Speaker 1: M thirteen days of Halloween is from grim and mild
Speaker 1: blumhouse and I heeart. Three D audio headphones recommended. Listener
Speaker 1: discretion advised. Kay h they're searching for something out there
Speaker 1: by the island. They'll probably never find it. Nothing comes
Speaker 1: out of these waters once it's gone in. Well, almost nothing.
Speaker 1: Where where am I h you've got quite the cut
Speaker 1: on your forehead. Well, how did that happen? I don't know.
Speaker 1: How did you get here? All right, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything. Okay. Well, what's the last thing
Speaker 1: that you remember? Nothing, mm HMM, poor girl, crack on
Speaker 1: the skull must have knocked at you. Things loose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: take my hand, let's get you to the doctor. Alright, steady, steady, steady,
Speaker 1: steady day. All right, good. How do you feel? Fine, stiff,
Speaker 1: a little bit of headache. Well, we'll take it easy
Speaker 1: as we go. You follow me? MM HMM. And Dire Brook.
Speaker 1: To answer your question, I'm sorry, you asked where you were.
Speaker 1: This is the township of dire brook. Oh, we were
Speaker 1: once a prosperous fishing village and then we were famous,
Speaker 1: famous for producing parts for merchant ships. But that was
Speaker 1: a long time ago, though. We tried our hand at
Speaker 1: the tourism trade. Voters called US bleak and I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Who Are you? Of course, I'm so sorry. And the
Speaker 1: people here call me mother. Mother, it's a strange thing
Speaker 1: to be called, I know, but I've grown to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: It feels warm, doesn't it, and this world could use warm,
Speaker 1: especially this corner of the world. I've grown so accustomed
Speaker 1: to the nickname I sometimes quite forget what I was
Speaker 1: called beforehand. Mother, it just feels natural, doesn't it? Yes,
Speaker 1: are you cold? No, sort of numb. Well, we should
Speaker 1: find you a coat. Nonetheless, these winds get brutal this
Speaker 1: time of year. Oh what look Jonathan, who the fisherman
Speaker 1: up there? His family has been here since the dawn
Speaker 1: of dire brook. You have something to warm you, Surely, Jonathan? Hello, come,
Speaker 1: we'll meet him by his boat. This used to be
Speaker 1: a bustling place, this marina now of total disrepair, a
Speaker 1: store ten years back, reduced to one working dog, and
Speaker 1: only Jonathan uses it anymore, and not to fish. Hello, mother,
Speaker 1: who's this fool girl? My guest? Well, she's dripping wet.
Speaker 1: She'll not last long in this wind dressed like that
Speaker 1: and old soggy to boot. That's a nasty Gash you've
Speaker 1: got on your head there. I'll hang on then. This
Speaker 1: old jacket is dusty and moth eaten, but it'll do
Speaker 1: the job. Go on, take it, put it on. Thank you.
Speaker 1: How are you there? Mother? Well enough, Jonathan, and you know,
Speaker 1: about the same as yesterday. With apologies, still, what happened
Speaker 1: yesterday the same thing as happens every other day. Girl,
Speaker 1: I don't understand. Well, girl, here everything returns to the sea.
Speaker 1: Not so many years ago this was a bustling little marina.
Speaker 1: Men made their living here. It was hard, dangerous, backbreaking Labor,
Speaker 1: but the sea here was generous to us, and so
Speaker 1: as long as we weren't afraid to put in the time,
Speaker 1: we could keep a solid roof over our heads and
Speaker 1: keep our families bellies full. My father fished, and his
Speaker 1: father before Him God only knows how far back the
Speaker 1: salt in the bloodlines ago. But with the salt come
Speaker 1: the stories. You've probably heard some of them before, or
Speaker 1: the famous ones. Mermaids and sirens and Kraken's stories, passed
Speaker 1: from sailor to sailor as they travel across the globe,
Speaker 1: stories which eventually make their way inland from the ports.
Speaker 1: My grandfather used to put me to bed with them,
Speaker 1: the stories his gruff voice would recall six headed sea
Speaker 1: monsters and ghosts, ships and all sorts of fantastic things
Speaker 1: that lit up my imagination, all but assuring that I'd
Speaker 1: follow the family tradition of making my living trolling the tides.
Speaker 1: His favorite, though, and mine by default, was the story
Speaker 1: of the mortal fish, long with smooth, silvery scales and
Speaker 1: a streak of Kelly Green down its back. It was
Speaker 1: beautiful to behold and just as elusive. Story was. If
Speaker 1: you caught a mortal fish, any wish you made would
Speaker 1: come true before the next sunrise, so long as you
Speaker 1: released it back to the sea. And he wasn't just
Speaker 1: repeating rumors. He said that when he was a younger man,
Speaker 1: he'd caught one and wished for his true love, and
Speaker 1: wouldn't you know it, he met my grandmother the very
Speaker 1: next day of the market. He was a believer, my grandfather,
Speaker 1: as our most who live here, we keep these stories
Speaker 1: with us, repeat them to ourselves during the long, hard
Speaker 1: days trolling the father of the seas tide. And it
Speaker 1: was just such a story that was running through my
Speaker 1: own head, many years after the old man had died.
Speaker 1: As I mended nets one early morning, the full moon
Speaker 1: high in the sky and a line in the water
Speaker 1: to perhaps catch breakfast, my mind was drifting, dreaming of mermaids.
Speaker 1: When there is a tallet on the line, gentle barely perceptible,
Speaker 1: but when you make your living fishing, become a tuned
Speaker 1: to these sorts of things, gentle nudges letting you know
Speaker 1: you'll eat. That day, when I reeled it in, there
Speaker 1: on the hook was the most beautiful fish I'd ever
Speaker 1: pulled out of the water. It was just as my
Speaker 1: grandfather had described, its sleek silver, the greyest green streak
Speaker 1: running down its back and, what's more, its eyes seemed
Speaker 1: to reflect the Dusky Pre dawn light with some sort
Speaker 1: of intelligence. I don't know how else to describe it.
Speaker 1: The fish knew that I knew him what he was,
Speaker 1: the mortal fish. Now, I was never accused, even in
Speaker 1: my youth, of being a true believer in anything, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to eat this beautiful creature, nor was
Speaker 1: I going to let an opportunity pass just in case
Speaker 1: the old man had been right. I mean even I
Speaker 1: am not above a little superstition, and so I made
Speaker 1: the same wish my grandfather had before me. Being a romantic,
Speaker 1: I wished for her great love and I tossed the
Speaker 1: fish back into the water. I hadn't made it back
Speaker 1: to the dark when I heard the cries. There she was,
Speaker 1: off my starboard bow, thrashing in the water as if
Speaker 1: tangled in a net. Without thought, I turned the boat
Speaker 1: and pulled her in. If I told you she was beautiful,
Speaker 1: it would be a lie by omission. The truth is
Speaker 1: I'd never seen beauty before I laid eyes on her.
Speaker 1: Her hair was a silvery type of blonde, like moonlight,
Speaker 1: her eyes Kelly Green, even dressed in tattered rags and
Speaker 1: soaked to the bone she was. I asked what brought
Speaker 1: her so far out and she said the tide. So
Speaker 1: I asked her name and she told it to me.
Speaker 1: It's a name I'll not repeat now, a name that
Speaker 1: will never cross these lips again, but at that moment
Speaker 1: I was hopelessly smitten. She came home with me that
Speaker 1: day and she stayed. She was strange and magical and mysterious.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't tell me about her past, wouldn't talk about
Speaker 1: her family, only the future, our future, most of all
Speaker 1: the child that she wanted for us to have. She
Speaker 1: could describe him in great detail. Strong arms and a
Speaker 1: stout trump like his pop, silver haired and green eyed
Speaker 1: like his mother, a dreamer and a fighter. I could
Speaker 1: see him in my mind's eye when she spoke and
Speaker 1: I was just so happy, entranced, I suppose, enchanted. We
Speaker 1: were soon married. She wore my grandmother's silver ring. It
Speaker 1: was only fitting, and soon thereafter, on another night with
Speaker 1: a full moon high and sky, she bore me that child.
Speaker 1: He was beautiful as well, small and delicate, but with
Speaker 1: a terrible sort of weight to him, as if he'd
Speaker 1: sink like a stone in the water, but with mother's
Speaker 1: hair and piercing green eyes. We named him Edward, after
Speaker 1: my father, though I suspect that she whispered another name
Speaker 1: to him as he slept in his bassinet. I felt complete.
Speaker 1: I had a family. Well, that should be the end
Speaker 1: of the tail, a happy dream Made Real, but the
Speaker 1: sea is fickle with her gifts. Over the coming weeks,
Speaker 1: my wife became restless, spoke of returning home to her father,
Speaker 1: spoke of bringing Edward with her. I told her I'd
Speaker 1: happily bring her home if she'd just let me know
Speaker 1: where home was for her, but she wouldn't meet my
Speaker 1: eye and would only become sour faced and call me
Speaker 1: a stupid brute. It went on like this for weeks
Speaker 1: after Edward arrived. I thought perhaps it was the sadness
Speaker 1: that sometimes comes after a woman gives birth. You know
Speaker 1: that well. I'm no expert on these things, but I
Speaker 1: know when something has gone too far, and one night,
Speaker 1: the night of the next full moon, it did. I
Speaker 1: don't know what woke me, the squeak of the back
Speaker 1: door or wind blowing up the path from the beach
Speaker 1: into the bedroom, but I knew at once that she
Speaker 1: was gone. The bassinet beside the bed already cold and empty.
Speaker 1: I jumped out of the bed and ran, and though
Speaker 1: I was barefooting in my skippies, I didn't feel any
Speaker 1: of the cold, at least not physically, as I followed
Speaker 1: my instincts down the rocky path to the shore, where
Speaker 1: I found her just in time as she walked into
Speaker 1: the frigid ocean, my boy in her arms. Without a
Speaker 1: second thought, I had followed her into the water, grabbing
Speaker 1: her shoulder, trying to pull her back toward the shore.
Speaker 1: And she turned. Her face was not hers. The snarl
Speaker 1: on her face, the spittle flying from her gleaming teeth,
Speaker 1: her green eyes glowing phosphorescent. To this day I can
Speaker 1: tell if she changed yet war if that look was
Speaker 1: just her pure hatred of her poor husband. I only
Speaker 1: know that it wasn't a human face that greeted me.
Speaker 1: She screamed at me holding Edward and Mo swiped at
Speaker 1: my face with the other, her nails tearing into my cheek,
Speaker 1: drawing blood. But my eyes were on the boy, my child,
Speaker 1: and I fought and pulled and finally he was free.
Speaker 1: And terrified, I moved as quickly as I could back
Speaker 1: to the shore, all the while her shrieking curses like
Speaker 1: something out of hell behind me. When I made it
Speaker 1: back to the beach, with Edward Wailing in my arms,
Speaker 1: I turned turned back to see if she'd followed, but
Speaker 1: she was gone. It was just me, winded leading, the
Speaker 1: salt stinging my wounds, and Edward crying his salt tears
Speaker 1: and the ocean. She did not stay gone. Days passed
Speaker 1: and then weeks, but I remained vigilant. I locked the doors,
Speaker 1: kept Edward close by my side and never out of
Speaker 1: my sight, night or day. And then came the full moon.
Speaker 1: Edward and I both slept fitfully that night. I dreamt
Speaker 1: he was lost in the water, that I was drowning
Speaker 1: and trying to find him. The cold hands were dragging
Speaker 1: me down. I woke to a tapping. When I turned
Speaker 1: to the window to look out, I saw her there,
Speaker 1: standing on the other side of the glass, naked, her
Speaker 1: silver hair wild, shining in the moonlight, her eyes burning
Speaker 1: acid green. Though the windows separated us, I heard her voice,
Speaker 1: clear and haunting from the other side. Give me back
Speaker 1: my child, she said. It made my blood run cold.
Speaker 1: Edward must have heard it too, and he kickled and
Speaker 1: cooled to see his mother at the window. But I
Speaker 1: told her no, no, I wouldn't let her take him
Speaker 1: into the ocean again. She could never have him. She
Speaker 1: said nothing more. She had just retreated back from the window,
Speaker 1: back toward the beach. I did not sleep the rest
Speaker 1: of that night. Again, days passed, again, weeks, and again
Speaker 1: the full moon came and in the night she returned
Speaker 1: give me back my child, and no, I said. And
Speaker 1: Edward laughing in his bassinet at the Funny Game Mommy
Speaker 1: was playing with Daddy, and she kept coming after that.
Speaker 1: Every month, as Edward drew too big for the BASSONET
Speaker 1: and moved to a crib in the bedroom, and slept
Speaker 1: less and less. Then one night, the night of his
Speaker 1: first birthday, after a long day of cake and celebration,
Speaker 1: I allowed myself a single glass of whiskey before bid.
Speaker 1: One glass. That was it. That's what it took for
Speaker 1: me to sleep through the night. When I awoke, he
Speaker 1: was gone. The crew was empty. The back door opened
Speaker 1: to the sun rising over the bay, her footprints leading
Speaker 1: down to the water. She had taken him home. I searched,
Speaker 1: I took the boat up and down the coast, posted
Speaker 1: his picture everywhere I could, but I know she had him,
Speaker 1: she was with him, and so I set about looking
Speaker 1: for the mortal fish again. I called out to m
Speaker 1: bathed the water for a reprieve, prayed to the father
Speaker 1: that I do anything, anything for my boy's return. I
Speaker 1: received my answer the next full moon. As I lay
Speaker 1: awake in the night staring out the window, I heard
Speaker 1: tapping at the back door. I jumped from bed and
Speaker 1: ran to see who it was, but when I opened
Speaker 1: the door there was no one there, just the wind
Speaker 1: off the ocean. When I stepped out to investigate further.
Speaker 1: My foot found something cold and slimy on the stoop
Speaker 1: and when I bent over I recognized it immediately. It
Speaker 1: was the martle fish dead. It's barely split and it's
Speaker 1: guts spilled across the door step. Something shone in its mouth.
Speaker 1: I know what it was before I pried it up.
Speaker 1: It was my grandmother's ring when I placed on her
Speaker 1: finger the day we married. She would not come back.
Speaker 1: Neither were the boy. They'd gone home and no matter
Speaker 1: how long I travel the sea, if I were to
Speaker 1: traverse every inch of its surface, I'd never find them.
Speaker 1: I Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, well, so am i.
Speaker 1: m HMM, you'd best get moving. You're not going to
Speaker 1: get any warmer standing out here in the wind. I'm
Speaker 1: sure the father has plans for you that don't involve
Speaker 1: freezing to death while some old coot shouts at you. Mother,
Speaker 1: you'd best get her to the doctor. That's the plan. Good.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jonathan. Can we expect you at the gathering tonight?
Speaker 1: Of course, good, good, and maybe you bring this girl
Speaker 1: with you after she's gone herself all taken care of
Speaker 1: and put on some dry clothes. I will see if
Speaker 1: she's up to it. I certainly hope that she is.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the coat, of course, miss now get
Speaker 1: going and mother, may the father bless you. Everything returns
Speaker 1: to him. Yes, eventually, tomorrow, on thirteen days of Halloween,
Speaker 1: the road. Clearing my head seemed a polite thing to do.
Speaker 1: Now that my head had company over and a new
Speaker 1: thought nagged at me. What should I be doing now
Speaker 1: with all this truth in my head? Careful, I mean,
Speaker 1: why Boba Halting, a hundred and twenty slabs of hog
Speaker 1: meet across country in a refrigerated truck, when the rest
Speaker 1: of the hogs get to just walk around out there
Speaker 1: on their own, you know, dressed in people clothes, pretending
Speaker 1: to speak human? Thirteen days of Halloween. The seed starring
Speaker 1: Kathy and Jimmy, Bethany and Lynde and Robin Bloodworth, written
Speaker 1: by Nicholas Takowski, sound design and mixing by Josh Thane,
Speaker 1: engineering by violent Ferton, dubway studios, New York, casting by
Speaker 1: Jessica Losa, created by Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, with
Speaker 1: executive producer Aaron Mankey, a production of I heart radio,
Speaker 1: grim and mild and Blumhouse Television