Today it was the turn of Staring Crone. I don’t remember ever having heard her speak before, though Kate has promised us ‘she’s a real sweetie’. The trouble is, Kate’s not always reliable about that sort of thing; she once said Old Albert was ‘absolutely lovely and had a great sense of humour’, which kept the rest of us laughing for a week afterwards. So I’d never risked chatting with Staring Crone; she’d never exactly given the impression she’d reply anyway.

‘Uh, we’ve heard a lot of mermaid stories, haven’t we?’ Staring Crone began. Her voice was creaky and quiet, like her throat was coated in rust. But it was a great start, so we all nodded enthusiastically.

‘I hope she does The Little Mermaid,’ whispered Kate.

‘And they’re lovely,’ Staring Crone continued. ‘We’ve got the idea that their upper body is normal but, uh, naked, and human, but their lower body is a powerful fish tail. I think there were some nice stories about hidden cities under the sea and happy adventures with songs and dancing fish.’

‘Yes!’ whispered Kate.

‘But there are other stories too. From other places. Other countries have stories about mysterious sea creatures which can live on the land and under the sea. They’re not all as nice as mermaids.’

‘Like the kriks? They can live on the land and under the sea,’ I whispered. ‘And they’re not very nice.’

‘“Nice”?’ James started laughing. ‘“Not very nice”?’

‘Yeah, all right,’ I said. ‘They’re ruthless killing monsters, then.’

‘They’re creepy bastards,’ said Lana. ‘Now shut up. You’re being annoying.’

The Big House had gone unusually quiet. This wasn’t the talk we’d been expecting. Staring Crone continued, her voice stronger now, louder and more confident. ‘Many of those stories were violent, or were about the sea creatures killing humans. There are Greek Sirens, who deliberately lured sailors to their deaths, and there’s the Scottish “Selkie”, which lives as a seal in the water, but sheds its skin to become human when on land. In fact, uh, I think the mermaid stories haven’t always been nice. The stories I remembered, like The Little Mermaid, were recently changed to focus only on the happy bits of the story. The original versions were much, much darker and more violent.

‘And, uh, do you know that the Danes and the Japanese both had a legend about a giant sea monster with lots of tentacles? The Danes called it the Kraken, and it was big enough to swallow whole ships. So, uh, what I mean is that I think we should think about these stories as being more than just stories. I think we should start treating them as fact.’