow crunch of leaves underfoot. It was nearly midnight. It’d become too late, too cold for hiking.
The three of us continued our journey in silence, a consequence of so many years apart. We hadn’t spoken since high-school. These days, we had little and less in common, with our only shared interest being what we’d come here for tonight, and that was a subject none of us wanted to bring up.
“Hear that?” Jacob said, pausing.
I stopped after him, listening.
It was music. Harsh and grating, and it was coming from up ahead. I spotted a flicker of light, and noticed a speaker sitting atop a distant hillside. Shadows danced around it. They stuttered, vanishing and reappearing like ghosts in front of a flashing strobe. The smell of liquor hung heavy in the air.
“Christ, you think they’re old enough to be drinking?” Eli muttered as we passed.
“Oh, lighten up, man,” Jacob said with a smile. “It’s called being a teeanger. Having fun. You know, that thing we used to do when we were young.” He offered me a wink.
Eli frowned. “Sure, how could I forget? Chasing the three of you around, breaking into houses, robbing antiques– it’s a wonder we never got caught and thrown into juvie.”
I forced a smile, momentarily forgetting the weight of the cooler. “To be fair, those houses were abandoned. It’s not like we were doing home invasions.”
“They were also haunted,” Jacob said brightly. “Allegedly, I guess. You know, according to Ryan.”
Silence smothered us. Ryan’s name was like a spell, strangling our conversation before it ever had a chance to breathe. I grimaced. Why bring him up? We were just starting to reconnect.
We walked the next mile without speaking a word. My arm felt numb. My fingers were cold and brittle, wrapped around the handle of the cooler in a vice grip. I tried not to think about the contents. It was filled with so much, so much more than the tiny container would ever lead you to believe. It held memories. Regrets. It held should-haves-but-did-nots and other things much darker still.
“How much further?” Eli asked.
I glanced down at my phone, happy for the distraction. This deep in Charmouth Wood, there wasn’t any hope for a signal, but I’d downloaded some maps beforehand. Nothing fancy. Topography, mostly. “Not much further,” I said, clearing my throat. “Culton Vale’s about twenty minutes if we keep this pace. Maybe sooner.”
“Culton Vale,” Eli said, tasting the words. “Been awhile since I’ve heard the name of that place. We must have been kids the last time we were out this far.”
“Fifteen,” Jacob muttered. “That was the last time we tried the ritual. I only remember because Ryan was chuffed when it didn’t work out.”
Ryan.
There it was, that name again. My fist tightened around the handle of the cooler. “Yeah, well last time we didn’t do it properly,” I said, forcing down memories. “We were missing ingredients. Who knows? Might be that things will turn out different tonight.”
A cold breeze swept by, whistling as it passed through creeping branches above. “God,” Eli said with a shiver. “I really hope they don’t.”
More silence. More pockets of dead air, of endless quiet interrupted only by the occasional sigh and snap of a twig. As kids, Ryan had been the one to bring us together. We four had become fast friends after joining his after-school ‘Paranormal’ club where we investigated all things spooky. We’d interview people who claimed to be vampires. We’d take anecdotes from alleged Bigfoot victims. We’d do our best to summon Blood Mary, and the Candy Man, and everything else that wanted us dead.
It was fun, I thought. Eli, Jacob and myself thought the whole thing was a laugh, but Ryan? Well, he believed it. The whole shebang. Every last word, every last myth.
That’s why he stayed in Charmouth while the three of us left. He maintained that there were secrets in that town, that there was some buried darkness that he couldn’t leave without unearthing. He asked if I’d come back if he ever found a solid lead on it. If I’d help him study it. Defeat it.
I told him yes.
I told him a lie.
“Alright,” Jacob said, pulling me out of my reverie. He took a deep, haggard breath and clapped his hands. “I can’t keep quiet about this anymore– none of it. Am I insane for thinking this is… well… Insane? Help me out, guys.”
Eli heaved a sigh. “Nope. It’s every bit as insane as you think it is.”
“Oh good,” Jacob said, sounding not at all relieved.
“It’s not up to us,” I told them flatly. Something was bubbling inside of me– Ryan’s memory maybe, or perhaps my guilt over my unkept promise. “We’ve already come this far, we might as well see it through. It’s what Ryan wanted. As his friends, it’s the least we can do.”
Jacob and Eli fell silent. I knew they weren’t comfortable with this, and truth be told neither was I, but it wouldn’t take long. We’d be home soon enough. “Did either of you go over the legend before flying out?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Of the Maestro?” Eli said. “No, sorry, Tommy. I was drowning in client paperwork the last few weeks.”
“Same here,” Jacob added, kicking a rock into the brush. “Not paperwork but, you know, real work.”
Eli made to punch him, and Jacob burst out laughing. I laughed too, in spite of myself. It was a nice icebreaker after a moment so rife with tension. “Don’t sweat it,” I said breezily. “Want me to refresh you guys? I went over Ryan’s notes before I left.”
“Sound great,” Eli said through gritted teeth, still paying Jacob a death-stare.
“Mind starting from the top?” Jacob said, still chuckling. “I’ve got the memory of a fucking goldfish, man.”
“For sure.” I let out a breath– it felt good to be doing something that wasn’t discussing Ryan, felt to be doing something to distract from that awful thing rolling back and forth in my cooler. “Alright,” I said. “Story goes like this. The Maestro lived in Charmouth over a century ago, sometime back in the late 1800s. He was a musician. A violinist. He couldn’t find a paying position in a symphony though, so he made his living busking on the town streets. Trouble was, everybody hated his music.”
Jacob snickered.
“One night,” I continued, “a gang of kids tried robbing him. The Maestro, I mean. They swarmed him while he was sleeping, and when he tried putting up a fight they beat him with his own violin. Shattered it across his fingers. Broke them real bad. Then, as he tried to crawl away, one of them used the violin’s bow to slit the Maestro’s throat.”
“Jesus…” Eli shuddered. “Forgot how dark this story was.”
“This is nothing,” I said. “Just wait. Anyway, the kid’s didn’t manage to kill him. Their cut was too shallow, and so the Maestro was able to drag himself to a nearby doctor, and once he’d been treated tried reporting their attempted-murder to the sheriff.”
“But the sheriff didn’t give a rat’s ass, did he?” asked Jacob.
“Bingo. The sheriff, the mayor– practically everybody in Charmouth cheered that the kids’ destroyed the Maestro’s violin and busted his hands. It meant peace and quiet. They wouldn’t have to put up with his awful music any more. But without his music, the Maestro had nothing. He began begging on the same street corner he used to play on, and as the months wore on he became hungrier and more desperate, until he resolved to take his own life. That’s when he met The Stranger.”
“Ah, yes, I remember that creepy fuck,” Jacob said. “Wasn’t he supposed to be the devil?”
I shrugged. “Some say so. Others say he was a djinn, or a traveling warlock. Whatever he was, he told the Maestro he could heal his hands, and give him a new violin– one that would play music more moving than even Mozart. All the Maestro needed to do was open his heart on All Hallows Eve, to indulge his emotions, act on his desires, and this gift would be his.
“Desperate to play again, the Maestro accepted The Stranger’s offer. Days later, on All Hallows Eve, he did just as he was told and listened to the music of his soul. He fell into himself. His thoughts. His emotions. He lay on the street, writhing in a weeping cesspool of shame and regret and sorrow and anger and he shouted into the night the names of everybody who had mocked him. Hurt him.
“Then, like a man reborn, his eyes snapped open. He rose, stumbling down the cobblestone streets until he found a darkened alley, one he knew was often used as a gathering place for the local kids. He found them there, the boys who had broken his violin. Cut his throat. He confronted them, demanded an apology, and they laughed in his face. They pushed him down. Held his arms. One of the boys sought to finish the job, and took a knife to the Maestro’s throat, but this time blood didn’t spill.
Eli shook his head. “Little bastards. Honestly, ganging up on him like that…”
“Well,” I replied, ducking a low-hanging branch, “you’ll be happy to know it didn’t end well for the kids. They didn’t realize it, but the Maestro had changed. He grabbed the knife from the boy, stuffed it into his gut, then tore it across his throat. The boy dropped. Then he scrambled to his feet, chasing down the others. One by one, the alley ran red with their blood. When it was over, the Maestro stood alone in the moonlight, and as The Stranger promised, he heard something thrumming inside of him. The music of his soul. His own dark symphony. He let it guide him, consume him, and that’s when–”
“Pale,” Eli said, snapping his fingers. “That part I do remember! He used their bones to make a new violin, right?”
I nodded, a shiver running through me. “That’s right. He marched through town that Halloween playing Pale for all to hear. It drove Charmouth to madness. Wives smothered their husbands. Dogs devoured their owners. The Maestro came all the way to this forest, and finally understood that the townsfolk didn’t deserve his talents– not one of them. Those who did would come looking for him, though, and they would pay a steep price for the privilege of hearing him play.”
“Can’t imagine why anybody would do something as stupid as that,” Jacob yawned. “Well told, though, Tommy. You were always killer at telling those old legends.”
“Agreed,” Eli said.
I smiled meekly.
“But there’s more, isn’t there?” Eli said. “Ryan mentioned it ages ago, the first time we came out to try the ritual. If you managed to find the Maestro, managed to listen to his music without losing your mind, then he’d grant you a wish or something.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “That’s right.”
“A wish?” Jacob said. “And all you’ve gotta do is listen to some shitty music? Oh man. You were made for this, Eli.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jacob shrugged innocently. “Look, all I’m saying is there’s no way the Maestro’s worse than Nickelback.”
“Go to hell,” Eli laughed.
And we all joined in. This was the dynamic I remembered, the one I loved so dearly. The goofy bickering, the corny jokes, the intimate understanding of how to get under one another’s skin without ever pressing too far. For the first time, it felt like old times. It felt like we were kids again, storming through the forest hunting for ghosts.
“And the ritual?” Eli said, wiping a joyful tear from his eye. “We’ve gotta make sure we don’t fuck it up this time. What are the steps?”
I cleared my throat in mock authority. “Well, step one is that it’s gotta be the anniversary of the Maestro’s debut performance. AKA Halloween.”
“Success,” Jacob said, checking it off one of his fingers.
“Next, we’ve gotta find him. There should be markings carved into trees, little sigils he uses to guide audiences toward his show. Trouble is, you need a very specific kind of lantern to find them. And that’s where we messed up as kids. It can’t just be a regular jack o’lantern, it’s gotta be a…” My words caught in my throat.
Eli gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “No pumpkins. It’s gotta be made from a human head.”
I nodded, the gravity of his words stealing my breath.
“Doesn’t get any more depraved than that, does it?” Jacob said, kicking another rock down a shadowy hillside. “Fuckin’ Maestro.”
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t.”
It was almost total darkness, but I could still feel their eyes on me. Eli. Jacob. I knew they were staring, gazing at the cooler swinging in my grip, that plastic box of nightmares that brought us here. I felt like I should say something, like I should offer some words of reassurance or–
“Ryan asked for this,” Eli reminded us. “It was written into his will. So we’re better off not dwelling on it and just getting it over with. Agreed?”
Jacob huffed, folding his arms. “Still, it’s hard to believe he asked us to do something so… fucked, you know? I mean, Christ. Who does something like this?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, looking down at my phone. “We’re here. Culton Vale’s just across that creek, so let’s push through this and then grab a beer. Now, who has the lighter?”
“Me,” Jacob said, fishing into his jacket pocket. He produced a rusty steel square with letters scratched into the surface. They were initials. Our initials, from a long time ago.
“And the candles?” I said, looking to Eli.
He unslung his backpack from his shoulders, then pulled out a bag of tealights. “Will these work? Tough to find candles small enough to fit in… well… you know what I mean.”
I swallowed. “They’ll do.”
We each took turns with the lighter. We passed it around, touching the flame to our candle wicks until they snapped and popped with orange glow. Then, Eli and Jacob turned back to me. Those eyes, again. That stare. They gazed at the cooler like it was a bomb, liable to explode at any moment, and I wish it had been because that’d be easier to deal with than the truth. My heart hammered. I lowered the cooler, fingers trembling as I unfastened its plastic clasps.
“You alright?” Eli asked softly.
“I’m fine,” I said quickly. I took a deep breath, and then I lifted the lid. An awful reek spilled out from inside, like rot that had been disguised by a chemical cocktail. Jacob swept his flashlight toward me. Toward the cooler.
Ryan stared up at us.
His decapitated head sat on a bed of ice, his hollow eyes gazing lifelessly at the swaying branches above. His mouth hung open, lips pale blue. My stomach churned as nausea flooded me, and I turned and hurled onto the dirt.
Jacob knelt beside me. His voice was quiet, solemn. “Well, that’s a relief. The coroner already removed his eyes and tongue, so that’ll save us the PTSD of having to cut them out ourselves.” I caught a glimpse of something in the candlelight, the glinting steel of his pocket-knife slipping back into his pocket. “I guess all that’s left to decide is who has to carry him?”
“We’ll each take a turn,” Eli said. “It’s only fair.”
I shook my head, forcing words from my throat. “No,” I croaked. “I’ll do it.” I’d promised Ryan to return and help him investigate the lingering darkness that infested Charmouth. I swore it to his face. Then, when he wrote to ask for my help, I told him I couldn’t.
I was busy. Life had brought more responsibilities than I could manage, and I couldn’t justify a vacation home to hunt ghosts. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“Tommy…” Eli said slowly. “You don’t have to do this alone, you know.”
“I know that. It’s what I want.” It was a poor example of penance, but it was the best I could manage. It’d have to do. I reached down, my fingers gripping the sides of Ryan’s head but the skin of the cheeks was like paper. It slipped through my fingers, tearing from rot.
“Use his hair,” Jacob suggested, voice hoarse. “Might be easier.”
I nodded, closing my hand around Ryan’s hair. I lifted him from the cooler. I lifted my best friend up from a bed of ice, his skull spinning limply, his flesh nearly translucent in the flashlight gleam. “Alright,” I sputtered, wrestling my emotions into submission. “N-Now we’ve gotta place our candles inside. Eli, you first.”
He stepped forward. Eli slipped his tealight into Ryan’s left eye-socket, then stepped back to give Jacob room to place his in Ryan’s right. That left the mouth for me. I put it gently onto his tongue, swallowing my disgust. “Now we’ve gotta kill the flashlights. Ryan was specific in his notes, and we’ve gotta navigate by lantern alone.”
Eli and Jacob murmured in quiet dissent, but turned off their flashlights all the same. We stood there for a moment, the three of us drowning in darkness, too shocked to speak or move. Ryan’s candlelight eyes cast Charmouth Forest in an ethereal, Halloween glow.
“Let’s go,” I said, pressing forward. The sooner we got this finished, the sooner I could get to work at repressing the memory.
We hiked slowly. Without the flashlights, every root and rock became a potential sprained ankle, so we used the trees and boulders to steady us as we went. None of us spoke. It didn’t feel right I suppose, not with the weight of the moment on us.
My eyes found my watch. Thirty minutes. That was the time limit we’d agreed upon before setting out tonight. We’d wander Culton Vale for thirty minutes, we’d indulge Ryan’s superstitions, follow the steps he outlined in his notes and will, and then we’d call it a night. We’d bury Ryan’s head, get well-and-truly drunk, and then do our best to forget we’d ever done something so horrible to somebody so wonderful.
But ten minutes in, Jacob halted. He waved to us, whispering under his breath, “Check this out. I think I see something carved into the tree.”
Eli and I drifted to him, squinting to see in the dim light.
“It’s just here,” Jacob said, tapping his fingers over a recess in the wood. “See it?”
I frowned, looking more closely. Yes. There was certainly something there– a shape. It was a narrow gash, a straight line carved into the bark with a series of sideways Cs running down its center. “Looks a bit like a ribcage,” I muttered, and as I touched the sigil I felt goosebumps race across my hand.
“Probably just teeangers,” Eli said, folding his arms. “They probably carved it to fuck with families or whatever.”
Jacob laughed. “If it’s kids playing a prank, then kudos to them because they did a damn thorough job. Look at that.”
I lifted Ryan’s head. His candle glow spilled across Jacob, across his pointing arm, and the trees that loomed before it. On each of them were similar symbols. No– not similar. Identical. Ribcages, carved into the bark. “What the hell,” I said. “These things are all over the place.”
Jacob slapped me on the back. “Well, what are we waiting for? This is what we came here for, isn’t it? A little morbid Halloween fun?”
Eli shivered, pulling his jacket tighter around him. “Sure. Just remember that we all agreed on 30 minutes– it’s getting colder by the minute.”
“That’s the spirit.”
We stepped off, boots sweeping through blankets of leaves. The sigils led us. They went on forever, seemingly, a never-ending line of ribcages goading us deeper and deeper into the black heart of the forest. It wasn’t long before the trees seemed to close in on us. Press us down. They narrowed into tight clutches, their branches reaching out and scraping across us like fingernails.
A sound met my ears. A shrill whine. It came from somewhere distant, somewhere beyond the swirling mire of shadows we’d found ourselves in. “You hear that?” I asked.
Jacob grimaced. “Sure do. Sounds terrible. Like a razorblade being pulled across violin strings.” He shifted on his feet, and for the first time it sounded like he was nervous. “You guys don’t think it might be…”
“The Maestro?” Eli laughed. “Come on, man. It’s probably just teeangers screwing with us.” He waved a hand toward the gloom. “They’ve probably got a speaker set up out there, a few night vision cameras sitting in trees, and we’re being recorded right now so they can become TikTok famous. It’s so obvious.”
“I don’t know,” Jacob murmured, his voice cold with dread. “It sounds awful, man. Like agony. It’s like… a fucking rat crawled inside my head and started chewing on my eardrums. There’s no way that’s a bunch of kids. It’s gotta be the Maestro.” Then, his mouth flickered into a smirk. “Well, either him or Nickelback.
Eli lunged at him. The two of them danced around, laughing while Eli playfully swung at Jacob’s giant frame. Normally, I would’ve found it funny. Entertaining. Normally, it would’ve been a nice bit of levity after a moment so taut with fear, but as I stood there in the blackness, I couldn’t help but notice something worrying.
The music was getting closer.
“Alright, some of their stuff sucks, but Silver Side Up? That album’s amazing,” Eli said to Jacob. “I mean, How You Remind Me? That song went quadruple platinum, dude. You think shitty music goes quadruple platinum?”
Jacob threw his arms out madly. “Yes!” he shouted. “Literally all the time, dude!”
“Back me up on this, would you, Tommy?” Eli said, throwing an arm over my shoulder. “You play guitar. Tell him Nickelback is good shit.”
I opened my mouth but the words weren’t there. “I… I uh….” All I could focus on was that sound in the dark– that low whine, graveyard tune that was getting closer and closer. It came alongside a groan of shifting trees. Of snapping branches. It came alongside the almost imperceptible rumble of the dirt beneath my feet, of something heavy moving across the earth.
“I think something’s coming,” I said.
They weren’t listening. Jacob’s hands were planted on his hips, and he was practically shouting into Eli’s ear. “Just because something’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good. I mean, hell. Look at the Maestro. The bastard massacred like a dozen kids and what happened to him? He became a celebrity. We just saw half of fucking Charmouth come out tonight with their little lanterns to get a glimpse of the dick.”
Eli ran a hand through his hair, incredulous. “You’re actually comparing Nickelback to the Maestro? Are you nuts?”
“I’m only–”
CRACK
Jacob and Eli went silent. The three of us turned, and somewhere beyond our vision came a loud whistle followed by the thunderclap of something titanic crashing to the earth.
“Was that a tree falling just now?” Jacob said.
Eli’s hands became fists. “Great, now the kids are cutting down trees to scare us? They’re gonna get somebody killed.” He surged forward. “I’ve had it, man. I swear to god, if there’s a bunch of little shits out there messing with us, then I’m gonna Maestro their asses myself.”
Jacob laughed. “Good one.”
I didn’t make a sound. Eli turned his flashlight on, swiveling it across the forest and painting the trees in a blinding glow. “Anybody out there?” he bellowed.
My flesh prickled. My breath turned to haze, then fog, and I shivered as the air around us plummeted to freezing. Somewhere inside of me, somewhere ancient and primal, rang a panicked chorus of alarm bells. My feet moved backward, once, twice.
“Listen up, assholes,” Eli roared, his flashlight darting this way and that, attempting to catch any fleeing pranksters. “We’re trying to pay respects to a friend, got it? So cut the crap. Take your stupid video, your dogshit music, and go fuck yoursel–”
His voice vanished. It died, stolen by the night, and his flashlight fell from his grip. It rolled. The beam made dancing shadows out of the surrounding trees.
“Eli?” I croaked, fear thick in my voice.
Sputtering. Gurgling. I staggered forward, staggered toward the sound of words choking in the throat of a man who was desperate to speak but couldn’t. He was messing with us. Playing a joke. This was all part of the game– getting Jacob back for the Nickelback comments.
“Eli!” Jacob said threateningly. “Not cool, bro.” He turned on his own flashlight, brought it up and bathed the forest ahead. My breath caught in my chest. I gasped, eyes moving back and forth in rapid succession as I tried to process the scene.
It couldn’t be real. It was a trick of the light, or my imagination, or some kind of hologram or drug-induced nightmare but it wasn’t real because Eli wasn’t the way he was supposed to be. For one thing, his mouth wasn’t working. It was hanging limp, jaw struggling to move. His lips were red, and blood poured down his chin onto his white jacket. It pooled around something in his chest. Something that shouldn’t be there, but was– a jagged piece of wood.
“No…” I mumbled. “No… No… No… No…”
Somebody pulled me backward, hard. It was Jacob. “Leave him,” he said hoarsely. “This isn’t right– we gotta go. Now.”
I shook my head. That wasn’t happening under any circumstance. It wasn’t happening because what we were looking at couldn’t possibly be real. Eli wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be because people didn’t die like that– trees didn’t just impale them in the middle of the forest. “It’s a joke…” I breathed. “A stupid… dumb… joke and…”
CRACK
The jagged piece of wood in Eli’s chest expanded, tiny tendrils gripping his chest before ripping him backward in a flash of shadow. He was gone. Jacob’s flashlight sat trained on the place he was, but all that remained was a pool of blood. Something had taken him into the forest.
“TOMMY!” Jacob roared, grabbing my arm. “LET’S GO!”
We ran.
We went blindly, Jacob’s flashlight bobbing up and down as we cut a stumbling path through brush and trees, uncaring about our direction so long as it was away from whatever we’d just seen.
“The fuck was that, man?” Jacob asked, breathless as we tore through the woods.
“I don’t know,” I replied numbly.
But that was a lie. The truth was, I knew exactly what we’d just seen– and I was almost certain Jacob knew too. After all, we’d lit the candles. We’d followed the sigils. We’d navigated by the decapitated head of our dead friend, and then at the end we’d even heard the decrepit scream of music. His music.
The Maestro of Charmouth Wood.