There's too much time on the walls, Ryan's stuck in a time loop, and how many times can Damien and Jess absolutely misuse churchy terms? (Spoiler: A lot.) Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're bowing in reverence to our eighth book in the collection, ‘Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny’ edited by Fiona Snailham. In this episode, our featured story is: In The Confessional by Amelia B. Edwards
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is watching Taskmaster (2015 - current TV series); drinking St Agrestis Phony Mezcal Negroni.
Damien is watching Demoni/Demons (1985; dir. Lamberto Bava, produced and co-written by Dario Argento); drinking Corsair Triple Smoke.
Ryan is reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson; drinking a perfect Manhattan.
If you liked this week’s story, read The Traveller by R.H. Benson
Up next: "The Cathedral Crypt" by John Wyndham
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Jess: [00:00:00] It's both a good set piece and also perhaps the laziest way to convey that you're in Switzerland. It would be like if you stay at a house
Ryan: stationing the Swiss Guard out of her room.
Yeah. Like, it's like you stay
Jess: in the HA house in the US and they've just got like hamburgers all over. You've just like, oh, we are
Damien: with guns in Ford F1 fifties.
Ryan: Welcome back everybody. I'm Father Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I am the honorable Jessica Burke,
Damien: and I am the right deacon. I probably got that wrong, but I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together this Trinity is whiskey and the weird, the podcast that for the past seven seasons has been delivering you detailed and sometimes even correct analysis of the best spooky stories from times gone by.
It's funny, every time each season we've prayed that you have been enlightened by our disputations on the themed [00:01:00] selections from the British Library's Tales of the Weird series. As you know, we cover one volume of these canonical classics every season. And each episode we provide careful exegesis of one story.
Please make sure you read the story before listening as we always give a full spoiler summary. This season we turn to a testament of terror as we explore holy ghosts, classic tales of the ecclesiastical, uncanny, and now hawk. I hear the cathedral bells calling us to Vespers. Ha to your Aries brothers and sisters, scoop more incense on the coals and join us in the pews before the last candle.
Flickers out for tonight's reading comes from an all together different lectionary [00:02:00] and our master story planner, Jess, is here to tell us what it is
Jess: we've got in the confessional by Amelia b Edwards.
Ryan: Amelia B And before we get to that, we've got some bar talk to do. Jessica, I'm going to you first. What are you drinking tonight?
Jess: I'm actually derailing us for a second for some behind the scenes hot gossip. Ooh. Which is that
Damien: spill, that spike tea.
Jess: Last week, Damien half recommended a movie. That he watched and didn't think that we should all watch that.
The coffee table don't remember what it was proceeding. The coffee table. I know what you're gonna say. And just a couple of days ago, our good friend Ryan sends a message to our group podcasting planning text to say. Oh man. You guys should watch this movie that I just watched. I picked it based on a blurb [00:03:00] from Stephen King.
Jess, I don't think you're gonna like this one. It was the coffee table one week ago for like 20 minutes.
Ryan: I have, I have no defense.
Damien: it was a really, it was the single greatest text I've ever gotten in my life. The earnestness behind his Jess, don't watch this. Damien. Proceed with caution guys.
Stephen King calls this one of the most messed up movies he is ever seen. You could watch crying. We just talked
Jess: about this. You could, you could watch this on shutter. Yes. Some of us have. Uh,
Damien: okay. Sorry. Like moments ago,
Jess: not even like several season, season ago, week. I don't, my god, I dunno what to say. I think you participated in the conversation.
It was rich.
Damien: He was definitely there, but I don't know. It could have been the second whiskey, so who knows. So
Jess: anyway, sorry. I just wanted to lightly, uh, derail us. Well, the non recommendation [00:04:00] stands. It
Damien: it continues to this week. Yeah, don't watch the coffee table now. Dis, recommended by two outta three whiskey and the weird hosts.
Jess: So I'm sorry
Ryan: Damien, for
Damien: it's, it was worth it for, for the memories
Jess: recommendation. Very funny. Uh, so this week I've been drinking a lot of Virgin Greyhounds.
Damien: Nice.
Jess: Which is just grapefruit juice.
Damien: Wait, do you put salt on the rib and make it a virgin salty dog?
Jess: No, not usually. 'cause I just am sitting on my couch. But I picked up some of the streis phony negronis.
Damien: Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. That
Jess: are like a little fancy. And I picked up the phony mezcal Negroni Oh. Which I had not had before. And the, they're like a little too expensive.
For. Juice essentially.
Damien: Well, ISN negro, well, I'm interested because I've heard that the um, Virgin Campari is actually a pretty complex bitter that people have gone through some trouble to make it taste like the original, except that alcohol,
Jess: I would say it's the least [00:05:00] worst pre batched little cocktail we can buy.
That
Ryan: sounds like a change and that's an endorsement recommendation.
Damien: Yes, absolutely.
Jess: And so like a lot of times they're just, they're so sweet. Like everything that you get in the little can without that like alcohol hit, it's just expensive juice. This one, especially the mezcal one, there's like a deep bittery smokiness to it that's like actually enjoyable.
So you sip it more like a cocktail. Than you would like. A lot of the, where it's just kinda like a Sprite with Rosemary in it. Like some of the other NA cocktails you can pick up. So I do actually recommend this one. I think they come in a little four pack. They're too expensive for the four pack.
But if you're craving something that's like actually like a cocktail that you would voluntarily drink, this may be the closest that you get. And then I've been rewatching Task Master, which I do talk about every day in my regular life, but I don't think that I've talked about on [00:06:00] the podcast, so everyone is gonna have to just bear with me because if you are a British listener, I just assume that you're already watching it.
And if you, you're an American listener, you should be watching Taskmaster every day of your life.
Damien: Okay.
Jess: It is a, like British panel show kind of like an improv show, but not quite where it's usually five comedians and they are definitely people who are like not household names in the US and they are essentially tasked to do goofy things and then judged on them.
So some of it is, is this like
Damien: Impractical Jokers British style?
Jess: I don't know. I've never watched Impractical Jokers, but it is, but I have like the name, so I'm gonna say no.
Damien: Okay, fine. So some
Jess: of it, they do it like a house beforehand and it's, they're screening a, like a hilariously edited. Thing, but it's like a mix of like the things they're doing are dumb.
Yeah. Everything is really dumb. And it's enjoyable because they're comedians who are bad at everything. And so like some of the tasks are like, draw the [00:07:00] second longest snake.
Like ever, or Nope. Just
Damien: like special, average. Or look,
Jess: the five of you are on stage and you just have to guess who's gonna draw the longest snake and try to draw a snake slightly shorter than their snake. So like the, you're competing against other idiots, four idiot prizes. One is like you're in a room with a hundred shoes and you have to narrow down which shoe one of the judges is thinking of.
By just asking yes or no questions. Like
Damien: guess who for a shoe? Guess shoe.
Jess: Guess shoe, yes.
Damien: Thank you.
Jess: Sometimes there's food tasks, which I really like. So sometimes it'll be like, make an exotic sandwich and then the contestants will each make just like the grossest sandwich you've ever heard of. And then the next part is eat your exotic sandwich.
And then like, ah, it's a trick. There is a new season coming out and it's Jason Manzu is gonna be on it. Oh, okay. And that's like a pretty big get for the show, I think.
Damien: I mean [00:08:00] C level in the us but A grade,
Jess: yes, across the
Damien: pond
Jess: quality wise is very good. And so I think that's gonna be like season, let's say 17 or 18 maybe.
So you've got 17 or 18 seasons to watch. They're all like eight or 10 episodes. They're all free on YouTube if you are in the us. So pause this podcast. Go and watch 18 seasons of Task Master. Come back and you'll be like, you know what? You're right. The second longest Snake is a really good task.
Damien: Not as good as guest shoe though.
Jess: They're just like, some of them are make a music video trying to sell radiators or, Yeah. Just like the dumbest things you've ever seen, but Awesome. If you need a show for like, after work where your brain doesn't work and it'll make you feel like that's what I like to watch movies
Damien: Yeah.
During work when my brain doesn't work. Yeah,
Jess: that's very fine. It'll make you feel both like very [00:09:00] smart and very stupid. And it's a good watch.
Damien: Awesome. She's slugging down some more Virgin, Greyhound.
Jess: Damien, what are you drinking?
Damien: All right. I can't follow up with that, so I'll just let you know.
I got as a recent gift, I got something that was on my wishlist for seven years, I think. But fortunately, they recently updated it. It's a scratch off a hundred horror movies through the decades. It's a scratch off poster. Oh, okay. And so there's some art on the scratch and then there's different art under the scratch, and it's lined up like a letterbox list.
And it's really sort of clever 'cause in chronological order, there's some winners in there, some films that everyone known or knows and has seen. And then there are some that were entirely new to me. But I decided just randomly to go back a couple decades, see what was available through different streaming platforms.
And one of the first ones that I watched that was new to me after scratching off the ones that I had already checked was 1980 [00:10:00] Five's Demons, or in its original Italian demo, which is directed by Lamberto Baba, but most people know it because it was produced in co-written by Dario Argento, sort of an Italian ho maestro.
Correct, correct. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it is like the sch, luckiest, funniest, glorious, craziest, one-liner, full,
Jess: silly,
Damien: stupid movie which was an absolute blast to watch, by the way. It was just simply a joy. It was so retro. First of all, it was mid eighties. Lots of practical effects. Terrible, but also super enjoyable.
The conceit was really gory and dumb in that there was this cursed artifact and it scratched a prostitute's face and she turns into a demon and then everybody that she scratches turns into a demon tale as old as
Jess: time
Damien: tale, as old as time. It is loaded with misogyny, loads of machismo.
As a matter of fact, I'm not spoiling anything. This is a 40-year-old film and [00:11:00] the end sees one of our heroes riding around on a motorcycle that was a prop inside of a movie theater, hacking away at demons only to try and escape using. A, a helicopter that is somehow descended into the cinema.
It's truly a safe to behold. Sure. Yeah. You gotta check it out. If
Ryan: that's never happened to you it's,
Damien: you're missing out. You're missing out with
Ryan: helicopters coming to your movie theater,
Damien: it spawned a couple sequels. It's spawned a remake in 2012, I think. And that ones not on your poster.
The points, it was on the poster, right? It was on the poster though. So I got to scratch that off and I had a heck of a time doing it. So again, that's demons. 1985, directed by Limbo Baba. You might see it under the title diy. And if you're like a, if you're like a nineties kid and eighties kid and you remember going to VHS rental stores like Blockbuster, we had specs in Florida.
Remember Specs Ryan? Oh yeah. Yeah. Or Hollywood video that the cover of this film was very memorable because it basically [00:12:00] showed a series of backlit demons that you couldn't make out their features. They looked humanoid, but you could see that they had yellow glowing eyes. And that scene is in the movie.
And if you saw the cover, look up the cover art, you'll recognize it immediately. So I jumped right into the movie because I was so excited to tell you about this poster. The night I was ask, what are you drinking? But in my glass tonight as another spirit that I brought back from my recent trip to Nashville at the Corsair Distillery, which love the name, love the logo, looks very reservation or reservoir dogs, not reservation dogs different and it's their triple smoke.
I was like, I'm into a good eyelea whiskey and a good eye lay scotch, so why not try their triple smoke true to their word. It's made up of three
Jess: cigarette flags, different
Damien: kinds of smoked mals. Basically, that's what it tastes like. It's got cherry wood, beachwood, and peat it. It's too smoky for me, Ryan, dare I say, it would be too smoky for you.
This, it sounds like it might. Oof. This just, it's overkill. It tries to push itself as having like notes of cherry and a [00:13:00] little bit of salinity and stuff that, comes in as a decent blend. But for me it was just, it's a single malt, so it's not a blend, but it was just absolutely brutal with the smoke.
Not a massive, massive fan. I did like their other whiskeys. That's interesting. '
Ryan: cause don't you like the, like the campfire High West? Yes, I do. Yeah, I do.
Damien: But I just think that there is, there's more to that. It's not like a OneNote just punch you in the face. Smoke bomb. So unfortunately I can't give a, a massive, like I can't wait to finish this bottle type nod tonight to the course Air Triple Smoke.
I think I'll probably wait until friends come over and see who drinks it and pretends to like it.
Jess: Perfect.
Damien: But that is the course Air Triple Smoke. That's what's in my glass tonight.
Ryan: What about you, Ry? Tonight I'm drinking something called the Perfect Manhattan. Yes. So this is a Manhattan that is made with both kinds of vermouth, sweet and dry in, in equal portions.
Mm-hmm. And then your regular other Manhattan ingredients, couple of a mena cherries, some bitters, and of course, rye whiskey. I'm using the Wise Man rye [00:14:00] tonight. This is a very good drink. It tastes like a very sophisticated drink. It's not my favorite way of making a Manhattan. I've decided I had one of these a long time ago, and I think I felt the same, but I decided I wanted to try it again for tonight.
Sure. And yeah, I'm still there. I'd like a regular Manhattan. I like the sweetness of a regular, just only the suite. Yeah, that, that's fine. Yeah. This is just, this is a little dry. But it's a big one, so I'll make my way through it and won't complain any further. As for what I've been reading, I finally succumbed to a lot of cultural pressure.
As a fantasy fan and picked up the Wave of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Oh, it's about time. So this is like a 1400 page novel that is the first of five in this series that. I, five of them are released. I think they're supposed to be 10 ultimately, but I think after the first five, they're told in two arcs.
So they're, the arc is the first arc is now complete. I've read some Sanderson before. I've given most of what I've read by Sanderson, a [00:15:00] solid three stars. It's not great. It's not terrible. It's passable fantasy. I was prepared to do that for this book. I was prepared to say that it was way over-hyped.
Everybody I know that likes fantasy, loves it, can't stop talking about it. And I have to say that I was wrong. I got to the end of that book and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Five star read. All right. Wow. Yeah. I really loved it. I really loved it. There was times when I thought, this is a bit long-winded.
There's too much detail, there's too much backstory. And every time I thought that he circles back to that detail and brings it into the plot line in a meaningful way. Nice. And I have to say that what. Everybody says about the ending of a Sanderson novel. They call it the Sander la it's like a, just a deluge of information and connect the sander lanch.
That's, they call, it's pretty good. It was a heck of a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to moving on to the second book of the series. Wait, how many are in the series? There's five. Okay. And this first one is called The Way of Kings. And are they all
Damien: tomes, like the first or what?[00:16:00]
Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, they are, they're all, they're all door
Ryan: stoppers. So, what I particularly enjoyed about it, I have to say, is that while it is solidly. A fantasy, medieval style fantasy story. It doesn't make use of common tropes. There's not dwarves and elves and goblins. There are monsters, there are dragon like monsters, but they're not dragons.
There are bad guys, but they're not in one of these other racial tropes that we see in a lot of older fantasy. So he's really invented a whole new world, huh. And it's pretty magical to see that when an author dives in like that. Very cool. It doesn't always happen, but I liked it.
That's the Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. If you're a fantasy fan, you've already heard of this, you've probably already read it. You're, if you're not a fantasy fan I would say that this is a fair one to get you interested in the genre, if you ever wanted to try one. Even though it's long, it read like a breeze.
Interesting. That's, yeah. Yeah. Every chapter I just kept wanting to read, and the chapters are short, so you can easily sit down for, [00:17:00] if you've got 10 or 15 minutes, you can knock out a chapter or two and it feels like you're accomplishing something. There was never a time in which I didn't want to read it.
All right. Very cool. So yep, that's The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanders. And now we turn to our story for tonight in the Confessional by Amelia b Edwards. And here I am to tell you about, oh, there you are.
Amelia b Edwards led an incredible and full life, though it lasted am mere three score into those years. She managed to squeeze three separate. That's right. I said score. She said three. Score eight. Abe Lincoln. Oh, wow. I knew I'd get you with that. Into these years, she managed to squeeze three separate careers, novelist, world Explorer, and Egyptologist, and all of this during the 19th century when it wasn't common for women to have even one career, let alone three.
So where did it begin? It began in London on June 7th, 1831 when she was born, the [00:18:00] daughter of a retired army officer and an Irish mother. Her mother educated her at home and she quickly showed a lot of promise as a writer. At the age of seven, she published her first poem at 12, her first short story, and when she was just 25, her first novel entitled My Brother's Wife, which was well received nine years later with five novels under her belt.
She published her sixth novel, Barbara's History, a novel about a Bigamous relationship that cemented her reputation as a popular novelist. This was a big hit back in the day, I imagine, on account of the scandal. She was also an accomplished short story, many of which were about travel. However, her most famous short story today is easily the Phantom Coach, a ghost story that appears in every single ghost story anthology worth its salt.
It is one of [00:19:00] the most anthologized ghost stories from the Victorian era. And we covered it.
Jess: Did we cover it? We
Ryan: haven't covered it. No. Just kidding. I feel like we kidding. We've
Jess: talked about it. We must
Ryan: have talked about it. Yeah, and for good reason too, because it is really great. It's one of my favorite short story ghost story.
It's
Jess: everywhere,
Ryan: right? It is everywhere. It's easy to find, but it is a great story. As an explorer, she traveled with her friend Lucy Renshaw through the Dolomite Mountains in Northeastern Italy. At the time they explored them, they were unmapped and largely unknown. Her travel log describing this journey is still available today under the title Untrodden Peaks and Infrequent Valleys, which I think is just a terrific title.
However, it was her explorations of Egypt that would capture her heart and earn her international recognition on her journeys. Along the Nile, she became increasingly aware of the dangers posed to [00:20:00] ancient monuments and historical sites by a growing tourism industry. She became an advocate for their preservation and an ardent spokesperson raising public awareness on April the 15th, 1892, Edwards sadly died from the flu.
She is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin in Bristol. Next to the grave of her partner of 30 years, Ellen Drew Braier. These two graves side by side are registered as an historic LGBT landmark in England. Edwards' grave is marked by an obelisk with a stone onk at its foot, highlighting her passion for Egypt in the confessional was originally published in the Christmas 1871 edition of all the year round magazine and was shortly republished in Edwards' 1873 Collection.
Monsour, Maurice, a Novelette, and Other Tales. [00:21:00] A Novelette. An Novelette. And now we've got Jess to tell us about this story.
Damien: Before Jess starts, I just want everyone to know that, oh God. Three scores is equal to 1,565. Fortnite. Please, Jess, proceed.
Jess: Is explore a career.
Damien: Why not?
Jess: Are someone paying you to be an explorer? Somebody's paying
Ryan: you, somebody's paying you to do this. You gotta have your expenses.
You have patrons.
Damien: Oh, guy named Rand McNally.
Ryan: Alright,
Damien: so one person. Is that a partnership? Is it Rand and McNally? I don't know. I don't, I don't know. We'll find out. We're asking
Jess: the important questions here today. Let's just
Damien: ask Atlas, I guess,
Jess: have you guys seen the coffee table?
Okay. Okay. Okay, here we go.
Our narrator of this story is recapping an adventure that he had I don't know, 15, 18 years ago when he was 32 ish. At that age he said he was an unmotivated bummer of a guy. Those might be my [00:22:00] words. Not exactly his, and he is rambling around Europe. He mostly hates everywhere he's been on account of the melancholy until he gets to an area on the Rhine River.
It's summer and he's hiking along the river. The riverbank heading through hamlets. Mm-hmm. Looking at some hills. Yeah. Until he gets to the old walled. In town of Reinfeld, we are of course talking like middle ages, old with walls, moats gates. Every other house he walks by appears to be owned by a watchmaker or a clock maker, advertising their wearers in the windows, our narrat is walking around this cute little town when he finds what.
That's right, a church. And like the old town, it's also very charming. We've got brick floors, whitewashed walls. It's very clean, very simple, very old. [00:23:00] The door to the church is open, so he wanders inside sits for a bit before he notices that there is a plaque up by the altar. And the inscription reads to the sacred memory of the Reverend Pear.
For 20 years, the beloved pastor of this parish died, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Age 44. He lived a saint. He died a martyr. A little weird. Did you
Ryan: catch the footnote to that, inscription by the way. It said Watch the coffee table.
Damien: Alright, that's three coffee table mentions. We are done. Rule three.
Jess: Okay. So it's a little bit of a weird plaque, but it's in a church. It's not that out of place or areas. Churches are full of them. Yeah. Yeah. Not that bothered. Then he strolls over to the confessional. It's painted to look like old dark oak, and the curtain for the confessor side is green. I do not know if there is a more precise word than confessor side, but whatever.
We'll go
Ryan: with it. That's a good one.
Jess: well, but he then [00:24:00] opens the door to the priest side for some reason, and whoa, there's a priest in there. He's hello gaunt with creepy eyes, long black hair, and he slowly turns his head to look at our narrator who jumps back, slams the door and runs out the church.
This freaks our narrator out the situation, and the priest seemed much creepier than they needed to be. And so immediately he's like, what's this priest steal? The quote is, what was this man's history of what? Secret Despair. Of what? Lifelong remorse of what wild, unsatisfied longings was he the victim? I felt I could not rest until I had learned something of his past life.
So like a weird thing to encounter, but also just like a weird response to it.
Ryan: Yeah, the wild unsatisfied longings of the clergy. Not a [00:25:00] topic I wish to delve into.
Jess: Yeah, man. Just leave him in his little confessional booth and we're moving on. So our narrator now needs to find somewhere to stay. He's directed to a landlord who, like everyone else in this town, is a clock maker.
He's got a nice plump wife, a pretty daughter, and a spare room with literally 32 clocks seemingly set to tick and talk and cuckoo at all different times. He heads back downstairs to see if maybe there's a less insane room he could stay in. But he passes another 1 million clocks in between his room and the kitchen.
So probably not, but the plump wife is making fish for dinner. The pretty daughter is milling around. The clock maker has wine. So whatever the narrator asks about other lodgings and they're not offended, they know a place that's [00:26:00] just a few minutes walk away. Owned by Pear Ze. WTF says the narrator. No thank you.
I was at the church and saw the plaque by the altar. That guy is super dead. No, no, no, no, no, no. That was this guy's older brother who died 30 years ago. But even though he was curious earlier about this guy in the confessional. He doesn't really wanna go stay in the same house as this creepy younger brother priest he saw in the confessional, because he looked like a big creep.
But he guesses that maybe that's better than this loud clock filled nightmare in. So he'll hear him out. The narrator like diplomatically says oh yeah, I saw him earlier. He is a singular looking man. The clock guy and plump wife are like, oh yeah, he's an angel, [00:27:00] a real saint. Honestly, we wish he was less perfect.
Oh, okay. Weird. The narrator isn't a, in a huge hurry to get to the saintly weirdos house because the wine is still flowing and the daughter is pretty, he's curious about this bizarre looking priest that everyone loves. So he insists that the clockmaker, tell him more about this guy. The clock making landlord fills him in this current priest, Zey is the son of the guy who used to own the inn actually.
All right. She had an older brother, Nicholas, who entered the church. Matthias, it doesn't matter. They're never referred to by the same in a
Damien: way
Jess: that is helpful.
Damien: Don't take notes.
Jess: Mathias is the living now a priest brother who was going to inherit the in that his father owned. But then the older brother died, so he also joined the church.
The [00:28:00] narrator asks if he was responsible for his brother's death and that's why he got religious, which is like a bold thing to ask. But no, it was the shock of the death. It was the shock of the death. Very bold. And of course the fact that he was as sensitive as a girl that made him, I put down enlist in the priesthood, but I don't think that's the right word.
Enroll. Yeah, enroll
Damien: would enlisted.
Jess: That's why he priest did it up. Got ordained
Damien: there. Go. I feel like there's
Jess: a, I've
Ryan: heard the call
Jess: join. I now
Damien: understand that deacon is both a noun and a verb. So did he get deacon,
Jess: he deacon into the church? I'm gonna say that's probably wrong.
Ryan: All right.
Jess: Okay. So way
Ryan: back when, if only we had somebody we could ask
Damien: Padre.
Is Deacon a verb?
Ryan: I've never used Deacon as a verb.
Damien: Have you heard it as a verb? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. I went Well,
Jess: that's two different answers. I'm just gonna [00:29:00] confidently use words wrong and I'm feeling good about It's fine. Carry on. Way back when the older brother was established in a parish just outside of the walls of the city with a little priest house nearby.
I parsonage. Yeah, carnage,
Damien: right? This isn't a quiz.
Jess: Okay. So in his little priest house nearby, he had a neighbor, Casper, who also had a nice pretty little wife. Margaret. Unfortunately for everyone especially Margaret Casper was obsessed with the idea that his wife was cheating on him, specifically with a guy named Schmidt.
Casper was a terrible husband, even outside of this accusation with assorted spousal and alcohol abuses. But he was really sure that Margaret was cheating. So he plots a plan. It's almost Margaret's Saint Day, and he knows that she'll do a confession before then. So he [00:30:00] goes to bug the then priest who is living in the same house that his brother now lives in.
Casper says, Hey priest, Margaret is coming to do a confession, and I want you to tell me everything that she says so I can catch her having an affair.
Damien: Totally. Oh, sure, I can do that. Yeah. Yeah. So Priest, I got you, boo.
Jess: The priest says no, that's not allowed. Casper says, well, I don't care. The priest says, well, I don't care that you don't care.
So on, so forth. And then Casper hits him over the head with a gun like a bunch of times,
Damien: I got this gun. I know how to use it. I'm gonna bludgeon you to death with it.
Jess: Yeah, there's a gun. That's it. Okay. Casper thinks he's just done a murder, so he disguises himself as the priest leaves the body in the house, sneaks over to the church, and locks himself in the priest's side of the confessional.
Meanwhile, the older brother Priest dies, but he manages to tell someone who killed him. Meanwhile, meanwhile, Margaret shows up [00:31:00] for confession. The narrator asks. Clockmaker if she confessed to the affair. But we'll never know because Casper murdered her too. Mm-hmm. He let her confess, leave, walk home.
Later that night, a bunch of people sure heard what sounded like a lady being murdered. And in the morning, Casper turns himself in to the police for both murders.
Damien: Important to know. A lot of people hear the murder in do nothing in the morning. Murderer turns himself in.
Jess: So we also get some gruesome details about how hacked up by a hatchet Margaret was Uhhuh and how he chased her around the house.
So there's blood and bloody hand prints everywhere. Casper is hanged and the trauma makes the younger brother also become a priest.
Ryan: Enlist, enlist in the
Jess: priesthood. The narrator says okay, well that explains why this priest looks so unhappy, [00:32:00] insane, creepy, et cetera. A clockmaker says well, he's a little melancholy, but he's okay.
Like, chill out. You'll be fine. So the narrator heads out intentionally walking by the house that Margaret was murdered in. It doesn't look like a murder scene. Now obviously there's kids in general cheerfulness around. Then he goes back to the church to creep around through the graveyard and there's a goat in there, which is nice.
But he ignore ignores. That looks for the priest's house. He sees it and he becomes conscious that he's walking the same path that a blood covered Casper took after murder number one. Mm-hmm. He's musing about this. When someone I wrote down calls his name, but they don't know his name. Just when someone says, Hey guy in my church yard, I guess he braces himself, but it is not to the creepy priest that he needs to ask for a room.
It is a different guy. The two make small talk about an. Our butas and a roto dendron and how [00:33:00] long the narrator is gonna be in town, when the narrator apologizes for letting himself into the church earlier and busting in on the priest and the confessional. We get some puzzled looks from our tree enthusiast because, well, he's the priest and there's obviously no other priest.
So the priest asks, can you describe this guy? Was he per chance, gaunt, and creepy as hell? Yep. He sure was.
Damien: That's the guy.
Jess: Oh my God. The priest says, he says it explained, but Right, right now he's too worked up. He's also seen this guy. It's the likeness of a guy 'cause of the
Damien: priest. That's the bad guy from Fantasm.
Come on. This
Jess: is the likeness of the guy who did some murders. The narrator who knows more of the story than the priest expects from a guy just wandering around is like, what? That's Casper. The pre, the priest is relieved that he doesn't have to tell the whole story to the stranger and then they stand [00:34:00] there for literally one second until Casper the murdery ghost strolls outta the parsonage.
Parsonage and into the church. Both men confirmed that yep, they're seeing the same ghost, so they say goodnight and our narrator wanders off to find another room. I got confused on the logistics of this. I thought he was supposed to be staying with this priest, but we're moving past it for now.
Obviously, our narrator was the last person to see this priest alive. He was found peacefully dead in the morning. The end. Ah,
Damien: amen. That's it.
Jess: Ah, amen.
Ryan: Thank you, Jess. Yes. That was great.
Damien: Nice. Yeah.
Ryan: Well, here in our third tale of this season, we finally get to some theological musings. This is a pretty straightforward setup, right? But at the same time, it's a warning against sin. Now, several [00:35:00] sins show up here, jealousy, pride, murder, sacrilege, so forth and so on.
What do you think Edwards believes is the worst? What is she actually cautioning against with this tale?
Damien: Yaser is the worst, or what's like the core sin?
Ryan: What's the sin? She's the most worked up about it,
Damien: man. I don't know if I get the sin right, because I basically have to play the entire movie of seven through my head to remember all the sins. But
Jess: I think there's more than just the seven sins.
There's probably several more than that.
Damien: I think it's the lack of the sub rooted lack of trust in the fidelity of your spouse.
Ryan: Okay.
Damien: Because everything else seems to be glazed over and born from that distrust and that mania. Mm-hmm. That self-induced paranoia.
Ryan: So jealousy might say jealousy.
Yeah. A, a type of jealousy. Anyway.
Damien: Like also just the fact [00:36:00] that this murder, that murder took place in a confessional, which of a naturally holy place of a church or cath theater. Like the confessional is especially holy. Especially sacred. Like I think only the altar is probably the right, the more holy locale within a church.
Right.
Ryan: Well, and particularly what would go on in a confessional is secret Right. Between the two people that are participating. Yeah,
Damien: exactly. So the, so, so that violation more than anything else, like the sacrilege, I guess is sacrilege, is impersonating a a priest, right? So it wasn't the fact that he killed the priest.
'cause maybe the Im Buddhist tenets, if you meet the Buddha, you're supposed to kill him. Mm-hmm. Because it takes him off this mortal world. But you're not supposed to kill a priest. But if you do, like he's going to a better place, say lavie, but then acting like a priest. Come on man. That's like the ultimate sin.
So I, I think it, the infidelity.
Ryan: Don't actually go about murdering priests.
Damien: Yeah, no, don't, this isn't an encouragement. This is a podcast. No. Come fresh. We have fun.
Ryan: Yeah. What do you think, Jess? What's what's the sin here that she's most worried about?
Jess: It's weird that it's [00:37:00] the husband who was hanged ghost.
Mm-hmm. Since he wasn't murdered and presumably they didn't hang him in the church. So it seems like if he's the one hanging around feeling remorseful and is in the, is actually sitting in the confessional being creepy.
Mm-hmm. We're gonna put our focus on. Not just impersonating a priest, but like violating someone doing a confession. Right,
Ryan: right. I agree with both of you. I think it is this idea of sacrilege the badgering of the priest murder in the church. Yeah. That's a boundary crossing. Right, right. The church is supposed to be a sanctuary.
It doesn't matter whether you're a practicing Christian or not. Most people acknowledge that houses of worship and particularly churches are sanctuaries current situation with the government. Not
Damien: withstanding,
Jess: but,
Damien: but even then, like playing into that, going to that [00:38:00] infidelity piece. It wasn't so much the infidelity, but rather the fact that marriage is a holy, unity is a sacrament.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, absolutely. Okay.
Ryan: He impersonated the clergy as you both pointed out. Yeah. And then this is balanced, I think. Right. This is highlighted in a way by Edwards when she describes both of these priests as saintly figures. Sure. So like this transgression was especially bad.
Yeah. Yeah.
Jess: He didn't murder
Ryan: just run of the mill priests. Yeah. Yeah. Could
Jess: real deal if you murder like a, some
Ryan: lowly deacon.
Jess: Yeah. Whatever. But we loved these weird brothers.
Damien: Yeah. They were the best.
Ryan: Well, at the end the priest and the narrator spot, the ghost of Caspar and Jess, you already started to borrow your word musing about the purpose of this.
But let's talk about it, what's the point of including this sighting at the end of the story? I thought it was a weird touch.
Jess: I thought it was a weird touch and, okay, this is my like logistical question. Our narrator goes to the clock house [00:39:00] for a room. The clock house is nuts. So he's gonna go somewhere else and they say, okay, go to the priest's house.
And then they tell the story about the murder. But then the narrator doesn't actually stay with the priest. He's just like, okay, bye. And keeps walking
Ryan: as you might after hearing that story.
Jess: Correct. So we don't know where he stayed. But then it's like, did the priest die of ghostly intervention? Would our narrator have died if he was staying in the same house as the priest?
Mm. Interesting. If the ghost showed up. So that's where it was like the ghost at the end seemed important because we see the ghost. Right? Right. He's wandering around. The priest dies, but then our narrator's just like, yeah. Everyone was kind of bummed out and so I left and never came back.
Damien: Yeah. Well the priest was happy to have actually had his, like it was a vindicating moment for him because mm-hmm.
He, no one else had seen it, right? Correct. He had described it and he said, oh, you saw him too. And the answer was yes, and it could have [00:40:00] been like a shared illusion until the fact that the moment comes where he comes traipsing in and then they both see him and they look at each other like, you see it?
I see it.
Ryan: Oh, I see it too. And then there's like absolution
Damien: on behalf of the priest, so then he dies a happy man.
Ryan: They make a lot of the fact that it was, that, the fact that both of them saw the ghost Right. And validating,
Damien: right? Yeah, exactly. So that could be it just so that's probably what it was. It was this massive pressure of like the story finding closure, like it, him getting validated in his observations and then just, he was also an old guy, so, whatever
Ryan: still feels a little bit like a weak use of a ghost.
Sure to me, but I'm with you. I'm not sure you're wrong. I'm with you. Oh, we
Jess: accused of like a good ghost. Like they, right. The ghost is being described as like immediately captivating weird eyes. Yeah. Long hair, like moving weird in the confessional. Like this is a good like movie ghost. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
And then we only see him this time and then like walking behind some bushes. [00:41:00] Rends
Damien: as it were.
Jess: Yeah. 12 foot tall rends. Those a good, the holiest of
Damien: bushes.
Jess: We've got a roadie in our backyard. It is not thriving. Like I stay
Damien: focused Jess.
Jess: Well just, you can't listen. Some of us are just bush enthusiast, I guess.
Damien: yeah. I, okay.
Jess: So I wanted more out of the ghost. I wanted the ghost to do something.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: The guide was a murderer. The ghost was a, I
Ryan: dunno, it did feel like there was more that could happen with this story once it was all said and done it, like unrealized potential perhaps.
Jess: But it was also like knowing the author primarily wrote travel logs.
Like this, which
Ryan: we really, I really felt in the beginning of this story. Yes. Like I was really put in this setting. We got
Jess: hills, we've got a rushing river with rat What, whatever. But, so this would not seem out of place as a chapter in.[00:42:00]
A travel log of oh, I went to this weird Swiss town and this
Ryan: is the story you told and this is the
Jess: story. And then the next one is about your favorite restaurant in France, and the next one is one time you went to Sweden or whatever. So in that context, like it just, it wouldn't need to be more than this.
Mm-hmm. But as a standalone story that we're yelling about ghosts for, I wanted Bill,
Ryan: I wonder if it was a story she heard somewhere along her travels that would be interesting that she just, remembered or wrote down and
Jess: maybe she murdered a priest. Maybe she murdered a priest. Seems to be the
Ryan: hip thing to do.
Damien: Again, we do not condone the murder of priests. No, we don't. Especially me legally. We do not
Ryan: like it's a serious, like we're laughing, but it's a serious thing. There was a, an episcopal priest in St. Augustine, Florida having lunch at an outdoor cafe and a man walked up out of nowhere and stabbed him.
Was it just a He survived, sorry. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Was that just a,
Jess: was it just a Florida thing?
Ryan: It may have been a Florida thing, it just, did he try to eat his face? No, he did not try to eat his face.
Jess: Was it an [00:43:00] alligator related crime?
Damien: Was he openly drinking Pepsi? Did he say he preferred Pepsi over Coke?
There's a lot of reasons. Wasn't that someone could walk up and just stab you. In Florida,
Ryan: the murdered woman, Margaret was killed on her saints feast day. Now in my research, there's two Saint Margaret's, Margaret of Antioch, who is the patron saint of childbirth and pregnant women. Sure. Oh boy. And Margaret of Scotland, who is the patron saint of the poor. The orphaned, the widowed and the sick.
Now which of these two St. Margaret's are we dealing with here? Prego? Yeah.
Jess: Yeah, because I don't think they listed any, children. So we're gonna be hoping for that one.
Damien: Yeah,
Jess: that's maybe a, a little
Damien: subtle nod at the extra heinousness of it.
Ryan: Yeah, that's what I think too. Also, Margaret of Scotland, much more well known in Britain.
But
Damien: what if [00:44:00] the confession was that she was pregnant, but she that well's what? I wondered, keep the baby.
Ryan: That's what I wonder. And that's,
Damien: it wasn't about infidelity anymore.
Ryan: Yeah, it
Damien: was about, that's what I wonder, wondering whether or not she wanted to be a mother or if he knew he was shooting blanks.
'cause he had an at-home test of those things. I dunno, we're going crazy here, but
Ryan: any of those things provide the added oomph to the story Yeah. That we feel That's interesting. Lacking. So I'm wonder, I'm wondering like, 'cause it was such an interesting thing to say. Her name is Margaret. That's an authorial choice.
Yep. Right. To talk about her Saints day is anal choice. Sure. Alright, let's look up the St. Margaret's that are out there. There's only two Antioch and Scotland. Nice. Nice little Easter
Damien: egg. No pun intended there. I don't know.
Ryan: Yeah. If that's true. It's pretty well done on Edwards' part.
Damien: Not bad. Yeah.
Ryan: Jess, I'm gonna direct this to you. What is going on with all the clocks? So, honestly, like I know everybody in Switzerland is supposed to be a clock maker, but this was the, one of the creepiest things in the whole story. It was none of them
Damien: [00:45:00] at the same time.
Ryan: They're just like, I have to read this.
This is on page. This is on page 154. I have to read this passage because this is like a devastatingly creepy. I would not even stay in this town. It reads, it was a large, low whitewashed room with two lattice windows overlooking the marketplace. Two little beds covered with puffy red ider downs at the farther end, and an army of clocks and ornamental time pieces arranged along every shelf, table and chest of drawers in the room being left here to my meditations, I sat down and counted these companions of my solitude, taking little and big together Dutch clocks, cuckoo clocks, chalet clocks, skeleton clocks and pen jewels in orlu, bronze, marble, ebony, and alabaster cases.
There were exactly 32. [00:46:00] 28 were going merrily as no two among them were of the same opinion as regarded the time. And as several struck the quarters as well as the hours. The consequence was that one or other gave tongue about every five minutes. Now, for a light and nervous sleeper, such as I was at the time here, was a lively prospect for the night.
I mean, that is awful.
Jess: It's awful. It's very like television, right? Like this is a great set piece for Oh yeah, yeah. Like you are staying at an inn and you're gonna get murdered. I can tell there's 34 o'clocks in your room.
Damien: None of them have the same time because some of 'em strike on the quarter, on the hour.
They're all going off every five minutes different sounds. In all
Ryan: seriousness. Somebody wishes you a good night in this room. God ish. I don't know. I don't know if it's [00:47:00] just the fact that, she wants to say this is taking place in Switzerland or what. I don't know what's going on with all these clocks.
I couldn't come up with a good answer for this inclusion other than, the setting was Switzerland.
Jess: Right. It's both a good set piece and also perhaps the laziest way to convey that you're in Switzerland. It would be like if you stay at a house
Ryan: stationing the Swiss Guard out of her room.
Yeah. Like, it's like you stay
Jess: in the HA house in the US and they've just got like hamburgers all over. You've just like, oh, we are
Damien: with guns in Ford F1 fifties.
Ryan: This was what I felt about this whole story there. There was these, there were several like incredible set pieces and they never hung together as a whole.
Jess: The one part that stood out that's fair, similar was. He's meeting who he thinks is like another priest in Right. The graveyard. And then they stand there and they talk about trees and shrubs and [00:48:00] rhododendrons. Yeah. And they like walk around and look at them and the priest is wearing like a big floppy garden hat.
And then they talk about a ghost and then the story's done.
Damien: That's it.
Jess: So
Damien: then he dies and then the story's done.
Jess: Yeah. Like it was enjoyable to read. It was a good scene. I under
Ryan: like you can interest Yeah. You've got these scenes that don't they're like puzzle pieces that aren't quite fitting together.
Damien: Ryan with both of his, like of his knowledge of the religion.
Jess: My knowledge of Rhododendrons,
Damien: your knowledge of Rhododendrons? My, my t My tongue and cheek commentary? No, just the fact that you knew that, the fact that you looked at the character's name with Margaret, the fact that she was murdered on her Saints Day, the fact that there are two Saint Margaret's and it brought another layer, like there could be things that we just haven't taken the time, you're absolutely
Ryan: right
Damien: to dive into the depth of the scene.
And it could be something that just on the surface didn't strike us, because, we're reading these stories for a pod and we do a cursory [00:49:00] analysis, then we move on. Maybe there is, maybe there's a level of, a level of depth that we just don't know,
Ryan: i'm willing to accept that possibility.
Yeah, absolutely.
Damien: Especially with so many columns dedicated mm-hmm. To that scene itself. Right? It was, and then oh yeah, you saw the ghost. I saw the ghost. Okay. Need to
Jess: stand there. The end. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: I, and I also compare it to the Phantom Coach, which I adore. And that story hangs together so well.
Right. So I know she has this capacity chop. Well, at the beginning of the story, Edwards invokes a lot of language of uncertainty. I kept underlining these passages of uncertainty, uncertainty about how long ago this event occurred. Mm-hmm. She writes not the finest nor the least charming part of her journey.
She rambled not to forget, but neither to not forget. There was a lot of, it's not this, but it's not that he's
Jess: not sure where
Ryan: he's
Jess: gonna stop. He's gonna
Ryan: walk until he wants to stop. Yeah, exactly. What do you think Edwards is doing there with that? And is that effective story writing?
Jess: So, I read [00:50:00] this in an unhealthy true crime kind of way.
So, oh, do
Damien: Dish.
Jess: So we've got our kind of like uncertain narrator. He didn't, he's not sure where he's going. He doesn't really like anywhere that he's been, he's talking about you know, he's been to France and here and there and like they were fine. And, but he doesn't know what he wants to do. Mm-hmm.
And he's gonna walk until he sees the next town. But maybe he doesn't wanna stop there.
Damien: Jess, are you doing a story analysis or are you giving us the lyrics to Here I go again by white snake.
Jess: Uh, but then he meets and like, has a real conversation with one person about this very weird experience he has.
And he's like immediately obsessed. Right? So he like, right, he sees this priest. Here's the story. And now he has like a purpose, [00:51:00] right? Like the wishy-washy kind of language is gone. He immediately knows I gotta find a different room. I'm gonna walk here, I'm gonna walk by Margaret's house. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Purpose, I'm gonna go through the cemetery. There
Ryan: is purpose. Yeah, you're right.
Jess: I'm gonna, go right up to this house. I'm, oh, look at me, I'm walking the trail. The murderer walked. And I was reading that just through the lens of like how popular weird true crime stuff is with people who didn't have an interest in it before.
And they pick up one podcast and all of a sudden they're just like, I am a, it's
Damien: immersive.
Jess: I'm a citizen sleuth.
Damien: Right, right, right. I'm
Jess: gonna get all the details of this. My life is now Reddit message boards.
Damien: But that attribute could even be given to the people who host and produce these murder podcasts because they do get so immersed in the story.
Absolutely. So it's it's not just the reader spectator, it's also, the person involved. So.
Jess: And that, so yeah. Sort of the form of like, oh, I hear a juicy story and I see a weird guy, and immediately okay, I am done rambling. Sure. For a while [00:52:00] until now, I've got a
Damien: purpose. Yeah.
Jess: But that also, this story echoes that in the like, gruesome stuff that you want in a true crime story. If I don't watch true crime. I don't really, yeah. The scene
Ryan: was particularly like the hatchet,
Jess: the blood, the bloody hand prints. even the, um, it's all
Damien: shining right there, maybe.
Jess: Oh yeah.
The, the clock maker and his plump wife, they even have like a back and forth conversation as though they're the two hosts of a podcast where like he makes some dig about the wife and she says, oh, we don't speak ill of the, you know, like they're going back and forth. Like this is a rehearsed story that they've done for other people too.
So we're getting like the juicy, that's an
Ryan: interesting point, that it's a rehearsed story. They've.
Jess: Yes.
Ryan: The they've told many times
Jess: Yeah. That like everyone is in a well dinner in a
Damien: show,
Ryan: you know? Yeah, yeah.
Jess: Interesting. They know the story. So yeah. That was just a, for me, a, an interesting way to frame like what is going on here?
And then you get to okay, well the [00:53:00] ending where the ghost walks by and then it just ends and so he leaves. Mm-hmm. Like, okay, well that's an episode of a true crime show. Yeah. Like, okay, we've learned all of the details. There's not really a resolution because it hopefully is something that happened in the past and there's nothing we can do about it, so, okay.
Onto the next adventure.
Ryan: Right. Well what about the writing in general? What did you think? Strong. Yeah, I agree, Damien.
Jess: Yeah. Surprisingly interesting. We start with a beautiful description of the landscape. We get a creepy guy, we get a, a horrible murder scene with hatchet and blood and everything.
So the dialogue was good. The characters were interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I had a good time with the writing.
Ryan: The writing I thought was really good. It's beautiful. It's often surprising. Yeah. In, in some ways I think it shares some characteristics of Edith Nesbitt's writing where it's both beautiful and then like shockingly violent and [00:54:00] gross at certain points.
For
Damien: sure. It's jarring, I think, and intentionally written to be jarring, I think.
Ryan: Oh, ab, absolutely. And you can just imagine people that are reading this in the Christmas edition of all the year round, right? Right. Yes. It's just wait. He did a what now? There's even a, there's even a bit of humor.
On page 1 56, and Jess, you referenced this line in your summary. I laughed out loud when I read this the narrator says, I saw your pastor just now in church. He is a singular looking man. I've been described
Damien: as such by my exes. So
Ryan: I spend my days talking with people who, to me, try to appear more polite than they are to their Sure.
Yes. What is the number one thing a person does when they realize they've encountered a priest? It stops swearing and apologize for all the swearing they've ever done. So it's like he's a singular looking. Yeah. It just, it really [00:55:00] cracked me up. It's good. I did feel though that the pacing of this story was a little off.
It felt very weighted. I was, I was just gonna say, aside from
Damien: the intentional, jarring ness of the writing that, you know, that the author is like, demonstrated in this other and in other tales, I never found a true rhythm. Mm-hmm.
Ryan: I
Damien: found it hard to hone in on a rhythm. I
Ryan: agree with that.
Damien: So it wasn't probably as impactful as it could have been.
The jarring this, because I wasn't like. Sucked into a flow almost.
Jess: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I wonder if part of that is knowing that she's writing travel logs and things like that, that she's, if she wrote novels, she wrote a ton of short stories. But this has the pacing of we're wrapping up a chapter and tomorrow we're gonna wake up in a different city.
In a different city.
Ryan: Yeah, sure. So you're interesting, you're
Jess: not looking for like an exact narrative in that kind of writing. I am in this kind of writing.
Ryan: Right. But Right.
Jess: No point. It does, it read very and here is two days of my life and tomorrow I'll tell you about the next two days, right?
Ryan: [00:56:00] Mm-hmm.
Well, Jess, how many cathedral bells are you given this, did this story church for you?
Jess: You know what, this is a pretty churchy church story. I'm gonna give it. Five graveyard goats, I think
Ryan: out of how many goats?
Jess: Seven. Oh
Ryan: yeah, that's fair.
Jess: Changed.
Ryan: Changed the, well, I was, I'm, I'm also
Damien: gonna go pretty high and give it 29 out of 32 malaligned clocks.
Ryan: Mm, okay. That's most of those clocks. Yeah, that's pretty, most of the clocks.
Damien: So it is very high in the church. Ter for me, I definitely think it churches.
Ryan: Okay. I agree. I will say that I will say that four out of five priests agree that this is a churchy story. Alright. That's cool.
Damien: Are, those are Colgate numbers right there.
That's, uh, that's right.
Very churchy about the
Ryan: scare. What about the scare? Did the scare hold up for you all?
Damien: Not scary.
Jess: No. A couple moments. Really rich.
Damien: Even the bloody violence, it just wasn't scary. It was too understated, [00:57:00] dude. I'm sorry. It just wasn't scary. I
Ryan: thought the ghost in the confessional was very creepy.
No, I thought he looked head slowly. No, I
Damien: thought he looked like a Bambi, like he was outta place. Like he was confused. He just looked like a confused old man.
Jess: I think it was a good ghost.
Damien: Underused.
Jess: Underused. So then it's sort of like, well, okay, if your ghost's not, is your, the only thing your ghost does is, see, that's interesting.
A quick walk. And turns his head.
Ryan: Yeah. I see. I felt like it was a good, it was a creepy ghost because it wasn't overused. That's so interesting. And then I also thought the clocks were creepy, which may have been The clocks
Jess: were creepy.
Ryan: Clocks were creepy. Clocks were creepier
Damien: than the, I The clocks are rank high on your creep ter, meanwhile the bloody ax death or the bludgeoning by gun.
Yeah. That's par for the course.
Ryan: Good. Coming to expect this stuff is really, truly jarring. Alright, that's gonna take us to our whiskey ratings. This is how we rate our stories here on whiskey in the Weird From Zero Fingers of Whiskey to the coveted full fist. Damien, what are you [00:58:00] giving in the Confessional by Amelia b Edwards?
Damien: Yeah. Mostly on the strength of the writing. I'm gonna give it a three and a half. Mm-hmm. The story wasn't bad by any stretch. I thought that it did extend a little bit. Like I said, it never really found its rhythm, but I did like the jarring scenes, the compelling characters. I like the arc as a whole.
There was just something that I wish I could have. Clicked in, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, and it did, it, it never did. When I read the last page, I was like, oh. And so it rides in the middle of the pack for me. So, strong writing bumps it up from a three to a three and a half. Cool. Jess?
Jess: I went with a four, partially because my complaints about this story were of the theme that I think I just, I wanted more of this story.
Ryan: Uhhuh.
Jess: So I wanted to read the next chapter, which is different from other stories, where're, just like, this is the two. 'cause the story sucks. So I went a little higher than maybe I initially would have. Just in the I like the writing. I like the creepy ghost. I thought he was a little underused.
I love the [00:59:00] creepy clocks. And I wanted to turn the page and see where this guy ends up next, mm-hmm. Right. Like I could read a book about creepy church travels in Switzerland.
Ryan: Yeah I'm also coming in at three and a half fingers on this. Right. And this was a hard one for me because like when this story started off, it was a full fist.
And sure. It's like the teachers in elementary school were like, everybody starts with a hundred and you get docked off from there. But it just kept ticking down. We're really
Damien: annoying. People in restaurants who lay out a tip in cash on the table and say, every time you mess up, I'm gonna take away a dollar.
Are there, who are you? People who do exist exist. They should be knee capped. That's not, that's, and during my front of house days, there were people who did that and I was like, you are a miserable human.
Ryan: Yes you are. But I did that with the story.
Is she dead? We're okay. I think Amelia Lio be fine. Yeah. Uh, no. Like I, and maybe because of the Phantom coach, I was so, my hopes were way up there. But sure, as soon as the story [01:00:00] started, I was like, this is three and a half. I love this. It ended up just being kind a normal ghost story for me. I felt let down at the end.
It was still, it was beautiful writing. I at least thought the ghost was creepy. I think she could have done more with some of the themes, more clocks. So, three and a half fingers for me? Yes. All right. That's gonna take us to our, if this, then that for this evening. And I actually have that tonight.
All right. What I'd like to re recommend, if you enjoyed this story, then you might enjoy a recent Spanish film called The Coffee Table. You broke the Rule three, Ryan, I kid, I just no in some of my research for this episode of the podcast, I came across a story by RH Benson called The Traveler.
Now you might recognize the last name of that author. That's E F's brother. Yes, EF had, okay. It's a Benson bro. Ef Yeah, EF had three or two brothers RH and ac. I don't know why they all went by their initials. Oh, geez. Um, air conditioning, radio
Damien: frequency, there's a lot of 'em here. Right? [01:01:00] All right.
Ryan: They were all ghost story writers.
Robert Hugh Benson was actually an Anglican priest before he swam the Tiber and became a Roman Catholic priest. And most of his stories feature Roman Catholic clergy or churchy theological ecclesiastical themes. And the traveler is no exception. So if you read this story by Amelia Edwards and you were sitting there thinking, I like this, but I wish it were church year mm-hmm.
Than Rh Ben story, the traveler, as I often think, you know, it just gotta
Damien: crank up the churchiness a bit.
Ryan: And the traveler has done that. It is a short story. It is a punchy story. All right. Um, but it involves a lot of church history, theological detail Wow. And architectural detail. Oh, cool. That, that, will peak the interest of enthusiasts, but perhaps turn off the more casual church story reader, ghost story reader, I should say.
Sure. So yeah, if you liked this story and you wanted it to be a bit more, I will also say that Benson's story has some theological [01:02:00] profundity to it that this story lacked. So if you're looking for a little of a bit of a deeper story, then go with Robert Hugh Benson's The Traveler. It's available for free on several websites.
Damien: Cool. And it's nice because we usually do like a contemporary of this than that. I know. But this one's doing a throwback to a familiar family for the pod and, uh, a similar story. That's very cool.
Ryan: Yeah, I thought, we break the rule from time to time.
Damien: Let's do it.
Ryan: Well, thanks everybody for joining us.
That's gonna do it for us tonight on Whiskey. And the Weird, if you enjoyed this episode, would you drop a rating or a review wherever you catch your podcasts? We would dearly love to see one newer than. Two years ago, which I think is when the last review came in. We always wanna thank Dr. Blake Brandis for providing the music for whiskey and the weird, and Damien, if they'd like to tell us in person what they think of our podcast or the story, where can they do that?
Damien: Yeah. Well, don't tell us in person because that means you're at my house and you need to get off my lawn. All right? With, as long as you have a non-functional clock. No, you can find [01:03:00] us on all the socials at whiskey and the weird that's at whiskey and the weird on all the socials excluding X because X is a wasteland.
So find us elsewhere, blue sky. We're gonna get that puppy up and running. And all the meta properties again at Whiskey In the Weird, we spell our whiskeys with an E and we hope you do too. If not, don't worry. You're safe inside your confessional booth, I promise.
Ryan: Jess, what are we reading? Next
Jess: up next, the cathedral crypt. Woo, by John Windham.
Ryan: Fantastic. Thanks for joining us again, everybody. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Bur.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we're whiskey in the Weird, somebody Send us home.
Damien: As always, keep your friends through the ages and your creeps in the pages.
Bye-bye everybody.
Bye. [01:04:00]