Various (Editor: Pardoe, Rosemary) - Ghosts & Scholars Book Of Landscape Figures
Editor Pardoe hints that this may be the final G&S assortment. Here’s hoping she has a change of heart.
Not all locations feature chalk drawn figures, as “The White Round” indicates. The narrator relates the quest; two of the globes are visible, yet the third is hidden, for good reason.
Many figures have vanished, through neglect or obfuscation. “Figures On A Hillside” suggests the latter, although our characters’ curiosity regarding the sinister Shuttle-go borders on reckless.
“Chalk” is pitch black humor. The vain, careless girl, much, much too pretty for casual layabouts.
One yarn tries to be funny – tries hard and fails. To hammer home every attempt, the author resorts to italics, ALL CAPS, and a river of exclamation points!!! Akin to the stale comedian going, “Get it? Get it?”
“The Regulars” were at their usual pub, when one inquired about the painting behind the bar. Of the founder. The scion who built seven pubs, five of which form a star. Alcohol, they say, clouds judgment and spurs inquisitiveness. Oh, our lads are resourceful.
‘Whatever really happened to Parnell?’ asks one of the more insistent fellows of the club. “Dyrehill Park” is an old-fashioned yarn. Fireplace, armchairs, cigars and whiskey. Suffice to say, Parnell, an amateur historian, went “looking”.
Lo, those amazing ghost experts, whether televised, podcasters, or scribblers. Bunch of right wallys if you ask me. What? Yes, I know, you didn’t ask me. Eric somehow finds himself in the Ghost Hunters’ Club, out to find “The Lickey Beast”. Of course, our perky host and he cameraman see nothing – that lot wouldn’t see a ferret in their living room. Yet Eric, along with another guest, senses a presence. And the presence senses him in return.
An imaginative array here. Not simply hillside chalk on moonlit rambles. Let these inspire you. Create something in your own tired backyard. Perhaps the Asherah pole.