Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's blood-cirdling entry is from Raincoaster! You won't thank me for this one. If Tarnhelm was creepy, this seasonal story is next-level terrifying. Ready your night light; you'll need it. A jarring mashup of an anticipated jolly holiday for a joyful young man, and a terrifying, yet morally understandable haunting by the most horrific of criminals, this tale shows the true mastery of the short story form by Anglo-Canadian author Algernon Blackwood . He wrote several seasonal stories, and his catalogue is rich, even if he never was. Blackwood had the kind of resume to which modern writers can only aspire: dairy farmer, theosophical society founder, yellow press reporter, proto-pulp author who skillfully wove indigenous legends into contemporary fiction, whether the setting were the French marshes (The Willows) or the northern Canadian woodland...