Sonic Society #901- Tome Tighteners

ご視聴ありがとうございました Welcome home. The following audiodrama is rated PG 13, suggesting that all children under the age of 13 should listen accompanied by an adult. A riddle. Oh, I'm not too good at riddles. What's the opposite of an actual play in the world of audio drama? Can't we start with what's black and white and red all over? What is it? The Sonic Society, the world's largest and longest running showcase of modern audio drama with your two hosts, Jack Ward and David Alt.

It's not a nun in a blender then. Jack, that makes no sense. Joe was no good at riddles. Well, in this case, the opposite of actual play would be an audio fiction piece. And while we found ourselves bandying on the outside of the audioverse last week, we've skipped to an entirely different sector of space. Is that bad? Yes, but in this case it provides a long loop which we lock on to the side. Dark Tom The Dark Tome. What's that?

Well, usually it's a book with poor lighting, but in this particular case, what if there was a book that literally opened up doorways to other worlds? Where would it lead? And could you handle what you found on the other side? Cassie, a team, and Amen. One day after she wrapped up community service at a local She stumbles out of the basement of a spooky bookshop and into a story set. And now you know why I give you the long introduction. I suppose. So will be from Joe Hill?

The benefits of writing the show notes. Yes, that's right. This week it's the devil on the staircase, and it all begins right here. On the Sonic Society.

This podcast features mature themes and strong language. Listener discretion is advised. Realm presents Adega as Media Production, The Dark Tome, Episode 1, featuring the story The Devil in the Staircase by Joe Hill. You know that phrase, books are a gateway to the imagination. It's the oldest cliche out there. No matter what was going on in the real world, when you opened a book, read those words, you could go to other worlds.

And if you've forgotten that, if you think imagination is a toy to be locked up. 30-year mortgages and retirement accounts, then you must never have heard the legend of the Dark Tome. I mean, I never had either. Not until that man. When I was spending my suspension from school reading to mister Gussie in the stale air of Thompson's Memorial Hospital.

It was Wilson, but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said, You have conquered, and I yield. Yet henceforward art thou also dead. Dead to the world and its hopes, in me didst thou exist, and in my death see by this image which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself. Mr. Gossie? Mr. Gussie. What is that crap? Get it out of here! Mr. Gussie, sorry, I I was uh

Goddamn Edgar Allan Poe come on, Casser, you know I hate that die. Long winded and overrated, if you ask me. Could you find the book I told you about? You told me to fetch you uh I told you to bring me the dark tome, not that crap. Give me that book. Okay. Mr. Russie, what are you doing? What say of conscience grim indeed? I told you the book I wanted. It would have had gold letters, the spine as smooth as White as my pale Anglo ass. Yeah. What am I paying you for? You're not. I volunteered.

Penance?'Cause you ripped the hair out of that stupid girl. I didn't Don't worry, she deserved it. Have you seen the nurse? Good. God, are they trying to stab me in here? NES! NES! You have that clicker right there. Yeah, next you'll tell me I need get an aunt to get decent service round here. What did I pay into my pension for if not to get a little help when I was on my death? You had a surgery, Mr. Gussie. You'll be out of here in a week. Not if they kill me first with the Horrible fool.

I've got to go, Mr. Gussie. Mato, you got a day? No. Uh it's gonna be something good. You think I'm gonna cover for you again after what you pulled last time? What do you mean? If that nurse says I left early, Miss Pearson will flame me up. Ha ha. I'm just messing with you. Go on. Get out of here. I got your back. Is everything okay? Tis not. You try to kill me here? Excuse me. That's grape juice. You tried drinking it lately?

We'd still be giving you milk if you hadn't snuck coffee brandy into the last carton. Yeah, need something to take the edge off, don't I? You won't even give me the good stuff. Bye, Mr. Gussie. Leaving so soon, Cassie. I'm sorry. Uh got homework to do. Oh. I told her she read me plenty for the day. She told me one of my favorite stories, William Wilson. Uh of course. See you tomorrow, dear. Bye.

You ever sit in one of these carts of blankets, I swear, you make em out of sandpaper. And I should know, I worked in the number ten mill.

But of course I didn't have any homework to do. I'd been kicked out of school for two weeks already. But I didn't go home either. I couldn't. My mom would be with him drinking and things got bad when they got drinking. That left me with Mr. Gussie's bookshop. The spare key was tucked away in the brass bell outside, next to the plexiglass poster of Stephen King's misery.

It was that poster and the strange mummified hand next to it, Mr. Gussie said it was a monkey's, that kept most of the local kids out of that place. They made up stories and dared each other to go in, swipe a book. Some said there was a time, maybe thirty years ago, when a kid went in and never came out again. I never believed stories like that.

The place was filled with paperback novels, stacks of them, with bone-like creases on their spines, names like Koontz, Matheson, Bradbury. You'd walk past those, worried section Z for zombies would fall in your head. Whoa. To get to the antique wooden desk in the back, pull back the creaky leather chair, roll up the thrift shop rug, and lift the trap door. Go down to the basement where the walls got wobbly.

Coblips, down here no one ever bothered me. I could have my blanket and curl up with a book and be taken away. There were plenty to choose from, hard covers, some with a film of dust you could write your name in, ran near to the ceiling. But there was only one book that really mattered. There's the The dark tome. Of course, I already knew about the book. He had told me where to find it with impeccable instructions. I had already picked it up.

felt the spine that rumor said was stitched from the skins of murdered babies. I had opened it long enough to read a few words and feel how, as the words parted my lips, the book's lettering faintly glowed, And the must of the basement faded away for the smell of salt from distant seas. Mom and school and Mr. Gussie and that gossipy bitch Kathy Skillings faded into nothingness. Last time I'd opened it, I'd shut it immediately. But now, I was ready. I opened the dark tome. Okay.

The Devil on the Staircase by Joe Hill. It goes... Amen. I was born in Sale Scalae, the child of a common bricklayer. The village of my birth nested in the highest sharpest ridges, high above Positano, and in the cold spring the clouds crawled along the streets like a procession of ghosts. It was eight hundred and twenty steps from Suliskale to the world below. I know. I walk them. with my father, following his tread, from our home in the sky, and then back again.

After his death, I walked them often enough alone. It worked! It worked, holy crap, it worked! There it is! The little village! What did they call it? Uh posse posse uh Positano! No need to be frightened, little girl. Who are you? A boy who used to live in this village. Ah well, I suppose I'm not a boy anymore. the olive orchard, the ocean, the stairs I knew each step of those stairs very well. What happens now?

Will you continue reading or I don't know. It is up to you. I have all the time in the world. Uh okay. Well the next bit it goes Up and down I walked those stairs carrying freight. Yes. Up and down I walked those stairs, carrying freight, until with each step it seemed as if the bones in my knee were being ground up into sharp walls. Splinters. Are you coming with me? With crooked staircases made from brick in some places, granite in others.

Marble here, limestone there, clay tiles and beams of lumber. When there were stairs to build, my father built them. When the steps were washed out by spring rains, it fell to him to repair them. For years he had a donkey to carry his stone. After it fell dead, it

I hated him of course. He had his cats, and he sang to them and poured them saucers of milk and told them foolish stories and I drove them in his lap and when one time I kicked one, I do not remember why, he kicked me to the floor and said not to touch his babies. So I carried his rocks, when I should have been carrying school books, but I cannot pretend I hated him for that.

I had no use for school, hated to study, hated to read, felt acutely the stifling heat of the single-room schoolhouse. The only good thing in it My cousin, Lithadora, who read to the little children, sitting on a stool with her back erect, chin lifted high, and her white throat showing.

But Antoniello would not listen to reason. He made sure the king was King would kill Sienzo for his fault and said, Don't stand here at risk of your life, but march off this very instant so that nobody may hear a word new or old of what you have done. A bird in the bush is better than a bird in the cage. Here is money. She's lovely. I thought so too. I often imagined her throat was as cool as the marble altar in our church, and I wanted to rest my brow upon it, as I had the altar.

How she read in her low, steady voice, the very voice you dream of calling to you when you're sick, saying you will be healthy again, and know only the sweet fever of her body. I could have loved books if I had her to read them to me beside me in the bed. I knew every step of the stairs between Sulescale and Positano. Long flights that descended through canyons and tunnels

bored in limestone, past orchards and the ruins of derelict paper mills, past waterfalls and green pools. I walked those stairs when I slept, in my dreams. The trail my father and I walked most often led past a painted red gate, barring the way to a crooked staircase. I thought those steps led to a private villa, and paid the gate no mind until the day I paused on the way down with a load of marble, and leaned on it to rest. And it swung open to my touch.

My father. He lagged thirty or so stairs behind me. I stepped through the gate onto the landing to see where these stairs led. I saw no villa or vineyard below, Only the staircase falling away from me down among the sheerest of sheer cliffs. Yeah. Oh please. Yeah. Have you overtaken these stairs? How did you open the red gate? When he saw me standing outside the gate he paled, and had my shoulder in an instant. It was open when I got here. Don't they lead all the way down to the sea?

But it looks as if they go all the way to the bottom. They go farther than that. The gate is always locked. Always. Padre y Figlio Espíritu Santo. Padre y Figlio Espíritu Santo. Padre y Filipe Santo. And he stared at me. The whites of his eyes showing. I had never seen him look at me so, had never thought I would see him afraid of me.

Lithodora laughed when I told her and said my father was old and superstitious. She told me that there was a tale that the stairs beyond the painted... I had walked the mountain. and leave that door and wanted She said the old folks never spoke of it, but had written the story down in a history of the region, which I would know if I'd ever read any of the teacher's assignments. I told her. I could never concentrate on books. When she was in the same room with me, she laughed.

But when I tried to touch her throat She flinched. My fingers brushed her breast instead, and she was angry, and she told me that I needed to wash my hands.

Sounds like some boys I know, except today no one would have the decency to wash their hands. We're on the stairs again. Is that My father. It's a grisly little moment. Woo! Rather than step on the stray cat, my father stepped out into air and fell. After that day, I found a more lucrative use for my donkey leg. and yardarm shoulders when hauling those horrid tiles. I entered the employ of Don Carlotta, who kept a terraced vineyard in the steeps of Sulescale.

I hauled his wine the eight hundred odd steps to Positano, where it was sold to a rich man. Saracen, a prince, it was told, dark and slender and more fluent in my language than myself, a clever young man who knew how to read things. Μουσικλ νοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοοο Once I stumbled on a flight of brick steps as I was making my way down with the Donzwine, and his strap slipped down. The crate on my back Struck the cliff wall and a bottle was small.

I brought it to the Saracen on the quay. What is this? Your bottle, sir. I slept on the rocks. Or you drank it, or you should have. That bottle was worth all you make in a month. Pardon, sir. My wages. are considered paid and consider yourself paid well. As he laughed, his white teeth flashed in his black face. I was sober when he laughed at me, but soon enough had a head full of wine. not Don Carlotta's smooth and peppery red mountain wine,

but the cheapest chianti in the taverna, which I drank with a parcel of unemployed friends. Lithadora found me after it was dark. And she stood over me, her dark hair framing her cool, white, beautiful, disgusted, loving face. She said she had the silver. I was old. Yeah. What do you mean you have the money? I told Ahmed he had insulted an honest man, and that my family trades in hard labor, not lies. I told him he was lucky that I had not had the You call him a friend?

A monkey of the desert who knows nothing of Christ the Lord? I still have more eyes Then you have to The way that she looked at me then made me ashamed. The way she put the money in front of me. Made me more ashamed. I almost got up to go after her. Almost. One of my friends asked. Have you heard the Saracen gave your cousin a slave bracelet, a loop of silver bells to wear around her ankle? I suppose in Arab land such gifts are made to every new whore in the harem. You lie. Thank you.

Her father would never allow her to accept. Such a gift from a godless bag. He speaks to me. the truth. The Arab traitor is godless no more. Lithidora has taught Ahmed To read Latin.

Yeah. Claims now to have entered into the light of Christ, and he gave the bracelet to her with his full knowledge of her parents as a way to show thanks for introducing him to the When my first friend had recovered his breath, he told me Lithadora climbs the stairs every night to meet with a Saracen in empty shepherd's huts or in the cave. I heard it's among the ruins of the paper mill. What?

Sometimes Bob. Of the waterfall, wherever they can meet in secret and in such places, she is his tutor, and he a firm and most demanding pupil. Uh huh. Tell me more of this. He always goes. A jangling bracelet. When he hears the bells he lights a candle to show her where he waits to begin the lesson. Perhaps she will teach another lesson tonight. Ha ha ha.

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We're on the cliffs again. What are we doing here? It's cold. I was so drunk. I set out for Lithodora's house with no idea what I meant to do when I got there. I came up behind the cottage where she lived with her parents, thinking I would throw a few stones to wake her and bring her to her window, but As I stole toward the back of the house, I heard a silvery tinkling somewhere above me. She was already on the stairs and climbing into the stars with her white dress swinging from her ear.

And the bracelet around her ankle so bright in the gloom, my heart thudded, a cask flung down my head. Thank you. Hope Dum Dom I knew the hills better than anyone, and I ran another way, making a steep climb up crude steps of mud to get ahead of her, then rejoining the main path up to Suliskale. I still had the silver coin the Saracen had given her, when she went to him and dishonored me, by begging him to pay me the wage I was properly owed.

I put his silver in a tin cup I had and slowed to a walk and went along shaking his Judas coin in my old battered mug. Such a pretty ringing it made in the echoing canyons, on the stairs, in the night high above Positano, and the crash and sigh of the sea as the tide. Consumated the desire of water to pound the earth. into submission. At last, pausing to catch my breath, I saw a candle flame leap up off in the darkness. It was in a handsome ruin, a place of high granite walls matted with

Wildflowers and ivy. A vast entryway looked into a room with a grass floor and a roof of stars, as if the place had been built not to give shelter from the natural world, but to put A virgin corner of wilderness from the violation of man. Then again it seemed a pagan place, the natural setting for an orgy hosted by fawns with their goaty hooves. Flues in their fured coat. So the archway into that private courtyard of weeds and summer green seemed the entrance to a hall awaiting revelers.

for a private bacanaal. He waited on spread blanket, with a bottle of the Dome's wine, and some books, and he smiled at the tinkling sound of my approach. It stopped when I came into the light, a block of rough stone already in my free hand. You have come. Yes. No. You killed- I did not kill him out of family honor or jealousy. did not hit him with the stone because he had laid claim to Lithodora's cool white body, which he would never offer me.

I hit him with the block of stone because I hated his black and Peace. After I stopped hitting him. I sat with him. I think I took his wrist to see if he had a pulse, but after I knew he was dead, I went on holding his hand, listening to the hum of the crickets in the grass, as if he were a Small child. My child who had only drifted off after fighting sleep For a very long time. What brought me out of my stupor was the sweet music of bells coming up the stairs toward us.

I leapt up and ran, but Dora was already there, coming through the doorway, and I nearly struck her on my way by. She reached out for me with one of her delicate white hands, and said my name, but I did not stop. I took the stairs three at a time, running without thought, but I was not fast enough, and I heard her when she shouted his name once and again. Amet! AMED!

I don't know where I was running. Zulescale, maybe, though I knew they would look for me there first. Once Lithidora went down the steps and told them what I had done to the Arab, I did not slow down until I was gulping for air, and my chest was filled with fire, and then I leaned against a gate at the side of the path You know. Okay. What gate? And it swung open. At first touch. I don't want to go down there.

But you know it's where the story goes. Besides, I thought no one would look for me here, and I can hide a while. No. No, I thought these stairs will lead to the road and I will head north to Napoli and buy a ticket for a ship headed to the US and take a new name and start a new No.

Enough. The truth? I believe the stairs left. Down into hell and hell was well. See how the steps are first of white stone? Soon they grow sooty and dark. And see all those other staircases? How they merge with this one? It's quite a mystery. Or it was then. I had walked all the flights of stairs in these hills, except for this one. And I couldn't think for the life of me where those other staircases might be coming from.

I remember it quite clearly. The forest around me had been purged by fire in the not so far off past, and I made my descent through stands of scorched, shattered pines, the hillside all black. All blackened and charred. Only There had been no fire on that part of the hill. Not for as long as I could remember. The breeze carried on it an unmistakable warmth. I began to feel unpleasantly overheated in my clothes. I followed the staircase round a switchback and saw below me a boy.

sitting on a stone landing. He had a collection of curious wares spread out on a blanket. There was a wind up tin bird in a cage, a basket of white apples, a dented gold lighter, There was a jar, and in the jar was light. This light would increase in brightness until the landing was lit as if by the rising sun. And then Then it would collapse into darkness, shrinking to a single point like some impossibly brilliant lightning bug. Yeah.

He smiled to see me. He had golden hair, and the most beautiful smile I have ever seen on a child's face. And I was afraid of him. Even before he called out to me by name, I pretended I didn't hear him. pretended he wasn't there, that I didn't see him, walked right past him. He laughed to see me hurrying by.

The farther I went, the steeper it got. There seemed to be a light below, as if somewhere beyond a ledge, through the trees there was a great city on the scale of Roma, a bowl of lights like a bed of embers. I could smell Food cooking on the breeze. If it was food. that hungry making perfume of meat. Charring over flame.

Voices ahead of me, a man speaking warily, perhaps to himself, a long and joyless discourse. Someone else laughing bad laughter unhinged and angry. A third man was asking questions. Is a plum sweeter after it has been pushed into the mouth of a virgin to silence her as she is taken? Claim the child made from the rotten carcass of the lamb that laid with the lion, only to be eviscerated. And so on. At the next turn in the steps.

They finally came into sight. They lined the stairs. Half a dozen men nailed onto crosses of blackened pine. I couldn't go on. And for a time I I couldn't go back. It was the cats. One of the men had a crack in skull. Skull, a red seeping wound that made a puddle on the stairs, and kittens lapped at it as if it were cream, and he was talking to them in his tired voice. Good kiddie. Good. Good kitty kiddies, drink your fill. Father will always feed you. Father will keep you warm.

I did not go close enough to see his face. I returned the way I had come on shaky legs. The boy awaited me with his collection of oddities. Why not sit and rest your sore feet, Cyrinus Calvino? I sat down across from him, not because I wanted to, but because that was where my legs gave out. My regrets, girl. But God did not enter this place. Would you like a drink of water? No, thank you

Are you worried about taking something from me? No need. I would love to offer you a gift. It's no trouble at all. There was a light in a jar that grew, a single floating point of perfect whiteness, growing from a pinprick until it swelled like a balloon. I tried to look at it, but felt a pinch of pain in the back of my eyeballs and glanced away. What? Okay.

A little spark stolen from the sun. You can do all sorts of wonderful things with it. You can make a furnace with it. A giant furnace, powerful enough to warm a whole city and light a thousand Edison lights. Look at how bright it gets. You just have to be careful though. If you smash this and let the spark escape, that same city would disappear in a clap of brightness. You can have it if you want. No, I don't want it.

No, of course not. That isn't your sort of thing. No matter. Someone will be along later for this, but take something. Anything you want. Lucifer? Lucifer's an awful old goat who has a pitchfork and hoops and makes people suffer, and I hate suffering. I only want to help people. I give gifts. That's why I'm here. Everyone who walks these stairs before their time gets a gift to welcome them. You look thirsty. Would you like an apple? They're the most beautiful apples.

I was thirsty. My throat felt not just sore, but singed, as if I had inhaled smoke recently, and I began to reach for the offered fruit almost reflexively, but then drew my hand back, for I knew the lessons of at least one book He grinned at me. Are those? From the garden? The from a very old and honorable tree. You will never taste a sweeter fruit, and when you eat it you'll be filled with ideas. Yes, even one such as you, Kirinascalvino, who barely learn to read. I don't want it.

Everyone will want it. They'll want to eat and eat and be filled with understanding. Why, learning how to speak another language will be just as simple as oh learning to build a bomb. Just one bite of an apple away. What about the lighter? You can light anything with a lighter. A cigarette, a pipe? A campfire, imaginations, revolutions, books, rivers, the sky,

Another man's soul? Flighter has an enchantment on it. It's tapped into the deepest wells of oil on the planet, and will set fires that will burn for as long as the oil lasts, which I'm sure will be forever. You. Have nothing I want. I have something for everyone. I rose to my feet ready to leave, though I had nowhere to go. I couldn't walk back down the stairs. The thought made me dizzy. Neither could I go back up. Lithadora would have returned to the village by now.

they would be searching the stairs for me with the torches. I was surprised I hadn't heard them already.

But there was one more thing. A mechanical tin bird that turned its head to look at me as I swayed on my heels and blinked. The metal shutters of its eyes snapping closed, then popping open again, It let out a rusty cheap So did I, startled by its sudden movement. I thought it a toy inanimate. It watched me steadily and I stared back. I had, as a child, always had an interest in ingenious mechanical objects.

clockwork people who ran out of their hiding places at the stroke of noon, the wood cutter to chop wood, the maiden to dance around. The boy followed my gaze and smiled. then opened the cage and reached in for it. The bird leaped lightly onto his finger. This bird sings the most beautiful song, it finds a master, a shoulder it likes to perch on, sings to this person for the rest of its days. The trick to making it sing is to tell a lie.

The bigger the better. Feed it a lie and it will sing to you the most marvelous little tune. People love to hear its song. They love it so much they don't even care they're being lied to. He's yours if you want him. I don't want anything from you. You see, likes you. Mm-hmm. Bye. I can't pay. You've already paid. Then he turned his head and looked down the stairs and seemed to listen. I heard a wind rising. It made a low, softening moan as it came through.

Deep and lonely and restless cry. The boy looked back at me. Ha ha ha. Now go, go, go, go I hear my father coming. That awful old goat. Huh. I backed away, and my heels struck the stair behind me. I was in such a hurry to get away, I fell sprawling across the granite steps. The bird on my shoulder took off, rising in widening circles through the air. But when I found my feet, it glided down to where it had rested before.

I began to think about what I would say when I reached the main staircase and was discovered. I will confess everything. Whatever that is. I felt silent though as I reached the gate, quieted by a different song not far off. I listened, confused, and crept uncertainly back to where I had murdered Lithodora's beloved. I heard no sound except for Dora's cries, no men shouting, no. Running on the steps.

I had been gone half the night, it seemed to me, but when I reached the ruins where I had left the Saracen and looked upon Dora, it was if only minutes. I came toward her and whispered to her, afraid almost to be heard. The second time I spoke her name, she turned her head and looked at me with red-rimmed, hating eyes, and screamed. There's a way! I wanted to comfort her. to tell her I was sorry.

But when I came close to the She sprang to her feet and ran at me, striking me and flaying at my face with her fingernails while she cursed my name. I meant to put my hands on her shoulder to hold her stiff, but when I reached for her, they found her smooth white neck instead. You you you killed her all for Thank you. Her father and his fellows and my unemployed friends discovered me weeping over her.

Running my fingers through the silk of her long black hair. Her father fell to his knees and took her in his arms, and for a while the hills rang with her name. Yeah. Yeah. The Arab, that monkey from the desert he did this. He lured her here, and when he couldn't force her innocence from her, he throttled her in the grass, and I found them and we fought. I killed him. With a block of stone.

Oh, poor Lissadora. Take faith. We will Yeah. I held Lithidora in my arms as we walked down the stairs. As we went on our way, the bird began to sing again. As I told them, the Saracen had planned to take the sweetest and most beautiful girls and auction their white flesh in Araby. A more profitable line of trade than selling wine. The bird was now whistling a marching song, and the faces of the men who walked with me. were rigid and dark. I always knew they were no good. Yes.

I must burn them. Burn them, yes! Burn them, burn! Ahmed's men burned, along with the Arab ship, and sank in the harbor. His goods stored in a warehouse by the K were seized, and his money box fell to me as a reward for my heroism. No one ever would have imagined when I was a boy, that one day I would be the wealthiest trader on the whole Amalfi coast. Or that I would come to own the price vineyards of Don Carlta, I who once worked like a mule for his coin.

No one would have guessed that one day I would be the beloved mayor of Sulescala, or a man of such renown that I would be invited to a personal audience with his holiness the Pope. who thanked me for my many well noted acts of generosity. The springs inside the pretty tin bird wore down in time, and it ceased to sing. But by then it did not matter if any one believed my lies or not. Such was my wealth and power to However, several years before the tin bird fell silent.

I woke one morning in my manor to find it had constructed a nest of wire on my window sill, and filled it with fragile eggs made of bright silver foil. I regarded these eggs with unease. But when I reached to touch them, their mechanical mother nipped at me with her needle sharp beak, and I did not, after that, make any attempt to disturb them, Months later the nest was filled with foil tatters. The young of this new species, creatures of a new age, had fluttered on their way to the

I cannot tell you how many birds of tin and wire and electric current there are in the world now. But I have this very month heard speak of our new Prime Minister, Mr. Mussolini. When he speaks of the greatness of the Italian people and our kinship with our German neighbors, I am quite sure I can hear a tin bird. Singing with him. Its tune plays especially well, amplified over modern y humilla el norte.

Oh. Please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood. We get something a little bit lighter, some lighter music here. Are you a fan of true crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries, the show that jumpstarted all of our love of true crime? I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host I Think Not, a true crap. Covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime campy TV shows all the way to unsolved mysteries.

True crime in a whole new way, and you'll also ask yourself. New episode are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon. Every Monday you True crime rundown where we go True Crime Headlines of the Week. So come and join us wherever you listen to your The world of Sonic the Hedgehog. Fuck. Has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw come.

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Oh where are we now? Ah the Villa would you like to come in? No. No. You see, I don't live in the hills anymore. It has been years since I saw Sule Skal. I discovered, as I descended at last into my senior years, that I could no longer attempt the staircase. I told people it was my poor sore old knees. But in truth. I developed a fear of vibe.

Uh I'm I'm back! What the hell is that? Bird. What the hell did you do, Cassie? Mr. Gussie, what the hell are you doing here? Those my bookshops. supposed to be in the hospital. I figured you might be getting back to mischief. No boy, no school, no home to go to. You weren't sneakin' off the smoke pot with the big kids, will ya? Well. You were dabbling in something a lot more dangerous. You should have told me! I did tell you. I told you to bring the book to me. What?

Why? So you could escape the hospital? You seem perfectly capable of doing that without the book. No. No no I need it so I can find them. No, mister Gus. You need to help me, Cassie. They're gone from this world, but I think with the dark tome, I might be able to find them. I can't do it by myself. SHUT UP! Shut up you horrible bird! I don't ever want to open that book again. The dark tome doesn't light up for me like it does for you. I guess I've gotten too old.

Wash some of the magic. With you, Cassie, we can travel all sorts of places. Come on. Bye, Mr. Gussie. Come on Cassie! Cassie! I had lost track of time. When I went into Gussie's bookshop it was maybe four and now it was full dark. Since it was no longer safe in my hiding place, I figured it couldn't be any worse to go home. My mom would be pissed, pissed drunk, at least. Mom? Where have you been? Mm-hmm. Nowhere.

Don't you lie to me. You smell like you've been hanging out around a campfire. And have you been drinking? King, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. Oh. No, of course not. Where's Mark? The bottle. He'll be back in a minute. Why? You got a problem with him? It's not that Hey hold on a second, I need to let something in. Ah sure. Whoa! It's a mechanical bird, Mom. He came out of hell. I thought you'd get along great with him. The f But try telling it a lie. It loves lies.

Never lie, Cassie, not to you, not to anybody. Holy shit, it works! What? Try it again. What are you- Talking about. Like talk about your drinking. What drinking? Cassia I told you I'm trying to quit. It really works. It's like I don't even care anymore. Mark hits me, you know. Never hit. You and that bird, Mom, I think you're going to get along great. You don't know what it's like for me as a person. I didn't sign up to be a single mom. I didn't even want to be a mom in the first place.

Wait, wait. That's not what I meant to say. I think it is. Cassie Cassie I love you Cassie don't forget that everything I do I'm thinking of you You first. Would someone turn that horrible thing off?

I got in my room and I didn't start crying like I thought I would. Instead, I found myself thinking of the dark place. I started thinking about Mr. And most of all, I started thinking about that damn bird. I stared at the ceiling and the shadow. I heard cars on the street. And I Beneath them I could hear the lowest Mechanical bird. From my window I could see all of Main Street. From the barber's to the furniture store to the unremarkable two story tenement on the corner.

My window overlooked a fire escape, and my mom would be passed out in an hour if she wasn't already. And I didn't care what she had to say anyway. I opened the window, climbed out onto the rusty metal stairs. and headed to Gussie's again. I needed another story.

Legendary stories, awe-inspiring sound, and endless adventure. Welcome. To the realms of peril and glory. Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale. The paranormal mysteries of Liminal London. And the cyberpunk chaos of cyborg. Yeah. Fall in love with our core caste. Or Be awed by our incredible guests from familiar shows like Oxventure, Three Black Halflings, and No Rolls Bard.

Ignite your imagination and discover the realms of peril and glory today. Go to realmspod.com or search realms of peril and glory wherever you listen to podcasts. There are vampires out there. Heading towards the first. That hangs above our heads. Yeah. Who do you look to when things are at their darkest? From the creators of Parc Del Haunts comes way too.

You've been listening to The Dark Tome, a Dagaz media production presented by Realm, produced by Fred Greenholge and William DeVries. Full cast and crew credits, behind the scenes photos and transcript. Dot com that's the Darktome dot com It was Sonic Cinema.