Tales of the Peculiar
Page 14
8. This small, popular revolt was the beginning of matriarchal ymbryne leadership in peculiardom, but it was not a clean break. The council and its cronies did not let go of power easily, and in years following they staged a series of unsuccessful coups. But that’s a story for another time.
9. Ymeene’s tree was a destination for peculiar pilgrims for many years, but its location has long been lost. One of her tan-and-black tail feathers was saved, however, an ancient relic that can still be viewed in the Pantheon of Notables, safely behind glass.
10. This is also true of grimbears, unless you have a special bond with one.
11. Dancing Plague killed millions, but its victims invented the fox-trot, the Charleston, and the cha-cha slide. So, a mixed bag.
12. It would seem that word of Britain’s ymbrynes spread far and wide across the world, becoming the stuff of legend even among non-peculiars.
13. Living islands are virtually unknown in peculiardom today. If any still exist, they stay very well hidden. No one can blame them for being shy—historically, such islands have been mined for their blood, a process every bit as grotesque and painful as it sounds.
14. Technically it wasn’t a lie, since his father’s body was Cocobolo.
15. Known today as Eel Pie Island, it has long been a meeting place for the peculiar. It was a favorite haunt of King Henry VIII, and in the twentieth century, hippies, anarchists, and rock musicians flocked there.
16. Some accounts of the fire even have the pigeons fanning the flames with their wings. Truly a shameful moment in peculiar history.
17. There are many dream-manipulators in peculiar history, but only one who shared Lavinia’s talent for making real the immaterial stuff of dreams. His name was Cyrus and he was a thief of pleasant dreams: he needed them to survive, and became infamous for stealing the happiness of entire towns, one night and one house at a time.
18. Much has been made of this passage, which some read as evidence that Lavinia’s nightmare ball is demonic in origin, and that Lavinia herself is a sort of dream exorcist. Personally, I think that’s silly, and that some so-called academics watch too many horror movies in their spare time. The ball merely has a few unpleasant habits.
19. How Erick knew the boy was peculiar from a simple laying-on of hands isn’t clear; it’s possible he was himself peculiar, and his ability was detecting peculiarity in others, even latent or undeveloped talents.
20. Extraordinary locust plagues afflicted the American West throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The largest ever recorded appeared in 1875, when a swarm of more than twelve trillion locusts, blanketing an area larger than California, devastated the plains.
21. This was mostly likely Vitaligis Peculiaris, a medical book written in half-invented Latin by an unknown quack physician of long ago. Some of the advice it gives is quite sound, but most is madness; the trick is telling the difference.
22. There are many accounts of villainous persons making false lights in order to confuse and deliberately wreck ships, but this is the only mention anywhere, in history or folklore, of a peculiar’s power being used for such purposes.
23. The Hannah is not fiction. It was a real ship—and now an infamous one—that sailed from the Irish port of Newry on April 3, 1849, under the command of an inexperienced captain named Curry Shaw. Just twenty-three at the time, he had already earned a reputation as a ruthless man, and was widely despised even before the terrible events that befell his vessel.
24. This, too, is verified by history: late on the night of April 27, the Hannah struck an iceberg, and Shaw fled with his crew in the only lifeboat.
25. That is not to say giants disappeared altogether; they simply stopped walking the earth. Read the tale “Cocobolo” to learn what became of them.
26. They reached the cliff-top via an ingenious rope-and-pulley system Miss Wren engineered herself.
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