#EldritchGirl S03E09: All hail the Beast

Listen nowBuy the bookAll Hail the Beast

This chapter was a mix of several drafts, as I wrote this in about 4 different ways from different POVs. I ultimately decided that Katy’s transition from ‘killing machine’ to the other aspect of Mars, a guardian-type aspect, would be showcased best here with an act of mercy the Beast has only shown to Wes and Ricky so far.

Katy’s mental health issues won’t be resolved in this book (and maybe never) but this is a first step for her in reconciling some parts of herself, and the setting of a deconsecrated parish church worked in a few ways for this moment.

I quite liked making this church the central focus for this chapter, so you get the sense of family history colliding with local history and being the place where their current gods appear and come into their roles. Also that this is the scene of a thwarted sacrifice, which was set up as the opposite of the sacrifice of Christ, so there’s an inversion of action vs intent, and an act of mercy at the altar rail area, so I quite liked all those allusions too.

I also enjoyed writing the way Layla sees Katy in that moment, and playing with the Lovecraftian mythos-esque descriptions.

Her eyes reflected the impossible vastness of her god, warping the dimensions of the space around them. The Beast reared, expanding. There was nothing for its worshipper now but the grey seal-hide sky, which was its skin, nothing but the glow of the desolate twin suns flecked with constellations of voids, which were its eyes.

The worshipper swooned in ecstatic, perfect terror.

The Beast contemplated it for a moment, and finally, graciously, surprising even itself, had mercy. More than mercy. The Beast scooped up the unconscious titbit in the trumpet-folds of jaws, but did not swallow. It wanted to protect.

The Day We Ate Grandad – C. M. Rosens

Bonus Easter Egg

I threw in a little Easter Egg for The Folklore of Pagham-on-Sea Volume 1, where many of the folklore stories have been recorded by Rev. J. D. Allardyce, who appears on the plaque on the church wall as one of its incumbents:

This was where the Pendles had filled the pews since time immemorial, and where the vicar had gone insane in 1893 after a visit from the three Pendle sisters. The story went that Reverend Winborn recorded their sham marriages into the parish register, then flung himself from the bell tower and dashed himself to pieces on the gravestones.

Wes spotted the plaque of incumbents and vicars on the wall, where Winborn took his place between Revs. Starley and Allardyce. He wondered what they would make of this farce.

The Day We Ate Grandad – C. M. Rosens

Blink and you miss it, but there he is.

Dirk Gently – Everything is Connected gif Buy Folklore Vol 1