Pre-Party Portents & One Very Suspicious Bake Sale
May 6 – a little gossip before everything got... weird
Swamplings, something's been brewing—and it’s not just the mushroom tea Sporella’s been handing out in unmarked jars.
Ahead of Linda’s now-infamous Spring Garden Party (full coverage in Issue #002), the swamp has been buzzing with omens, awkward energy shifts, and one extremely cursed lemon bar. If you thought things were peaceful? Honey, no. The bog had other plans.
Haunted Happenings:
The hedge maze behind Unit 3 spontaneously rearranged itself into a spiral formation. Rolf walked in to get his frisbee and came out reciting Victorian poetry and smelling like thyme.
The frogs on the east side have been singing in barbershop harmony. The third frog is consistently flat. No one’s brave enough to tell him.
Mort delivered three blank envelopes to three different residents. No names. No return address. Just vibes. He says they were “a gesture of closure.” We remain unconvinced.
Bake Sale Chaos:
Linda hosted a “Fundraiser for Fence Paint and Emotional Repair” the weekend before the party. It featured:
Chamomile cupcakes that unlocked very specific childhood memories, including but not limited to: an embarrassing recorder solo, a friendship bracelet betrayal, and that one time you saw your teacher at the grocery store and it broke your brain.
Lemon bars that whispered compliments if you chewed slowly enough (one reportedly said, “your aura is well-organized”).
Banana bread that glistened ominously and somehow knew your middle name. No one admitted to baking it.
Miss Bogbean bought a rhubarb tart, blacked out for seven minutes, and woke up with the sudden ability to speak fluent crow. “It’s mostly just insults,” she notes.
Signs, Omens, and Passive-Aggressive Spirit Boards:
A tea kettle whistled the melody of Ave Maria.
Sporella offered quiet advice over tea and told three different people to “keep their hearts open near the compost pile.” No one’s quite sure what it means, but the dahlias have been acting friendlier since.
Mort left a small envelope under the community bulletin board containing a pressed black lily and a quote about time being “just memory wearing a cloak.” It was unsigned, of course.
Baba Yaga paused during her morning walk to stare at the sidewalk for several minutes. “There was a message there,” she said later, “but it wasn’t written in chalk.” She has since been lighting candles at dawn. The raccoons have been unusually reverent.
Miss Bogbean’s Advisory:
I’m not saying something is coming. I’m saying it already came, sipped enchanted lemonade, and left glitter in the birdbath.
Full party coverage drops May 13 in Swamp Gossip Issue #002: Lilac Season & Other Omens.