Or at least one mellow longdog, in today’s passing ramble about dogs and conjure-women. For whilst Chilli dozes on the sofa, and an author struggles to put words into some sort of useful order to earn frozen chicken, Django shows no signs of settling. The very colour of Autumn, he disappears into swirls of leaves with his usual bumbling energy. He is essentially a dog who does very little, but all of it with great enthusiasm. Rush across to pee on the nettles. Rush back to pee on that bush. Follow a scent for a while and then forget what he’s doing. Look the wrong way and walk into a tree. Repeat….

Despite this, we’ve noticed that his interest in squirrels has waned somewhat in the last year. Only the marauding neighbourhood cats really excite him now. Yesterday a small squirrel patrol, obviously sensing this, ran across the path in front of him, in the woods. His response? Ooh look, a new sniffy bush. Must pee on it. They could have dug a trench and fortified it with machine gun emplacements before he paid much attention.

Had Chilli been there, even though she’s a year older than he is, she would have been trying to get up the next tree after them. She retains a classic lurcher trait – alertness with extremely fast reactions, surging across the entire length of a field in half a second if a twig moves, and then going home to snooze. At nine, she simply snoozes for longer afterwards. We took them both out at the weekend, and she circled an entire field in the time it took Django to decide whether or not he was going to pee on a dock leaf.

our current terrible twosome, Chilli (l) and Django (r)

Her major change as she ages is to pick and choose her walks these days. If it looks like a major expedition involving at least two people and the car, she rams her muzzle into the Halti at top speed. If she thinks it may involve circling the block and a bit of wasteland, she goes 50:50. Sometimes she’ll grace us with her presence, other times she’ll hop back onto the sofa and make it quite clear – do it yourself. The walk has to be interesting, is the bottom line.

Lurchers and longdogs are strange beasts, basically. We often make broad comments about their habits in general, but even though many have common traits, each is still a very distinct dog, and personality. As pups they seem quite mad, and occasionally they keep this up for the rest of their lives – our late Jade never mellowed, and was hauling on the lead at fourteen, with as strong a prey drive as ever.

We shall see what happens next with these two, and enjoy it all.

The Unmellow One

As for mellow writer/editors, not so much. Last time we mentioned that Hell’s Empire, coming from Ulthar Press, was opening for submissions, edited by the old greydog, who rarely pees on your bushes. We’ve already had a number of story pitches and some very tantalising ideas sent in – we’re feeling good about this one (often an unwise move).

But other anthologies are underway, including Occult Detective Quarterly Presents, from Electric Pentacle Press. What we need next is the planned Kickstarter for this one, which is both a pre-order offer and a way of seeing if we can get all the stories illustrated as well. The Kickstarter should be done in a couple of weeks.

That dear confused chap Linwood Grant has also had two Mamma Lucy stories published recently, with two more under consideration and a fifth being completed. The eventual aim would be to produce a Mamma Lucy collection, exploring hoodoo, conjure-work and that American folk-horror feel during the 1920s.

You can find the first story of her endeavours in Speakeasies and Spiritualists, from 18thWall Productions.

The smooth tones of the saxophone; the taste of cigarette smoke under her tongue. Late Monday night at the Ivory Club, and she was almost ready to fall towards her bed. A last dancer sat on the edge of the stage, listening to the sax and trying to pick gum off the sole of one of her shoes. There were only ten or eleven patrons left.

“Anything here you can’t handle, Marcel? she asked the thin man at her side.

He shook his head. “Lieutenant Chase is crying into his martini again, that’s about the worst of it.”

“Have one of the girl find him a cab.”

“Sure, Miss Garvey.”

She glanced around, checking those shadowy corners of the club where deals were made and hearts broken. Under the peeling stucco of a fake arch, a large man sat protectively over a brandy bottle and a half-empty glass. She peered through the lingering smoke.

“Who’s that guy?”

Her manager hesitated. “Some limey. Been here a few nights, on and off.”

“Trouble?”

“Maybe if someone pokes him. Hettie tried it on with him, says he growled and gave her the hard eye.”

“Hmm.”

Hettie was a pure-gold package, a dancer with the face, body and voice for Broadway. No-one turned her away. Intrigued, she wandered over to the arch and perched on a chair at the man’s table.

“Florence Garvey,” she said softly. “The owner of the Ivory Club.”

His clothes were wrong – old-fashioned and not New York cut. He didn’t look up.

“It’s rude to ignore a lady, you know.” She gestured to Marcel.

She would have one final drink for the night, she decided. The manager brought a shot-glass for her, and she poured herself a neat brandy from the bottle on the table. This was the good stuff, brought in through Canada via Quebec. She waved Marcel away.

The big man looked up, and Florence Garvey remembered what it was like to be a small, uncertain child.

‘Hoodoo Man’, John Linwood Grant

Speakeasies and Spiritualists is available through the following links. Readers in North America and Great Britain who want the e-book can go directly through the 18thWall shop (first link below), which provides more formats.

18thWall Productions (ebook) http://18thwall.com/product/speakeasies-and-spiritualists/

Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Speakeasies-Spiritualists-Nicole-Petit-ebook/dp/B075CKGN6Q

Amazon UK http://amzn.eu/2rxuzAr

That first offering explains Mamma Lucy’s place in the Tales of the Last Edwardian series; the second, in this year’s Weirdbook Annual, is a pure standalone, where she sense trouble in North Carolina.

Maple and birch swayed above her as she followed the trail. The dimes jangled on her ankle, but stayed bright. A mile or so along, past a stand of swamp bay, she saw it. Five stones on the road, laid between ruts. Others would have seen nothing; Mamma Lucy knew a five-spot. Conjure work.

She knelt down and dug under one of the four corner stones. It came up easy – a flannel wrap of black dust and roots. Whatever was fixed there, it hadn’t been done well or proper. The powder tasted sour, milk in a thunderstorm.

“Half a trick, too much guessin’,” she muttered.

She went on with more interest. Bluegill Creek was a deep flush of water, but easily forded where the trail crossed it. And there was the place she’d been looking for – a low timber house in a clearing. A family place, with chickens and a rough barn; a battered truck rottening by the barn, rust on the grille.

There was welcome and there was welcome. Mamma Lucy spat and smoothed her frizzed grey hair. She reached into her carpet bag and took out a battered flask. A swill of whiskey for her throat, and then a few drops to feed the green felt mojo bag in her dress pocket. That would do.

‘The Witch of Pender’, John Linwood Grant

You can get Weirdbook Annual #1: Witches here: