Search Results for 'spirius'

“Lace, did you say?” asked Cerenise with interest. “I must have a look at it. Stench, you say? How very odd. But I want to see it. Fetch me the container while I look for my mask and rubber gloves.”

“I’m not going near it again, I’ll get Boothroyd to bring it,” Spirius replied making a hasty exit.

“I’d have thought you’d have wanted to bottle the smell, Spirius.”

In due course the gardener appeared holding a container at arms length with a pained expression on his face.  “Stinks worse than keeg, this does, and I’ve smelled some manure and compost in my time, but never anything as disgusting as this.  Where am I to put it?”

Cerenise cleared a space on a table piled with old books and catalogues. “Gosh, that is a pong, isn’t it!  Reminds me of something,” she said twitching her nose.  “There is a delicate note of ~ what is it?”

“Dead rats?” suggested Boothroyd helpfully, adding “Will that be all?” as he backed towards the door.

As Cerenise lifted the lid, the gardener turned and fled.

“Why, it’s a Nottingham lace Lambrequin window drape if I’m not mistaken!” exclaimed Cerenise, gently lifting the delicate fabric and holding it up to the light. “Probably 1912 or thereabouts, and in perfect condition.”

“Perfectly rancid,”  said Yvoise, her voice muffled by the thick towel she had wrapped around her mouth and nose.

“Come and look, it’s a delightful specimen.  Not terribly rare, but it wonderful condition.  Oh look! There’s another piece underneath. Aha! seventeenth century bone lace!”

Yvoise crept closer. “What’s that other thing? Is that where the smell’s coming from?”

“By Georges, I think you’re right.  It’s a bone bobbin.  Bone lace, they used to call it, until they started making bobbins out of wood.”  Cerenise was pleased. She could get Mrs Fennel to wash the lace and then she could add it to her collection. “Spirius can bottle the bone bobbin and bury it in Bobbington Woods.”

Duly summoned from the kitchen, the faithful daily woman appeared, drying her hands on her apron.

“Pooo eee!” exclaimed Mrs Fennel, “That’ll need a good boil in bleach, will that!”

“Good lord woman, no!  A gentle soak in some soap should do it. It won’t smell half so bad as soon as this bone bobbin is removed.”

“Did you say BONE bobbin?” asked Helier from a relatively safe distance just outside the door. “WHOSE bone?”

“By Georges!” Cerenise said again. “Whose bone indeed! Therein lies the clue to the mystery, you know.”

“Can’t you just put it in a parcel and mail it to someone horrible?” suggested Mrs Fennel.

“A capital idea, Mrs Fennel, a politician. So many horrible ones to choose from though,” Yvoise was already making a mental list.

“We can mail the smelly empty box to the prime minister, but we must keep the bone bobbin safe,” said Helier.  “And we must find out whose bones it was made from. Cerenise is right. It’s the clue.”

“An empty smelly box, even better. More fitting, if I do say so myself, for the prime minister,” said Mrs Fennel with some relief. At least she wasn’t going to be required to wash the bone and the box as well as the smelly lace.

The reek hit her with the force of a physical blow. Yvoise was sensitive to smell; for hundreds of years, Yvoise had cultivated the scent of library dust and dried wildflowers, a fragrance she believed to be the height of sophistication.

“Spirius,” she said at last. “The spiders are a symptom. This dreadful smell must surely be the manifestation of Austreberthe’s lingering ego. She always was a bit… pungent.”

Yvoise immediately felt guilty for speaking ill of the departed. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “that was not kind of me.” She was mostly annoyed at herself for not being able to comprehend Austreberthe’s choice to leave. She checked her smartwatch. Her ‘Conflict Resolution’ seminar was a lost cause; the group would have to resolve their own, dare she think it, rather petty tensions today. Of course, having the wisdom of hundreds of years’ experience does tend to give one a unique perspective.

“I think I overheard Cerenise say the Varlet descendant works in Gloucester?” Yvoise continued, her fingers tapping her phone. ”I’ve done a cross-reference on the municipal database and have found a Varlet who works for the Environmental Health Department.” She snorted. “Of course, the irony is, if that stench reaches the street… he won’t be coming for a family reunion; he’ll be coming with a condemnation order and a dumpster.”

The colour drained from Spirius’s face. Yvoise knew that the only thing a fellow hoarder feared more than fire was a man with a dumpster. “Don’t worry,” she said, kindly patting Spirius on the arm, “I was joking… I’m mostly, or nearly sure it won’t come to that.”

She pointed a manicured finger at the Topperware tower. “Be brave and open that top box. If there is a relic in there causing this stench, we need to neutralize it with vinegar immediately.”

Spirius reached out, his hand trembling as he gripped the lid of the highest container. As the lid clicked open, the frightful smell erupted into the room, a thick, dank smell of wet wool and lye soap. Spirius hastily set the container down and his hand flew to his nose.

“I believe it is her laundry,” he wheezed eventually. “I’m sure I saw a lace thingammy before I was overcome. Cerenise will surely want to know.”

“It’s a biohazard,” said Yvoise, as she quickly snapped some photos of it for her ‘Relics and Records’ files.

Phurt was starting to think something fishy was a play, each time he thought his short spider life had ended he was pulled back from Spiderheaven by some unknown force. Not that he minded this time, there were plenty of places to hide and cast his strong silk cables. He had developed a sense of adventure and the sheer height of some of the mounds made him dizzy. It also made him want to be the first spider in the history of this thread to climb on top of that Mount Wobbly of the Topperware Chain.

Phurt had also noticed a strange and strong smell that seemed to come from the top of Mount Wobbly. Not that he minded the hygiene of the place; it was, to the contrary, a rather promising smell. It was the smell that said swarms of flies would gather there like an endless supply of blessed food.

Seeing that other spiders were gathering at the bottom of Mount Wobbly, he contorted his butt and secured his first cable.

Spirius had been investigating the origin of a strong smell that had started not long after Austreberthe puffed out of existence and became part of the dust she had spent her life chasing away. Which gave him one more proof that his theory of the holy body influence upon the physical world was true. He looked for a pen but they were behind two piles of unopened parcels he had started collecting when he had noticed that the postmen were leaving the boxes unattended and unprotected from the elements on the front porch of houses. His intentions were pure, as any saintly intentions are, but when he saw what good addition to the other boxes they made, he felt a pang of regret each time he thought of giving back those boxes to their rightful recipients.

Alas, most of them were dead by now, so he felt his duty was to keep those boxes intact to honour the memory of the dead.

Yvoise came in just as Spirius saw an odd and colourful australian jumping spider cast a delicate silk thread to one of the bottom row of his Tupperware collection.

“You should really do something about that smell,” she said. “I remember a time when decorum required holy people to exude only fragrance and essential oils.”

“Well, you know, it’s Austreberthe,” he said as wobbly as his heaps of plastic boxes. He had them all. You could even say he started the whole trend of pyramid schemes when his friend Pearl Topper saw him buy boxes from antiques shops. She invented the first plastic box as…

“Well, I asked you a question,” said Yvoise, interrupting his wandering thoughts.

“Have you noticed the spiders,” said Spirius.

“What spiders?”

“I think they’re trying to go up there,” Spirius said. “Look!”

He pointed a proud finger at the top of the highest Topperware tower in the Guyness book of records. A swarm of flies was circling around one of the boxes.

“And that means the smell comes from there.”

A cinematic, low-angle shot inside a flooded, ancient brick sewer tunnel that looks like a mix of Roman catacombs and Victorian industrial plumbing. The water is dark and murky, reflecting the light of a flickering lantern.

In the center of the frame, floating precariously, is a bright yellow, cheap inflatable dinghy.

Inside the dinghy are two men:

1. Spirius: An elderly man with a nervous expression, wearing a high-vis vest over ancient saintly robes. He is clutching an antique musket that is clearly too heavy for him. A faint, golden neon halo flickers erratically behind his head like a faulty streetlamp.

2. Boothroyd: A grumpy, weather-beaten gardener in a tweed cap. He looks completely resigned to his fate, lazily paddling with a plastic oar in one hand and holding a sharp garden spear in the other.

Action: The dinghy squeaks as it bumps against the wet brick walls. Spirius jumps at a drip of water falling from the ceiling. Something large ripples the water in the foreground—a menacing shadow moving beneath the surface.

Atmosphere:

• Lighting: Chiaroscuro—deep shadows and warm lantern light, contrasting with the synthetic yellow of the boat.

• Mood: Tense but ridiculous. High-stakes fantasy meets low-budget reality.

Movement:

• The camera tracks slowly backward as the boat drifts forward.

• The water ripples ominously.

• Spirius’s halo buzzes and dims when he gets scared.

Floviana sunk her yellowed fangs into the milky white throat of the village wench and slurped the revitalising iron rich nectar, relishing the immediate surge of strength.  The buxom peasant girl swooned, faint with shock and loss of vital fluids, and Floviana struggled to hold her upright as she drank her fill. Sated at last, Floviana unceremoniously dropped the girl on the leaf covered mulch of the forest floor, carelessly leaving her body in a shameful disarray with her coarse woollen stockings and plump white thighs exposed.

Boothroyd grunted with pleasure as he imagined the scene and then quickly snapped Helier’s book closed when he heard the door to the conservatory open.  Dropping the book and kicking it under a cast iron jardiniere, he rose as Spirius entered the room.

“Ah, there you are Boothroyd. If you’re not too busy,” Spirius cast his eyes around in a fruitless manner attempting to discover what exactly the gardener had been busy with, “I’d like you to accompany me down the cellar.  Bring some weapons.”

“Weapons, sire?” Boothroyd scratched his head.

“Yes, Yes, weapons! Are you deaf? A long spear and perhaps a musket.  And a small inflatable dinghy.”

“A dinghy, sire?”

Spirius sighed. “Yes, a dinghy. And a big net. Meet me at the top of the cellar steps in an hour.  I’ll go and get the bottles.”

Boothroyd sighed and glanced wistfully at the cast iron planter, haunted by the vision of plump white thighs.

“Quite fitting that I should get her sleeves,” Cerenise said with satisfaction. “And what a relief that she left the wolf to you, Spirius. I’d not have been able to manage a wolf.”  Cerenise popped another cashew nut into her mouth.

Spirius looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “My guess is you’d have managed just fine,” he replied drily. He’d heard all the noise she made behind those locked doors.  He’d seen her prancing around the orchard in the moonlight when she thought nobody was watching, naked as the day she was born all those centuries ago. He hadn’t lingered at the window, but he had put two and two together years ago, many years ago, just after the seige of Gloucester.   If truth be told, Cerenise’s  secret was known to them all, but they hadn’t interfered with her delusion.

“There’s going to come a point, and very soon, when we will have to deal with the water leak, you know,” Yvoise interrupted the inconsequential chatter.  “Holy and healing as it may be, it will be the ruin of my collection if it reaches the upper floors.”

“And what do you propose?” asked Helier.

“I suggest we call a plumber!” snapped Yvoise. “This is the 21st century is it not? I know tradesmen are in short supply, and I know this isn’t an ordinary leak, but we should start with the obvious, and then adapt accordingly.”

“I must bottle as much of the holy water as possible before we stop the leak,” Spirius said, standing up abruptly in agitation.

Helier put a calming hand on the old boy’s shoulder. “There’s no rush, Spirius, there’s plenty of water in the cellars, it’s already waist deep down there.”

“And the saints only know what has floated into the cellars by now from the tunnels.  Be careful down there, Spirius.   Take Boothroyd the gardener with you,” Yvoise advised.

Spirius was looking decidedly ill at ease, which struck Cerenise as far from unusual, and as such, struck her not at all at the time. It wasn’t until later that she became aware of the cause of the discomfiture of her centuries old companion.  Spirius had always been a bit of a dark horse, although that wasn’t really the right expression. A character of hidden depths and mysteries, perhaps with a penchant for bottling things up and labeling them,and then shelving them. Nobody knew for sure.  A good kind well meaning saint, as saints go. She smiled at him fondly.

I hope they’re recording this will reading, Cerenise thought again, not having been listening to the seemingly endless drone of items.

Some ideas for the background thread and character profiles for “The Hoards of Emporium 26.”

The Setting: Emporium 26

They live in Gloucester (ancient Glevum), a city built on Roman bones where the layout of the streets still follows the legions’ sandals. They inhabit a sprawling, shared Georgian townhouse complex that has been knocked through into one labyrinthine dwelling—Number 26.

To the outside world, it looks like a dilapidated heritage site. Inside, it is The Emporium: a geological stratification of history, where layers of Roman pottery are mixed with 1990s Beanie Babies and medieval reliquaries.

The Background Thread: “The Weight of Eternity”

Why do they hoard? Because when you live forever, “letting go” feels like losing a piece of the timeline. Hoarding objects is for them an accumulation of evidence of existence.

• The Curse: They cannot die naturally, but they can fade if they are forgotten. The “stuff” anchors them to the physical plane.
• The “Halo” Effect: Occasionally, when they are arguing over whose turn it is to do the dishes, or when they find a lost treasure, the stained-glass light of their old divinity flickers behind their heads—a neon halo of forgotten holiness.

The Hoarders & Their Stashes

1. Helier ( The Hermit / The Dreamer)

• Saintly Origin: Based on St. Helier (Jersey/Normandy). He was an ascetic hermit who lived in a cave and was eventually beheaded.
• Modern Persona: A soft-spoken agoraphobe who hasn’t left the house since the invention of the internet. He wears oversized cardigans that smell like old library books.
• The Mania: Escapism & Communication.
• Because he spent centuries in silence on a rock, he is now obsessed with human stories and noise.

• The Hoard: ” The Media Mountain.”
• His wing of the house is a fire hazard of pulp fiction, towering stacks of National Geographic (dating back to the first issue), thousands of VHS tapes (he has no VCR), and tangled knots of ethernet cables that he refuses to throw away “in case they fit a port from 1998.”
• The Secret Stash: Beneath a pile of “The Hoarder Vampires” novels lies his true relic: The Stone Pillow. The actual rock he slept on in the 6th century. He still naps on it when his back hurts.

2. Spirius (The Bishop / The Container)

• Saintly Origin: Evocative of St. Exuperius (Bayeux). A driver-out of demons and a man of grand gestures.
• Modern Persona: A nervous, fidgety man who is convinced the world is leaking. He is the “fixer” of the group but usually makes things worse with duct tape.
• The Mania: Containment & Preservation.
• In the old days, he bottled demons. Now, he’s terrified of running out of space to put things.

• The Hoard: “The Vessel Void.”
• Spirius hoards anything that can hold something else. Empty jam jars (washed, mostly), Tupperware with no matching lids, biscuit tins, and thousands of plastic carrier bags stuffed inside other carrier bags (the “Bag of Bags”).
• The Secret Stash: In a locked pantry, he keeps a shelf of sealed mason jars labeled with dates like “1431” or “1789.” He claims they contain the “Sigh of a King” or “The smell of rain before the Plague.” It’s actually just dust, but the jars vibrate slightly.

3. Cerenise (The Weaver / The Mender)

• Saintly Origin: Evocative of St. Ceneri or St. Cerneuf. A saint of travelers, or perhaps needlework.
• Modern Persona: She is the “Wheelchair Girl’s” friend mentioned in the intro? Or perhaps she is in a wheelchair now—not because she can’t walk, but because she’s too tired from walking for 1,500 years. She is sharp-tongued and fashionable in a “crazy bag lady” sort of way.
• The Mania: Potential & Texture.
• She sees the soul in broken things. She cannot throw away anything that “could be fixed.”

• The Hoard: “The Fabric of Time.”
• Her rooms are draped in layers of textiles: velvet curtains from a 1920s cinema, moth-eaten tapestries depicting her own miracles (she thinks the nose is wrong), and buttons. Millions of buttons. She also hoards broken appliances—toasters, lamps, clocks—insisting she will repair them “next Tuesday.”
• The Secret Stash: A mannequin dressed in a perfectly preserved Roman stola, hidden under forty layers of polyester coats. It’s the outfit she wore when she performed her first miracle. She tries it on every New Year’s Eve.

4. Yvoise (The Advocate / The Bureaucrat)

• Saintly Origin: Evocative of St. Yves (Patron of Lawyers/Brittany/Normandy). The arbiter of justice.
• Modern Persona: The “Manager” of Emporium 26. She wears power suits from the 80s and is always carrying a clipboard. She loves rules, even if she invents them.
• The Mania: Proof of Truth.
• She is terrified of being forgotten or cheated. She needs a receipt for everything.

• The Hoard: “The Archive of Nothing.”
• Yvoise hoards paper. Receipts from a coffee bought in 1952, bus tickets, expired warranties, junk mail, and legal disclaimers torn off mattresses. Her room looks like the inside of a shredder that exploded. She claims she is building “The Case for Humanity.”
• The Secret Stash: A filing cabinet labeled “Do Not Open.” Inside is not paper, but Seeds. Seeds from the trees of ancient Gaul. She is saving them for when the paper finally takes over the world and she needs to replant the forest she misses.

Starter: The Reading of Austreberthe’s Will

The story kicks off because Austreberthe (The Saint of Washing/Water) has died. Her hoard was Soap and Water.

• The house is now flooding because her magical containment on the plumbing has broken.
• The remaining four must navigate her “Tsunami Wing”—a treacherous dungeon of accumulated bath bombs, stolen hotel towels, and aggressive washing machines—to find her Will.
• The Will is rumored to reveal the location of the “Golden Key,” an object that can legally terminate their lease on Emporium 26, which none of them want, but all of them crave.