“Have you ever watched the Oss too closely? Let it look at you, let it know you? No one talks about what happens if you do. But maybe they should.”
In the swirling chaos of the May Day processions, the Hobby Horse dances—a creature neither fully beast nor man, neither past nor present. Its masked face bobs and snaps, its movements erratic, its purpose never fully explained. It is tradition, they say. It is luck. It is protection.
But who is protecting who?
And in Lillian and Sylvia’s latest caper, the Oss isn’t just a festival mask. It is something worse.
Something that shouldn’t have woken up.
What Is the Oss?
In places like Padstow and Minehead, the Hobby Horse is a well-loved tradition, deeply embedded in the identity of the town. Each year, a masked horse figure winds through the streets, surrounded by a whirlwind of music, dancing, and superstition.
People say it brings luck. People say it chases away misfortune.
But people also say that, if you step too close, if you lock eyes with the swirling, shrouded thing beneath the mask, something changes.
This year, something did.
The Oss danced, the mask snapped shut… and people disappeared.
And no one remembers them.
A Mask for an Older Power?
The British Isles are riddled with old stories of spectral horses, ghostly beasts, and masked figures that bridge the worlds of the living and the dead.
- The Mari Lwyd—a pale horse’s skull that knocks on doors at midwinter, demanding entry. If it gets inside, luck follows… or something else does.
- The Ceffyl Dŵr, the Welsh water horse, lures travelers into the mist, never to be seen again.
- The Kelpie of Scottish lore, a beautiful, terrible thing that waits by rivers, inviting you onto its back before dragging you under.
What if the Oss is part of the same tradition?
What if the festival—the music, the laughter, the masks, the chaos—was never just for fun?
What if it was always a bargain?
What if the people of Padstow, Minehead, and Falmouth weren’t dancing to celebrate—but to distract something, to keep it contained?
And this year, they failed.
Why Does Sylvia Fear It?
Sylvia is not easily rattled. She has seen the Heart of Shadows corrupt men, she has spoken with ghosts, she has faced things that don’t belong in the rational world.
But the Oss?
The Oss is different.
Because this isn’t a haunting. This isn’t magic as she understands it.
This is something older than spells.
Something that doesn’t need words or rituals or bargains to take what it wants.
And worse—something that no one will admit is there.
Lillian saw it too. Not just the strange movement of the Oss, the way it stopped in front of the missing girls, the way its snapping jaw seemed to close over them.
But the thing in the shadows, standing behind it.
The thing that was watching.
Sylvia doesn’t just dislike the Oss. She steps back when it moves. Her hands flex at her sides, fingers twitching like they want to grasp a charm or a ward. But she doesn’t have one strong enough for this.
“It’s not just folklore, Lil,” she murmurs. “It’s awake.”
What Happens Next?
Lillian, Sylvia, and Wren are chasing a disappearing thread—one that no one else can see.
The missing girls aren’t just gone.
It’s as if they were never here.
The Oss danced, the mask snapped shut, and something in Falmouth shifted.
And now, they’re walking straight into the tunnels—into the dark, into the unknown, toward whatever is waiting beneath the festival.
The question is, who will still exist when they return?
The Last Whisper of the Oss
Lillian checked her phone before stepping into the tunnels. 9:47 PM.
And yet—when she looked back up, for just a moment, she could have sworn the carvings on the wall had changed.
Margaret’s message was still there.
But another line had been scratched underneath it, faint but fresh.
“YOU ARE ALREADY INSIDE.”
And the Oss is still watching.
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