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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 10h

Well, you will just have to wait like everyone else. My newsletter contains all the latest.

Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 10h

#vss365 A #hurricane tore roofs from houses and uprooted ancient trees, yet the old chapel stood untouched. Survivors crowded inside to give thanks. The priest locked the doors. Outside, the storm stopped instantly. He smiled. “There. It’s brought me a fresh congregation.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark medieval fantasy illustration. Inside an intact stone chapel, relieved hurricane survivors kneel, pray and embrace beneath candlelight. A gaunt priest secretly locks the heavy wooden door with an iron key, smiling sinisterly. Behind him, his own shadow stretches across the wall with unmistakable demonic horns. Through narrow windows, the devastated but eerily still village can be seen.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 10h

May I ask why you are pressing me on this?

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 10h

It wasn't only the cover, as I explained. I paid for the formatting and internal chapter illustrations as well. It will be publicly available when the launch runway commences.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

#vss365 For three nights, the dead followed a ship through the fog, their drowned faces rising beside the hull whenever the crew slowed. When they finally reached the #harbour, the sodden corpses stopped and would come no further... #Edvane #DarkFantasy

A dark medieval ship enters a fogbound harbour at night. In the foreground, its impossibly old captain turns beside the rail, grinning through blackened, rotten teeth. Behind the ship, drowned figures rise from the cold sea but stop at the harbour entrance, staring after him in fear. Weak lanterns illuminate stone quays and crooked waterfront buildings through the mist.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Ah thats what this is. Now I get it. I just spent 1500 dollars on my cover design, page illustrations and book formatting. Why? because I will be charging for the novel, while the rest is free. I'm fine with that approach.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Cost and ability. I can prompt for them and I've become proficient at doing so. I don't believe in the purity test. Frankly I'm in the Edvane business, not the other creators business. We must all adapt and do what is right for ourselves.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I wrote the novel and then wrote 40 stories that augment the people, places and events in the novel without telling the story. I have made those stories available at talesfromthewoldwood.com and readers can decide whether book is worth buying.

talesfromthewoldwood.com

Tales from the Woldwood by Edvane | Substack

Jonathan B. Edvane writes dark fantasy and short fiction. Tales from the Woldwood is a free 40-story descent into the world before the first novel arrives. Start anywhere. Click to read Tales from the...

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Yes. Alys, who appears in on of the 40 Tales from the Woldwood and Matthis, who appears in several.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

How it plays in is that those two schools are key to the development of several character arcs that I expect to remain important.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Not particularly. The Shivering Vale, on the whole, adds complexity to the mix of magic but it does not seek to describe any one school in depth. On balance the Verdicrence School or the Power of the Yew (sometimes called Sap Magic) earn a closer inspection there.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Brandon Sanderson famously argued that an author’s ability to solve problems with magic is proportional to how well the reader understands it. But what if hard and soft magic aren’t really properties of magic at all? This Dark Hearth essay explores the argument. LINK IN COMMENTS #Fantasy #Writing

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

#vss365 The will-o’-the-wisp danced across the bog each night, bright enough to #lure travellers from the road. Villagers blamed the marsh for the vanished. One night, a man tracked the light and saw it pause above a patch of black mud. Then the mud opened its mouth. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

A lonely medieval traveller wades through a moonlit bog towards a delicate blue white will o’ the wisp. Beneath the hovering light, the black mud opens into an enormous hidden mouth lined with pale teeth, revealing that the wisp has lured him to a buried creature’s feeding place.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#vss365 A librarian found an old map showing a way through the #mountain where no road existed. After closing, he followed the map until he found the path at the place it promised. Eventually, the path disappeared into a cave... #Edvane #DarkFantasy

A dusty librarian holding an old map emerges from a black cave into a warmly lit medieval inn hidden inside a mountain. Every guest has turned towards him with calm, knowing smiles, while the innkeeper watches from behind the bar. A parchment panel on the left contains the story, bordered in an antiquarian style.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

#vss365 Each month, a black #cloud rolled down and settled over the houses. The next day, another house stood empty. The priest said the mist carried souls to God. When it reached his door, he finally saw what moved inside it. Thousands of tiny hands. Reaching for him. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

A dark medieval mountain village at night is engulfed by a thick black cloud. Dozens of small, pale hands reach from the mist towards a frightened priest standing in his lantern-lit doorway. Snowy mountains and a moon rise behind the village. A parchment panel on the left contains the #vss365 story about the cloud and the vanished villagers.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

What the wizard wrote taxed me for quite some time. I'm pleased with it because its not my usual grim twist.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

With The Smothing of Dunsop Bridge, I wanted to write a piece of folklore that never existed, but might have. Something rooted closely enough in a real place, and old rural warnings that, for a moment at least, you might wonder whether I had made any of it up. LINK IN COMMENTS #Edvane #Folklore

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#vss365 The wizard left his apprentice a single #bequest. Most pages of the book were blank, but each year a new spell appeared. He learned them all. In the twentieth year, a final spell appeared. Beneath it, his master had written, “Now you are ready. You may bring me back.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark medieval fantasy illustration. An apprentice studies an ancient spellbook by candlelight, unaware that his dead wizard master is forming from cold grey smoke behind him and reaching towards his shoulder. A parchment panel tells how twenty years of magical lessons culminate in one final instruction, “Now you are ready. You may bring me back.”

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

#vss365 The headsman lowered his axe. “A royal #reprieve,” he announced. The prisoner sagged with relief as the crowd groaned. Then the castle gates opened. An impossibly tall, antlered creature stepped into the square. “His Majesty has sent a different executioner.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark medieval fantasy illustration. A condemned prisoner stands beside a bloodstained execution block as a hooded headsman unties him. The prisoner looks in horror toward open castle gates, where an impossibly tall, corpse-grey creature with huge branching antlers and elongated limbs enters the muddy square. The surrounding crowd recoils in fear. A parchment panel on the left contains the #vss365 story about a royal reprieve and the arrival of a different executioner.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

#vss365 She carried the smoking bundle through every room, whispering the words as bitter herbs filled the house. “Smoke will #purify what lives here,” the old woman had promised In the bedroom, the smoke curled around her sleeping husband and turned black. She stared at him... #Edvane #DarkFantasy

A dark folkloric illustration beside a parchment story panel. In a candlelit old bedroom, a tense woman holds a smouldering bundle of herbs over her newly awakened husband. Pale grey smoke twists through the room but becomes thick, oily black around the man in bed, with ambiguous tendrils curling through the shadows. The scene is framed by a thin antiquarian border.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Not quite an excerpt. I did once turn one of these into a short story, though. Thanks x

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

#vss365 The witchfinder raised the torch. “#Renounce the Devil, and God may yet forgive you.” She smiled through broken teeth. “I did, a decade ago.” Behind him, the church burst into flames, its bell crashing to the ground. His own men seized him. “Now I work alone,” she said #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark folkloric fantasy scene beside a burning medieval church. A furious witchfinder is seized by two of his own men, whose eyes are completely black under supernatural control. A pale, black-haired witch in dark Gothic clothing stands calmly before them, bruised but composed, as the church burns and its bell falls from the collapsing tower. A parchment panel at left contains the #vss365 story.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Indeed. Witches are known for it.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

#vss365 Mother Green took in every orphan girl the village abandoned. “Even the unwanted will flourish with enough #nurture,” she said. Years later, they carried their wands and weapons to the castle gates. Mother Green had never wanted daughters. She wanted an army. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark folkloric fantasy illustration. Mother Green, an elderly woman in a dark green cloak, stands behind a group of grim young women armed with swords, bows, axes, spears and faintly glowing wands. They face the closed gates of a vast medieval castle at dusk, dressed in worn cloaks and mismatched armour with subtle green tokens linking them together. A parchment panel reveals that Mother Green raised abandoned orphan girls not as daughters, but as an army.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

What if the folklore we think of as ancient was simply invented by somebody who made it stick? King Arthur became a chough. Children’s rhymes acquired meanings. Writers filled the gaps. In this post, I say Folklore is up for grabs. It always has been. LINK IN COMMENTS #Edvane #Folklore

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

#vss365 “I #reckon it fled to the caves,” Fredor said. “A beast that size leaves tracks.” Tanner snorted. “No dice, it’s above us.” The mossy boulder beside them exhaled a hot, sulphuric breath, and two yellow eyes opened. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark fantasy illustration of two medieval hunters arguing in a damp, mossy forest. One studies a map while the other points towards the ridge, neither noticing that the huge moss-covered boulder beside them is alive. Two wet yellow reptilian eyes stare from its stony surface as warm breath curls into the cold air. A parchment panel on the left contains the #vss365 story text.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

#vss365 When famine arrived, the Fear Gorta came begging at each cottage door. Some shared what little they had. Others cursed his #hunger and drove him back into the cold. By spring, the generous houses had full larders. In the others, they were eating the dead. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

A dark Irish folklore scene inside a poor stone cottage. In the open doorway, the unnaturally tall, skeletal Fear Gorta stands full-length in pouring rain, one hand extended for food. A father raises a hand to refuse him while his anxious wife and two children watch beside a rough table with a single loaf. A parchment panel tells how generous households survived the famine, while in the others, “they were eating the dead.”

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

#vss365 A sculptor worked by candlelight, carving his dead wife from black marble. Such was his #passion that every vein, lash and wrinkle returned beneath his hands. Eventually, the statue opened its eyes. He wept with joy. Then she whispered, “You buried me alive.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark Gothic illustration of a candlelit Victorian sculptor’s workshop. A dishevelled sculptor joyfully touches the face of a life-sized woman carved entirely from black marble. Her eyes are open and stark, featureless white as she stares accusingly at him. Chisels, marble dust and candles surround them. A parchment panel tells how he carved his supposedly dead wife back to life, only for her to whisper, “You buried me alive.”

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

In Emmie and the Black Orchard, I wanted to use a dark fairy tale to explore the cost of love: sacrificing even the memory of having loved. It created a nasty paradox. Everyone remembers who they love because Emmie agrees to be the one person who cannot. LINK IN COMMENTS #Edvane #FairyTale

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

#vss365 The SS Chimbayo was due to #embark for Alaska with machinery, lamp oil and winter provisions. She departed on time, but never arrived. Decades later, she steamed into harbour through January fog. Every man aboard was dead. All of them were frozen upright at their posts. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark maritime fantasy illustration of the long-lost SS Chimbayo gliding into a frozen Alaskan harbour through dense January fog. The steamship is heavily coated in ice and icicles, with its dead crew frozen upright at their posts, including the helmsman gripping the wheel and a lookout high on the mast. Shocked dockworkers watch from the snowy quay, one holding a mooring line from the ship. A parchment panel tells how the vessel vanished en route to Alaska and returned decades later with every man aboard frozen dead.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

#vss365 On a #stormy crossing, the crew of a steamer sighted another vessel pacing them through the rain. Its decks were crowded with dancing skeletons and drowned men in rotting evening clothes, glasses raised beneath strings of yellow lamps... #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark fantasy maritime illustration. During a violent night storm, terrified sailors aboard a coastal steamer watch the long-lost SS Cowper steaming alongside through black, heaving seas. Warm yellow lamps illuminate her crowded decks, where skeletons and drowned Victorians in decaying evening clothes dance, drink and celebrate as though at an elegant party, oblivious to the living witnesses. The ship’s name, SS COWPER, is visible on her stern beneath smoke, driving rain and lightning.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

#vss365 Baron Ludlow ended the thirty-year #conflict by marrying his daughter to his enemy’s son. The wedding lasted three days, and both houses swore the old hatred was buried. The next morning, the bride was found hanging from the gate. Pinned to her dress was the treaty #Edvane #DarkFantasy

A dark fantasy illustration of a grim medieval castle gate at cold dawn. A dead bride in a pale, tattered wedding gown hangs beneath the Gothic arch, a blood-marked peace treaty pinned prominently to her dress. Guards and servants stare up from a courtyard littered with wilted wedding flowers, torn decorations and abandoned feast debris. Ravens perch on the battlements beneath a bruised grey-blue sky. A parchment panel at left tells how Baron Ludlow ended a thirty-year conflict through his daughter’s marriage, only for her to be found dead the following morning with the treaty signed in her father’s blood.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#vss365 On Thursday, the miners broke through into a cavern no map recorded. Inside stood a forest of crystal trees. For hours they wandered in #marvel, touching leaves as cold as winter glass. Then one man found his own name carved into a trunk, followed by ‘Friday’. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

A dark Victorian-style illustration shows miners exploring a vast underground forest of luminous crystal trees. Cold blue-white branches tower into the cavern while the miners’ lanterns cast small pools of amber light. One miner stands apart, touching a crystal trunk carved with the name “EDWARD” and, beneath it, “FRIDAY”. An aged parchment panel contains the accompanying story.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#vss365 Lettie found the hole beneath the hawthorn where the rabbits ought to have burrowed. It was much too large for them, and someone had cut little steps into the earth. She fetched a candle. She had always wanted to #explore somewhere nobody else had been...

Late-Victorian Gothic storybook illustration in muted sepia and earthy tones. Above ground, a young girl named Lettie descends candlelit steps into a large hole beneath a flowering hawthorn tree. A cutaway reveals an underground chamber tangled with thick roots, where the mole-like Mr Talp waits in an old-fashioned dark coat, calmly tending the roots. Three other young girls are already held among the twisting roots around the chamber. The left third contains the story text on an aged parchment panel bordered with hawthorn.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

#vss365 At harvest, the villagers left one acre standing for the corn demons. Animals, and sometimes children, strayed into it and vanished. The elders said such losses were the price required to sustain the demons and spare the village. When famine came, they cut every stalk...

A dark folklore illustration of a harvested cornfield beneath a full moon. Tall, skeletal corn demons with bodies of blackened stalks, husks and twisted leaves emerge from a ruined patch of corn and advance towards a small village. Several have already reached the cottages, where warm light spills from open doors and windows. The left parchment panel contains a #vss365 story revealing that the acre of standing corn was not food for the demons, but their cage.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

#vss365 For a hundred years, a Potioneer kept one brew simmering beneath his tower. On the final night, he took up a silver spoon. “One stir,” his master’s notes promised, “and the work may #commence.” He stirred. Something beneath grasped the spoon and stirred back. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

A 16:9 dark fantasy illustration framed by a thin antiquarian border. The left third is a parchment text panel containing a short #vss365 story about a Potioneer who has kept a black brew simmering for a hundred years and, when he finally stirs it, something beneath grasps the spoon and stirs back. The right two-thirds show an underground alchemical chamber of stone arches, shelves of jars, dried herbs and skulls. An elderly, gaunt Potioneer in dark robes leans over a huge iron cauldron, his face lit by firelight and fixed in shock. He grips a long silver spoon, while from the glossy black surface of the potion a black claw-like hand emerges just far enough for its fingertips to seize the spoon. The scene is lit with deep shadows, orange fire beneath the cauldron, and a mood of sudden, intimate horror. “edvane.world” appears at bottom right.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

#vss365 The woods turned #autumnal as he crossed them, green leaves reddening above him while blackthorn burst from the earth and hooked his coat, his skin, and his hair. When the Cailleach stepped from between the trees, he begged to know why the change had come so soon...

A dark Irish folklore scene at dusk. On a narrow woodland path, a man is trapped in violently sprouting blackthorn as the surrounding leaves shift unnaturally from green to deep autumn reds. Ahead stands the ancient Cailleach, grey-haired and cloaked, holding a staff and looking past him towards a distant cottage with one warmly lit window. Cold mist and frost gather around her, while the unseen threat she warns of remains beyond the image.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

#vss365 He was strangely #sanguine about the king’s illness. Each morning the fever worsened. A week later, the king died. As the bells began to toll, the physician slipped the empty poison vial back into his case. “Nothing to fear, Highness,” he said, and bowed to the new king #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark medieval royal bedchamber lit by candles. A dead king lies beneath heavy red curtains while grieving courtiers stand nearby. In the foreground, a black-robed physician bows to the richly dressed new king while discreetly slipping an empty poison vial into an open medical case. A distant bell tower is visible through the window. The left third contains the #vss365 story on parchment, bordered by a thin antiquarian frame.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

#vss365 The people feared the old woman’s #esoteric rituals. Once a year, she buried thirteen black candles around the village and warned them never to dig them up. When she died, the priest ordered every candle burned... #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark Gothic historical illustration of a medieval chapel at night. A dead priest lies across a stone altar with thirteen black candles burning low directly upon his body, wax spilling over his dark vestments. Frightened villagers watch from the shadowed doorway by lantern light. A parchment panel at left contains the #vss365 story about an old woman’s esoteric ritual and the thirteen candles.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

#vss365 The condemned witch was spared because of her #eloquence. The king freed every prisoner in the dungeons and opened the city gates. The prisoners armed themselves. His enemies marched in. “I only had to teach you mercy, Majesty. They already knew what to do with it.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Dark medieval illustration of a castle courtyard after a violent uprising. An attractive dark-haired witch bows calmly as armed rebels drag a dishevelled, richly dressed king towards a wooden scaffold and waiting executioner. Behind them, prisoners and enemy soldiers pour through the open gates amid smoke, fire, fallen banners and bodies. A parchment panel on the left contains the #vss365 story about the witch’s eloquence turning the king’s mercy against him.

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Jonathan B. Edvane @edvane.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

#vss365 A girl left a bowl of milk outside each night for the terror in the woods, and they mocked her #naivete. Her father laughed hardest. A year later, every house but theirs stood empty. He asked why they had been spared. “It said you had to be last, Father.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

Alt text: Dark antiquarian folklore illustration. A pale, emotionally drained young girl stands with her increasingly terrified father immediately outside their lamplit cottage, beside a bowl of milk at the forest’s edge. Beyond them, the abandoned village lies dark and empty. Among the trees, an impossibly tall presence is almost indistinguishable from trunks and shadows, with only two faint eyes visible high in the branches. A parchment panel carries the #vss365 story about the girl’s naivete and the revelation that her father has been saved for last.

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