The yellowed country records containing her testimony and that of her accusers were so damnably suggestive of things beyond human experience – and the descriptions of the darting little furry object which served as her familiar were so painfully realistic despite their incredible details.
That object – no larger than a good-sized rat and quaintly called by the townspeople “Brown Jenkin – seemed to have been the fruit of a remarkable case of sympathetic herd-delusion, for in 1692 no less than eleven persons had testified to glimpsing it. There were recent rumours, too, with a baffling and disconcerting amount of agreement. Witnesses said it had long hair and the shape of a rat, but that its sharp-toothed, bearded face was evilly human while its paws were like tiny human hands. It took messages betwixt old Keziah and the devil, and was nursed on the witch’s blood, which it sucked like a vampire. Its voice was a kind of loathsome titter, and it could speak all languages. Of all the bizarre monstrosities in Gilman’s dreams, nothing filled him with greater panic and nausea than this blasphemous and diminutive hybrid, whose image flitted across his vision in a form a thousandfold more hateful than anything his waking mind had deduced from the ancient records and the modern whispers.
A small, furry, sharp-toothed scent that will nuzzle you curiously in the black hours before dawn: dusty white sandalwood and orris root, dry coconut husk, creeping musk, and the residue of ceremonial incense.
Claire –
Honestly a little puzzled by this one! I wasn’t very familiar with any of the three ingredients, so I knew I was in for an adventure. Both in the bottle and when I first put it on my immediate association was baby powder. For more detail, it’s a kind of faintly aquatic, powdery scent with the barest touch of what I’m going to describe as a root kind of smell? Not quite earthy, but close enough. Very clean. Not how I’d describe baby powder exactly, but somehow it’s quite similar.
This one stays close to the skin and in many ways results in a “skin amplified” kind of scent. I imagine this will be great for layering. In short, I do like it; it’s subtle and inoffensive. As an aside, I also really enjoy the seven word story; so tragic and evocative.