Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Mass Market Groceries and Books
While Lowellwood is too small to support a full-sized grocery store, and far too small for its own bookstore, by combining the two into a single unit, it is a surprisingly viable business. They were separate businesses until 1975, with the bookstore operating as the Lodestone Occult Reading Room and catering to the once-vibrant spiritualist community on the island. Much of the old stock is still onhand in the bookstore half. There is nothing unusual about the grocery half other than the consistently outstanding quality of their fish, which come from an unnamed supplier.

The Wreck of the SS Lola
Lost in a powerful Force 10 gale on the lake, the SS Lola’s remains have become a navigational hazard and occasional target of recreational divers braving the chilly waters. Once piloted by E. Keane, the Lola foundered soon after his death and went to the bottom with a cargo of alpacas, payroll for local businesses, and seven crates whose contents were redacted from the manifest.

Lowellwood Civic Building & Museum
Commissioned at the height of the postwar tourism boom in 1927, the Lowellwood Civic Building houses most of the island’s offices and functionaries. Thanks to automation, a decreased population, and the 1982 abolition of for-profit llama farming, the building was too large for its intended purpose by 1970, which led to the unused portion being converted into a museum.

St. Kilda’s Academy for Wayward Youths
St. Kilda’s prides itself on offering a rigorous boarding school experience intended to prepare troubled youth for careers as public administrators. Local luminaries such as Edward Manseford, K. D. Brewster, and Phoebus T. Klaus can be counted among its alumni. Students enroll in one of four Houses–Hirta, Soay, Boreay, or Dun–and many of the school’s rituals and traditions date back over a century. The disappearance of several Dun House students from a mid-century class continues to excite gossip in the village to this day

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

It can be difficult to sex porcelain teacups at first; you may need to wait until they are coffee mugs to make a proper determination of which will grow up to be teapots and which will be pitchers. Remember that while you can have several teapots, it is inadvisable to have more than one pitcher, as they will fight to the death for dominance.

Once you have an adult teapot, you can easily use her to breed additional cups. She will also lay unfertilized cups if no pitcher is present. The pot will keep making cups until she has a full set; at that point she will go brewdy and make tea to fill her hungry children with.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The tales and song of eons past
The gods and their decisions
Were vested in the highest priest
His body covered with incisions
Each mark he made upon his flesh
A story it represented
The mantle passed to someone fresh
When the body no longer bled
The priests they trained for many years
An apprentice in their keeping
They spoke their wisdom in the ears
Their successor oft was seeking
Until the day the strangers came
And made war upon the people
The priest did fall like cornered game
And his apprentice was left too feeble
When both were dead, there was no one
Who remembered all the stories
Ten thousand years of life had come
To an end with no more glory

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The Green Note
This jazz club started life as a speakeasy during Lowellwood Island’s days as a Prohibition haven, and the music has kept right on playing to the present day. There were difficulties–like a short stint as a juke joint in the 50s and a disastrous discotheque period in the 70s–but The Green Note has persevered. There are still nightly shows from local and roadshow artists, as well as the highly-regarded Green Note Jazz Days festival over Labor Day. It’s widely believed that playing at The Green Note kicks musical careers up a notch, leading to future success. But why do they musicians almost always sing for free?

It’s Bean Real
A hot new beanery on the rise, It’s Bean Real combines artisan roasting techniques with classic architecture to form a heady brew. With the strongest, cheapest, and creamiest coffee for leagues around, some have grumbled that master barista K. D. Brewster is unfairly undercutting the competition, but the coffee shop still follows an ideosyncratic schedule and imposes a strict limit of two cups per customer of the house roast. The house it is built into, the Manseford House, was reportedly unsellable for years, though no one quite remembers why.

Keane Beach
Named after E. Keane, a longtime ferry operator who drowned offshore after delivering a cargo of llamas, this beach is the closest point on Lowellwood to the mainland, allowing it to be seen on clear days. It’s a great place for a family picnic and also serves as the island’s auxiliary port. The lake’s eddies and currents mean that it’s also a great place to find things that have gone missing in its waters–they tend to wash up here.

Warwick Arboretum
A beautiful place with plenty of carefully manicured trees and plants, Warwick Arboretum was donated to Lowellwood by eccentric resident Edward Manseford, whose only condition was that the trees be planted in a very specific configuration and replaced if they ever sickened or fell. Mr. Manseford’s will, in fact, declares that the arboretum is “property of the self-same trees and their natural descendants and adopted heirs” until “such time as the true Owner reveals themselves and claims that which has been held in trust.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

An uncertain egg
For uncertain times
Cracked
Wide
Open
And inside
The future?
The end?
A mess either way.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The sound came like nails on a chalkboard, and the crow hopped forward, wings open aggressively, toward the new arrival. Only its aggressive action kept the other, smaller, birds from fleeing at once.

Sauntering in, the squirrel nodded at the birds. “How ya doin’?” it said. “I hear you’ve been having problems with a feeder.”

“Yes,” the finch began. “Those cardinals–”

“Look, I don’t care about your petty little squabbles, all right?” the squirrel said. “I’ve got a proposition for you. And I think you’re gonna like it.”

“You!” the cardinal fumed. “Your propositions all involve gorging yourself until you’re so fat that you fall off the feeder!”

“Maybe,” the squirrel said. “But what if I tell you that, after I’ve had my fill, you can all do the same?”

“We’re listening,” the crow said, warily. “What do you propose?”

“Easy,” the squirrel said. “We knock the feeder down.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“We have called this meeting to negotiate over the use of the feeder,” said the crow. “As I am too large to use it, I have been chosen as mediator.”

“Yes! It is time to end the finches’ domination of the best food source in the area,” cried the sparrow. “Those bullies have chased the rest of us smaller birds away until there is nothing left but scraps!”

“And yet, why is it that whenever we have a moment’s feeding time, we are always chased away by the cardinals?” retorted the finch.

“You look at us when the cowbirds are using the feeder too?” cried the cardinal, fluffing his feathers and extending his crest. “Those parasites are gorging themselves on seeds before leaving their eggs in our nests!”

“Oy!” burbled the cowbird. “Ya best not be droppin’ inside yer own nest afore ya tell others ta clean up, eh? Cor, the cardinals’re fightin’ ’emselves as much as they is us!”

“Fighting that just scares us all away,” said the dove sadly, “meaning we just have to come back to eat more.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

ACFrOgB0Y: I had another sustained vision last night. I saw the world aflame, burning, and myself as an ember dancing upon it–riding the blastwave, yet powerless to effect its course.

darcysustained: lol wut

ACFrOgB0Y: My dream. I’m talking about that dream I keep having. A chilling vision of things to come.

darcysustained: ok lol

ACFrOgB0Y: …why are we friends.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Lowellwood Sanitinyum
Founded in 1880 by one Dr. Phoebus T. Klaus, the Sanitinyum reflects his theory that a rigorous dose of claustrophobia is as important as steam baths, enemas, and high-fiber diets in maintaining general wellness. Though Dr. Klaus’s theories have long since been disproven, the Sanitinyum remains as a modern clinic that, despite renovations, is still pretty small.

This Old Thing Antiques
The island of Lowellwood has been a summer colony for folks on the main island, and This Old Thing has dedicated itself to monetizing this heritage. Through a rigorous program of picking, garage sailing, and dumpster diving, the owners have managed to accumulate a dazzling variety of old, interesting, and potentially cursed items.

Kneadful Things
One of the oldest businesses on Lowellwood, Kneadful Things has been a rising star for decades, and is definitely on a roll. Its frosted Halloween cookies are a seasonal staple, its jack o’lantern pies light up faces the whole island over, and its award-winning breads are favored by all but the crustiest customers. Talk of strange ingredients and sourdough starter of eldritch origin are surely just stale rumors.

Beau Bijoux
A bastion of haute couture on Lowellwood, Beau Bijoux is currently in its third generation of local ownership. Rising up from humble origins when socialite and starlet Marlene Withers retreated to the island and began selling her jewelry to support herself, Beau Bijoux now stocks a dazzling blend of old heirlooms and new stones. Whether you want a rock that rocks or a stone that rolls, Beau Bijoux has you covered! For the adventurous, there is always the Forbidden Collection as well, stones whose histories hint at grim fates for any who would dare to wear.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

You can see it there, on the tidal flats, on a good clear day. Too hot and the shimmers will start coming up, making it look like some kind of ghost. But it’s real, and it stalks the approaches to the old flooded city during broad daylight as well as dusk. I’d call it a predator, but it doesn’t seem to eat what it kills. At least, not any parts we can see.

What’s that? Oh, what it looks like? No one’s gotten too close and lived to tell the tale, but if you look over the beach from Shady Bluff you can get a decent look at it, especially with binoculars or a spyglass. It’s tall, nine feet at least, and spindly as all get-out. Almost scarecrow-like, and real thin. I bet you could knock it off those tall thin legs real easily if you got close.

No, I don’t know what it’s made of. Looks black and iridescent. Some folks have said it’s metal, some flesh, some hard like a bug. I don’t much care. It looks like a thin man but it’s bigger and faster, that’s all I care about.

It’s the head you’ve got to be careful of. Get too close, and it’ll…well, I’d call it a scream, but you can’t hear it. It’s like a dog whistle. Make a little ripple in the air like you see with some big explosions, and if you’re too close, you drop dead. Bleeding from the ears.

It can hear you real good, and if you try to make the trip, it’ll come for you straight. Some people have made it. A few have even come back. But I wouldn’t do it if I were you. We did something, something that got things all stirred up around the old flooded city. and it’ll never forgive us. Not ever.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!