I was touched by your tender reminiscences of those strange days so many years ago. I was a young man at the time and remember reading the alarming reports in the papers to my lovely wife Arienne. I am ashamed to say that we laughed about the strange maladies that seemed always to befall city folk, no doubt as a result of the squalor and crowding, and the incessant clatter of gears and gouts of roiling steam. We were content in the safety of our little village, and shared the belief that the city was strange place, far far away, and this plague could not possibly ever touch our blessed little hamlet.

How could we have known …?

Shallis, it turns out, was not transmitted by air or touch, but by imagination itself. I don’t know how our daughter, Pennifer, heard the word of Shallis, but I fear she overheard us laughing over the news reports, and once the word got into her head…

We awoke one morning to find Pennifer gone, and in her place an adorable little miniature pony, with a mane of curly hair in exactly the same color as Pennifer’s. We took the pony to all the practitioners of the Occult in the county, there was no way to reverse the transformation, though they did detect the residue of some ancient incantation of unknown provenance. We read that in desperation to stop the plague, the children in the city were taken away, so we kept our private tragedy a secret, as well as we could, and kept Pennifer, and loved her as well as we could.

I was amazed how well Arienne handled our Daughter’s transformation, but I didn’t understand… who did? Nobody understood… truly understood the word of Shallis.
But I suppose Arienne did. For one morning, I woke to find myself alone in bed. I called out for Arienne, but there was no answer. Then I heard a clamour downstairs, the clattering of horse hooves on the wooden floors, a loud whinny, and a crash as the front door was smashed from its hinges. With a dread I can not describe, I ran down stairs and out through the shattered door. I saw them then, two horses. One was Pennifer, but the other was much larger. It was sleek and snowy white, and prancing about in indescribable joy. They were galloping away in the heather. I called out to them, but they never looked back. They jumped the short stone wall on the edge of our lot, and in moments they had disappeared over the hilltop, never to be seen again.

While I look forward to your informative investigations and the records, both photographic and audiographic, of your experiences, I wish to take a moment to speak to your most capable assistant, the dear Miss Watkins.

Miss Watkins,
At the end of the Field Sounds recording that was released at the end of last month, you apologized for not providing a proper edition! My dearest lady, you need not do so!

With the good Doctor seeming to be locked in some sort of wild research intensive state (a sporadic condition that I have observed in my own associates who are of the scientific bend) or at least some form of melancholy (a more common and regular condition observed in both scientists and philosophers, which can lead to an outbreak of the former state mentioned), you took up the mantle of responsibility to provide your dedicated listeners with a tale of your youth.

And what a tale it is! By the end of it, your words had me on the edge of my chair with an intense desire to know all that happened to your classmates, particularly your best friend. I hope that one day word of her can be found to put your heart at rest. Perhaps this year, or the next, she will be found amongst the group who migrate back to the old school. (Yes, the choice of the word migrate here is quite deliberate, for with the presence of amnesia what other instinct could account for such events?)

I have also come to the conclusion, while those of our mutual gender are not commonly given to the scientific disciplines, it is remiss for us and the gentlemen that we associate with, to discount the value of observations originating with the feminine gender. Your recollections, despite the years between the event and the recording, are quite complete and informative, with nuances that I believe most gentlemen would miss.

Men will see an object with one light while women will see that same object in a different one. Neither is an absolute picture of what that object is. I am of the firm belief that is it is only when gentlemen and ladies work together in scientific and philosophic endeavors, combining their observations, that the complete truth can be most closely discovered.

So my dear Miss Watkins, your story was quite interesting and considering the restrictions placed upon you a worthy addition to the Field Sounds library.

Yours truly,
Ms. M. Grace Cady

Your assistant’s story is timely indeedy, as just this week some of our very own kidlings went missing! While they had not been transformed into beasts as in the delightful Miss Watkins’ story, they were indeed caged like animals.

On the very same day that the younguns vanished, our own Informatitron simply stopped working, which is why I have not communicationed until now. On that day Mam set out tracking the kidlings, as she has a hunter’s sense and a mother’s ferocity, while I set about dismantlating the Informatitron. Over two days I tested every darn part of the device, but could find no warts or contamination. Mam returned before I made any progress.

“Scent stops at the Boggart lotion factory,” she said. “Morstimply wouldn’t answer my callings out.”

“Maybe he’s not home,” I suggested. “He is a busy man.”

“Could smell his cigar burning fresh on the other side of the iron wall. Heard Judith as well. there’s no mistaking her wheezy cough three octaves higher than a bird call. Also, heard there were no answerings when Walmert tried to restock the new Bogart-free lotion. I fears Mrs. Morstimply has also gone a-missing.”

“If only I could get through on this device! I could certainly ask for some scholarly advice over the Informatitron!” My fist came down on the machine. I quickly checked to see if it now worked, as sometimes that’s exactly what fancy technology needs, but it wasn’t to be.

“Maybe it’s not connected,” Mam suggested.

I laughed. What do women know of technology!

When she wasn’t looking, I started tracing the wire out the window. It was attached to Gullywag’s post and wire fence which wraps all around Gullywag’s property, nearly to the railroad tracks. It saved me tons of wire. I simply tied the fence wire using a short line directly to the tracks to get a signal in, as the Informatitron communications travel alongs the railroad tracks, connected there I hear in a secret location by the Informatitron Freedom Brigade in the City. (I do hope it is safe to comment about such things.)

I discovered the wire had indeed been snipped! Just as I was twisting the ends back together, I heard this loud roar. There wasn’t a train scheduled to pass through our parts this month, so I was astonished when the huge, black locomotive roared into view in the distance, whistle blowing. I was double astonished to find it covered with spear armed Boggarts. What a sight it was! They were all over the machine, gripping with their sticky little hands, catching insects with long tongues. The Mr. Darcy dressed Boggart stood on the cow-catcher, arm out, spear extended, like he was leading a charge. Near the wheels groups of Boggarts started feeding down links of swamp-tar-rope. The stuff is like hard rubber when it heats, you see, and as it wrapped the wheels it formed what looked to be one of those fancy new automobile tires. The train jumped the track, clouds of brown earth and coal soot in the air.

I saw a figure waving out of the conductors booth wearing goggles with one lens longer than the other, a sextant on a gadget cloak shoulder. Young Dimbain the Second!

“We’re here to rescue the family!” he cried.

“How did you know they were kidnapped?” I yelled.

“A little bird told me!” he shouted. He tossed something out the window as as the train passed near me, paper fluttering to the ground. “Kelliwammer attacked us on the road, but the Baggarts fought him off,” he said, then covering his mouth with a long gray scarf.

I grabbed up the paper, shouting, “But what are you going to do? There might be armed guards on the walls of the factory, bars on the windows inside! Your mother will be very upset with me if she hears I let you mount a rescue by yourself.”

“But I’m not by myself, Paps! I have friends! besides, iron is a great conductor, and we have plenty of coal and flammable swamp tar to heat it up. That should remove anyone stupid enough to stand on an iron wall. This train can certainly open the doors, and the Boggarts are small enough to squeeze through any window bars, fetching keys, disarming those that need it. Tell Ma we’ll be home for dinner!”

The train began a slow turn, plowing over brush and grass, eventually making it’s way onto the dirt road, caboose swinging wildly at the tail.

I glanced at the paper: a photonic capture of all things. On it was a most unspeakable image. Seems the Bird Queen had conspired to help capture Senitor Kelliwammer in an awkward position… one with his pants down as they say, and some ruffled feathers. Mam certainly did chortle something fierce when she saw it. I fear Mr. Kelliwammer will be finding a new job soon.

I don’t know how they managed to get such a capture, but you might want to be sure none of your photonic devices have gone missing. If one has, I will talk sternly to Dimbain the Second and be sure he returns it to you promptly.

Sincerely,

Dimbain H. Wiggins