Monthly Archive for October, 2011

While crossing through a forest, a hunter one day emerged into a clearing and surprised four graceful does. The two parties froze and regarded each other. Disarmed for a moment by their long, blue beauty, the hunter failed to notice a cloth bag which sat at the feet of the most dazzling sister doe. Encrusted with blood, dirt, and fallen leaves, the bag contained a human heart so fresh it was practically still pounding. – Auction Here – already ended.

Two sisters, as different as night and day, decided to read aloud from their favorite book of poetry by a long-abandoned well in a part of the forest that their parents forbade them to visit. An old witch, disguised as a kindly old man, emerged from the well and prodded one of the innocent girls with a length of willow. – Auction Here – ends when it ends.

Two girls at a party were approached by a third who acted like she knew them. Disarmed by her friendly charm, the three became fast friends, at least for the festivities of the evening. When asked for her name, she answered differently every time. The girls thought that this was a grand idea for a masquerade. Little did they know that the mask their new friend seemed to wear was actually her face, with strange, finger-like tentacles where the nose and mouth belonged. One of them would later be found, but only in the spring, after the snow drifts melted enough to uncover her legs. – Auction Here – Ends Oct 25.

The little person emerged so suddenly that they imagined there must be a door in the hall that they had overlooked. Without a spoken word, she told them what they needed to do using sign language, but her audience later remembered her having a strangely accented voice. They thought it was familiar accent, but they couldn’t quite place it. Silently she instructed them to take the flowers she held, boil them, and then pour off a layer of yellow liquid that would gather on the top when the water cooled. This liquid must then be mixed with lavender flowers to make a poultice, and be applied to their mother’s eyes before the next morning. – Auction Here – already ended, alas.

A child prodigy musician, Harriet was kidnapped by agents of the mad sultan, and was every day forced to play her violin for the boys that he kept locked in a deep, cold, dungeon. The sultan would visit these boys from time to time, but would warn Harriet away from the room where they would entertain him. One day, after months of frigid gruel and one cavernous, unending violin recital, and finally unable to contain her curiosity, she burst into the chamber during one of his visits. Weeks later, mountain climbers found Harriet feral, half-starved and clinging to a rock miles away. The strings of her violin she had wound into her disheveled hair. Sadly, although she was immediately put under the care of world famous psychologist Horrace Razorbottom, Harriet never fully recovered. Here she is pictured wearing a medal that she had won just months before her tragic misadventure. – Auction Here – Ends Nov 3.

Despite the fact that the finished photo appeared to have been composed to frame all three children that appeared in it, the photographer Manzetti, when questioned by the police, swore up and down that he took a photo of two children, and no more. Later forensic examination of the photo would not resolve the mystery of how Mrs. Wallace’s son, Wilbur, could have appeared in this photo, taken only weeks after his mysterious disappearance. Two months later, the other two Wallace children disappeared as well. Search dogs would eventually locate what was left of Wilbur Bronson Wallace in an urn behind the gardening shed, but no sign of the other two missing children would be forthcoming. – Auction Here – Ends Oct 30.

Hop twice. Hop twice as you pass the brightly painted door and vaguely oriental decorations of Melinda’s Patisserie during the day, but do not tarry or darken her stoop after dark. If they were to put their heads together, her neighbors would not be able to work out any sensible geometry that would explain which building her shop door opens into, nor which spaces her kitchen and parlor occupy. – Auction Here – Ends when it ends.