“Ooooh, I don’t like the sound of that,” Willowmina shuddered.
“Yes, there are strange things in the deep sea, weird things best left in its briny depths,” the babbling brook chimed in, unhelpfully.
“What else is in there?” Willowmina asked Slub Glub, who was still inspecting the battered lifeboat.
“Well, there’s these,” he said, holding up a tubular telescope in one hand and a pair of undergarments in the other.
“Bring back the telescope,” Willowmina said, extending one of her branches towards her squat, blue companion so that he could climb back on top of her. Slub Glub, not knowing what a telescope was, dropped the cylindrical thing and made his way back carrying only the undergarments, which were silk and flowery. “No, no, those are bloomers. Bring back the tube!” Willowmina instructed.
“That’s mine,” croaked a wretched voice. “Give it back, ye squalid landlubbers!” It was another ghost, who was now peering over the side of the little boat Slub Glub had just vacated.
“Oh, he was there too,” Slub Glub commented to Willowmina.
“Ah, never mind, I don’t need it where I’m goin’ anyway,” the ghost relented, his teeth falling out as he spoke, revealing gangrenous gums. A large hook jutted out uselessly from his shoulder, which was missing an arm.
“The Baron is just up the river, he’ll take you to the next world,” Willowmina told the ghost, trying to be helpful.
“And it’s about time. This one’s full of monsters,” the deceased sailor shuddered. “Which you’ll find out soon enough, if you keep goin’ in that fool direction – that’s where the Sea Devil lives, with its thousand spinning arms and unblinking soul-stealing eyes, and a mouth as big as the moon and twice as smelly!” he blathered, pointed his hook upstream.
To be continued.
Table of Contents: “Slub Glub in the Weird World of the Weeping Willows”
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Illustration & text copyright (c) Andrew Goldfarb