Uncle Sparky and The Haunted Socks
Dearest Gunilla,
I know that you are very busy with your own Jul preparations, and I admit that my own letter will be short this year since the milkweed harvest has been long, large, and extremely unruly this year. That said, Wash and Clovis had a curious adventure during a visit to the stately home and Jul stocking workshop of their cousins on the historic Sockington Estate I am, therefore, turning this year's story to Dr. Fourre-tout himself.
The very best and jolliest of Juls to you and all the Dyrsens! The doors of Myristica are always open should you ever chance to visit us yourself, but until then I remain, as always, your fondest cousin
Attis J. Püppendottir
From the Case Files of Dr. Washington "Wash" Fenimore Fourre-Tout, PhD, Cryptocrepundologist and Friend of Toast
Chapter One
Early in October Clovis and I were invited to tea at the Sockington Estate. As we had just completed work on an article for Cryptocrepundology Weekly and it was still several days until start of the Jul season, we were ready for a jaunt. Especially with toast.
I don't know if you are familiar with Sockington & Co. Finest Stockings, All Sorts and Sizes for Every Jul, but the family has been in business for some time. Argyle Sockington, one of the Sockefeller Sockingtons, and a bright young inventor named Eusticius "Stitch" Highwool opened their first stocking shop in the autumn of 1898 after the infamous 1897 Jul Stocking Shortage* (*Footnote: following editor Francis Pharcellus Church's reply to 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon's query as to the existence of Santa Claus in the New York Sun on September 21, 1897, Christmas stockings were in such demand that they were as scarce as elbows on a chicken.)
Argyle and his daughters Flossie and Perle, along with Stitch and his charming wife Millie, (née Charlotta Camille deLaine), all of whom came from a branch of the Ouessant family known for luxurious long wool so fast-growing that the deLaines were already well-known for their line of scissors), engineered a Jul stocking with a specially reinforced orange pocket designed to prevent the dreaded Christmas Eve Citrus Sag / Drop*, the bane of every Julster's heart. (*As it is traditional to put the orange in first, the fruit plunges immediately to the toe, stretching the stocking out so that it becomes impossible to put in almost anything else without a lot of irritation and grousing on the part of those charged with filling the stockings.)
The partnership was immediately successful. It seemed an ideal match, but it cannot be denied that there were some noteable upheavals along the way. Argyle was a hard-nosed businessman first and foremost ("Old Sockington? Very nearly *Sippian (term for a human being) if you ask me", not a few said after striking a bargain with Argyle). Stitch Highwool, on the other hand, was an enthusiastic naturalist and bon vivant who was just as likely to be found out catching snowflakes on his tongue and writing haiku about the taste of each one as designing a new line of stocking, or doodling butterflies on the factory output charts.
But all that aside, the storms were weathered and Sockington's grew to a year-round workshop supplying hearths and mantels in every country that celebrates Jul by leaving stockings out for a mysterious bringer of presents.
Stitch and Millie Highwool spent more and more time on their interests in botanical exploration; they left for a voyage early one Jul season and after the first week there was no word. Argyle grew crabbier and crabbier as the seasons passed and there was no word from the Highwools, and he finally shut himself up in his office in the tower, refusing all visitors and grumbling about ungrateful serpents' teeth and so on. Perle and Flossie Sockington had gradually assumed all management of Sockington's and still reside in the original workshop, where they serve a sumptuous tea featuring lemon curd made from the lemons in their own conservatory, brought from the tropics by the Highwools after an excursion to document new dye plants for the sock factory.
We arrived at Sockington Estate where we were ushered in by an intern wearing the newest Jul design, a very jolly pattern of repeating hreindyr* (small species of reindeer indigenous to Northern Europe) stripes and tinselvine* (reference to the major agricultural exports of Myristica and other Household farms worldwide). "Just this way, gentlefolk," he pointed us to a table groaning wtih a variety of lemon cookies, lemon tarts, and a hot lemon mint sweet tea of which Victorine would have approved. (although Mischa and Beech would have suggested pairing it with a little of their milkweed silk apèratif).
We rejoiced to see so many of our friends and mentors from our early days in The Order of Friends of Toast * (footnote about FoT, and the Order of the Golden Crumb, Crouton d'Or)
"How nice to see you both!" Miss Perle clapped her little gloves. "We haven't seen you since you were just little sprigs!" Miss Flossie patted the chair next to her. "We'll just settle in for a nice long chat and eat up these nice little tarts that Perle baked this very morning. Our lemons are coming on a treat, so if there are any left, we insist you take a big box home with you, as we're expecting just one more for tea today."
Just as the Misses Sockington (impossible to separate them except by their hat trims- Perle is fond of tropical foliage, while Flossie prefers fruit ) Perle was filling our cups and Flossie was laying on the cream with a lavish hand, the door blew open and an explosion in vivid chartreuse scarves blew into the room like a bad dream, the intern trailing behind and fighting off the backslip of diaphanous material as it wound around his head and feet like ghostly green pythons.
"Madame Ordealya!" the Misses Sockingtons cried. "How wonderful to see you. Tea?"
"Of course, my darling darlings," the scarf-draped apparition intoned in a voice that undulated as lush and green as its drapings.
Clovis raised one eyebrow at me over his cup. I shook my head the tiniest bit. I didn't know who this might possibly be.
"Madame Ordealya," Flossie began, "is the answer our little problem," Perle finished in a whisper.
Again, I was at sea. What problem?
"You see," said Flossie,
"We're haunted. " said Perle.
Chapter Two
The intern assisted Mme Ordealya Kravatsky in unwinding her outermost wrappings, which were a particularly bilous shiny green, but the only thing Clovis and I could actually make out were a pair of tiny deep-set eyes as black as olive pits, peering from a welter of bangles and veils. I detected the outline of two enormous feet under layers of drooping mossy petticoats.
"Madame Ordealya's the toast of two continents," breathed Flossie. "The seventh child of a seventh child. She's conducted spirit readings for the Crown Prince of Swedenstein!" Perle nodded.
Flossie crowed, "She was born under a cauliflower!" I thought she might mean a caul, but Flossie was on a roll. I didn't want to interrupt.
"And she's agreed to clear her calendar just for us,"
I bet she has, I thought. My cousin had set down his plate and cup and I could see him rummaging surreptitiously in his handbag, a smart red velvet affair from his vast collection of minaudières*. It was easily his favorite. (Note about minaudières).
"Might we ask what leads you to think that you're being haunted?"
Now, most people don't really like to talk about being haunted if they really believe they're being haunted. First of all, it's unpleasant to find that other folks tend to think the worst, that either you've gone stark staring bonkers or you're telling some really outrageous whoppers. Second of all, you yourself would rather believe that there's something living in your chimney or that there's an echo in your stairwell, or that your antique mirror is catching the light in such a way that you see watery reflections in your windows that just happen to look like your great-great-grandmother Elspeth, who was such a grouch when she lived in your house.
And so I did expect Flossie and Perle to demur, to prevaricate, to beat around the bush. But no.
"It started with the conservatory door!"
"We came downstairs as always to pick a fresh lemon for breakfast tea, and the door was standing wide! And we have the only key!" whispered Perle. "It belonged to Minerva," finished Flossie.
"Before she disappeared," said Perle.
Clovis and I looked at each other. The name Minerva rang a bell, but neither of us could place it.
"Minerva Highwool, our niece, who left just before Poor Dear Papa...." Flossie touched her nose with her hanky.
Clovis and I had heard that Argyle had not been seen for some time, and was thought to be well, perhaps, gone, if you understand me. "Your niece?" I said.
"Yes, you see, her mother was our sister Millie," sniffed Flossie.
"Who married Eusticious Highwool"
"Against Papa's wishes..."
"Which caused more than one ruckus
"Until the last one, which was when Minerva left.
"But she left a note for us to take care to water the lemons and be sure to lock the conservatory, always, and she was off to find her parents and solve a mystery..."
"And Poor Dear Papa was so undone that he was well, incandescent with rage, and POOF!"
"We haven't seen him since, so we assumed the worst. It does happen. The Sockingtons have always been rather combustible. .
"But that's been years ago and now..."
"We're haunted. "
It was a little while before we coaxed out of them the exact nature of their dilemma, and it turned out it was haunted socks.
"Clocks?" Said another of their friends, the one that was surreptitiously picking all the chocolate covered lemon peel out of the bridge mix and putting in in her purse, which in spite of its cavernous size was probably NOT a minaudière.
"NO, DEAR, SOCKS," shouted Flossie. "SOCKS."
"Oh," said the lemon peel bandit. "Of course. Frocks. Phantoms in your pinafores. Ghosts in your garment bag. Certainly."
Madame Ordealya finished the last of an enormous lemon meringue pie and cleared her throat.
"It's a message, my dears, a message from your Poor Dear Papa. And I have a little surprise for you!"
Ordealya snapped her fingers (or maybe her toes - it was hard to tell what was what under all that frippery) "BOY!"
the Intern appeared, this time rolling in a large box on wheels.
It was decorated in pond-scum green with gold trim and read
MME ORDEALYA
SHE SEES ALL SHE TELLS ALL SHE KNOWS WHAT YOU HAD FOR LUNCH
SHE TOUCHES THE GREAT BEYOND
Spirit Readings * Messages from Beyond * One free Ordealya's Vanishing Creme Soap with every appointment while supplies last * Meatloaf on Thursdays * No fashion dolls, badgers, or salesmen
Chapter Three
After tea Clovis and I discussed Madame Ordealya. Clovis paged through his copy of Out There Somewhere: A Directory for Conversations Between the Seen and the Unseen, which he had fished out of his bag.
"No Ordealya? Anybody with those initials?" Clovis shook his head and frowned.
"Anything under the headings for 'green'?" Again, nothing that matched the free-floating heap of scarves that called herself Mme Ordealya.
It turned out that the hauntings went on every night. Typewriters typed gibberish. Unfinished socks were unravelled and the yarn wrapped around everything in the workrooms. Knitting needles were laid out in mysterious patterns on the floors, one of which seemed to spell out something dire indeed: ooiepui, followed by an arrow pointing to a huge portrait of Argyle Sockington.
(vindaloo (turns out that that was one of the specialties on the island, made from all the spicy ingredients that were the Highwool favorites - and the monkeys, too, of course, since it was a compote of all their very favorite native botanicals after the lemons - Chile Cactus Orchid, with hot pink flowers, the Flaming Comet Coconut, and the Incandescent Sand Yam, and finally, the Dontyoutouchme Peppercorn.
ooiepui ↑and an upward arrow spelled out on the floor: this is because the Director of Accessories and the Sockingtons were reading the word "vindaloo" upside down. The "arrow" of the V happened to be pointing to the portrait of Argyle, Poor Dear Papa.)
One of the Sisters - I think it was Flossie, but Clovis thinks it might have been Perle - said "All we can think is that Poor Dear Papa is displeased, hence Oooie pooey - and we are honor bound to contact Papa in regard to his wishes, especially as this seems to be evidence that he has indeed joined The Great Beyond. We had hopes, you know," Perle (or perhaps Flossie) deployed her hanky at the thought of Poor Dear Papa and The Great Beyond.
The seance was set for after-suppers, and we planned to attend, although Ordealya had been a bit jumpy and downright evasive. Believers only, she shrilled. The spirit world is sensitive to scoffing.
We assured Ordealya and the Sisters that we wouldn't dream of scoffing, and so we would never dream of it - so long as there was sufficient reason to refrain from doing so.
