Transcript of a phone call between Pamela Goodwin and her niece, Jill.

(Wednesday evening, recorded via speakerphone on a Breville Sandwich Toaster that Keith had been fiddling with, accidentally connected to Bluetooth)

JILL:
Auntie Pam! Oh thank goodness — I just saw your post. He’s back?! Uncle Terry’s back?!

PAMELA:
Yes, love. He popped up yesterday afternoon in the utility room, bold as brass. Startled poor Muppet the cat so badly she’s shed her entire undercarriage.

JILL:
Wait, what? Where’s he been? Did he say anything? Was he lost in the woods?

PAMELA:
Well, not as such. Said he "went for the biscuits and got waylaid by a bend in time." I thought he meant he took the scenic route via Lower Muckle. You know what he’s like.

JILL:
Auntie Pam, he’s been gone for four days. The Police helicopter was in the air. There were divers in the duck pond. I saw Virgil Twobyfour hurling gooseberries into a brazier.

PAMELA:
Yes, well. About that.

JILL:
Oh god.

PAMELA:
I may have... consulted with Virgil. Just popped up to the allotments with a slice of Battenberg and a very old map. He sniffed it, muttered about ley lines and the price of courgettes, and then built something in the shed with string, lard, and an old biscuit tin.

JILL:
...Was it humming again?

PAMELA:
Oh very much so. Smelt of toast and regret. There was a low thrumming that made my earlobes vibrate, and his weasel got inside my boot.

JILL:
And then Terry came back?

PAMELA:
Yes, but he’s a bit off.

JILL:
How do you mean?

PAMELA:
Well, for one thing, he’s very polite. Said “please” when he asked for tea, and he didn’t once mention that the remote’s been moved.

JILL:
That’s not like Uncle Terry at all.

PAMELA:
Exactly. And he keeps smiling. With all his teeth. Even the one he lost to that angry vole in ‘98.

JILL:
He got that tooth back?!

PAMELA:
Yes, but it’s on the wrong side.

JILL:
Oh god.

PAMELA:
And he keeps calling me “Margaret.”

JILL:
Who’s Margaret?!

PAMELA:
Exactly. I’ve just been nodding. He’s also been standing in the airing cupboard at night, holding a jam jar and muttering about “the coil of sweetened sleep.”

JILL:
...Do I need to come round?

PAMELA:
No no, love. No need to fuss. He’s probably just settling in. Bit of post-fayre fugue. We’ve all had it. I mean, you remember after the ferris wheel incident in ‘08.

JILL:
I still get flashbacks whenever I hear a calliope.

PAMELA:
Exactly. Anyway, he’s eating again — though only things that are “perfectly symmetrical” — and he’s taken up jigsaws.

JILL:
That can’t be normal.

PAMELA:
Oh no, we’ve never owned a jigsaw. This one just appeared. Keeps growing new pieces every time he turns his back.

JILL:
Auntie Pam, I’m genuinely quite worried.

PAMELA:
Oh it’s probably just the change in the weather. Or leyline interference. Or residual fairground residue. Virgil said there might be “afterimages.”

JILL:
Is he still vibrating slightly?

PAMELA:
Only when he thinks no one’s looking. But I’ve got my eye on him. And a very large serving spoon.

JILL:
Alright. But promise me you’ll call if he tries to eat anything non-Euclidean.

PAMELA:
Promise, love.

[Pause]

PAMELA (quietly):
...He does keep humming “Pop Goes The Weasel,” but backwards.

JILL:
Oh dear.