Now, dearest, grooviest readers, this is the last installment in ‘Bast’ I will be adding to my blog for the foreseeable future. In addition to that, I will be removing my blog from the public domain on the 9th of September, 2016. The reasoning behind this is simple, I need to finish the book, and I believe I have given the world enough of the first draft to create an interest in the story.

 

Hence, I am hoping the completed book will be available sometime early to mid 2017.

 

If you have any comments/feedback on my yarns so far, I desperately need to hear, or more accurately ‘read’ them at least.

 

Thank you so much for those that have followed my wee blog for as long as you have. Every comment you have sent to me has been immensely appreciated. A little kind word goes an incredibly long way, inspiring confidence to keep going, whilst regularly wondering if the tale is worth telling. It is a lonely profession to put it mildly.

 

So, thank you once more, and enjoy. Oh, and great thanks also need to go to the awesome staff at Jeanne d’Moore. Thank you for keeping the coffee coming, and tolerating me taking over a table for hours at a time.

 

N.

 

♞

 

The epiphany was heartily regaled by Bast to all in the manner of a Hollywood pirate. Loud and fun-filled.  Her bastardised statement, abusing the original with origins sprouting from Nordic myth and folklore, snowballing into something of unparalleled maritime terror.

 

“Release the Catten!” yelled Bast cheerfully.

 

“Release the what?” said Maude. She had one eye shut, hoping to reduce the number of Bast’s from plural to singular. Three hours of steady absinthe related intake the cause.

 

“The ‘Catten’!” she happily cried again. “Like the ‘Kraken’, but THE CATTEN! Huzzah!”

 

“What the hell is the Catten Bast?” Cat said prosaically.

 

“Well, Sardine of course. She’s a cat, so to make her sound more mysterious, and a bit like the kraken, she’s THE CATTEN!” laughed Bast riotously to herself, throwing her head back in delight at her joke.

 

“Good grief.” muttered Maude, shaking her head as she refilled her pint glass from a near empty bottle. The liquid mostly making its way into the glass.

 

“Well, it would make sense, you know, to release puss.” chortled Bast, regaining her breath. “We could use her as a spy of sorts. Get her to go to where Black Annis is probably going to go next. She just killed those guards, and has wandered off in a northish sort of direction. We put Sardine behind her, she time flits back and forth to from where Black Annis is, and we follow puss from 1897, while she follows from whenever it is she is.”

 

“I can’t believe it, but that actually makes sense.” Cat said in mildly astounded tone’s.

 

“That’s all well and good, but would that actually work?” questioned Maude, doing her utmost not to slur. “One of us could do exactly the same thing, plus we have opposable thumbs and the power of speech.”

 

“Nah, wouldn’t work. We’d get seen by her, plus puss has done it before.” Bast replied.

 

“When?” countered Cat, there’s always a thorn in a best laid drunken plan.

 

“Ah, well, there’s a bit of a yarn behind that. Remember that bastard who thought it would be a lark to burn the apartment down with me in it? All because I borrowed his horse for the evening. Anyway, puss tracked him, and I caught up with him. End of story.”

 

“You pinched ‘Black Bess’! Dick bloody Turpin’s horse! You stole a highwayman’s horse! ‘Turpin the butcher’ as I recall they called him! No wonder he wanted to burn your place to the ground with you in it! AND, because you pinched it, people no longer believe he even owned a horse named ‘Black Bess’. You told the local coppers he threatened to shoot you, once you found out where he was. They caught him, and locked up for it! That bloody JP knew of him, even though Turpin told them his name was Palmer or some bloody thing and got him sent up! York Castle as I recall, and then some bloody postman recognised his handwriting, gave away Turpin’s true identity, and the long and the short of it was he was hanged at bloody Tyburn, all because of you!” snapped Cat.

 

“Weeeeeeeellllllllll, it still proves puss is up to the job.” Bast said, completely unfazed.

 

“Merde! Is that true?” Maude said in astonishment, Bast’s laconic smile giving away the answer. “Ha!  You really are a bitch of a thing aren’t you?”

 

“Ah, well, in a roundabout way, yes.” replied Bast. “Actually, not even in a roundabout sort of way really, yes, it’s all true. I didn’t think he’d get hanged for it though.” Bast now laughing through her nose.

 

“Oh, well in that case, ‘sounds like a plan then.” laughed Maude.
The ‘Catten’ was released, and hell followed with it.

 

♞

 

Click the picture, Polk Salad Annie is lurking somewhere in there.

 

 

N.

 

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