Speaker 1: Welcome, my frightful friends to the Cozy Horror Podcast, where
even the most charming little towns hide secrets under the
floorboards and something always flickers just out of reach. I'm
your host, Julie Hopkins, and tonight's tale comes with a warning.
Keep your candles close and your cat's closer, because when
a storm rolls in, not all power outages are accidental.
Join tests a cautious candlemaker with a fear of thunder
and even deeper fears she won't dare name as she
chases a mysterious feline into the heart of a Carolina
storm and into the darkest parts of herself. So pour
yourself something warm, bolt those windows tight, and settle in.
It's time to burn a candle for dark and stormy nights.
Speaker 2: I've got a confession to make. I'm afraid of storms,
always have been, the thunder, the lightning, the wind. And
in this cozy little coastal town, we get a lot
of storms, bad ones, the kind that knock over trees
and cause power outages, blanketing the whole town in darkness.
And the thing about darkness is you never know what's
hiding in the shadows. But it's good for business. Yeah,
I think I've got more taper candles in the back.
Let me check. Excuse me?
Speaker 3: Do you work here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I own the place. What can I help you with?
Speaker 3: This candle labeled the Calm before the Storm? Is it
included in the sale?
Speaker 2: You bet you? It's the summer storm blowout.
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: You must be from out of town.
Speaker 3: We're visiting from Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Well, the summer storm blowout is a little tradition. I
started at the Wandering Flame candle shop. Whenever we get
a big storm, I run a sale. The storm tonight
is going to be one for the books. Rilene, What
are you doing here? Did you close up early?
Speaker 4: No one wants to go on and nature walk on
a daylight today? Have you seen how windy it is
by the marsh? Besides, I didn't want to miss out
on the candlesale.
Speaker 3: Excuse me? What about this candle labeled First Love, Second Chances?
Is that included in the sale as well?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, everything is on sale.
Speaker 3: What about this one? It's labeled Trouble in Paradise?
Speaker 2: Everything literally everything tests Nick, Hey, I didn't know you
were stopping by.
Speaker 5: I'm kind of busy, I know, candles sales, everyone acting
like they've never seen a storm before. As someone who
works for the power company, I find your defensive. How
little faith people have in our ability to keep the
lights on.
Speaker 2: Nothing wrong with being cautious. Can we talk now?
Speaker 6: I brought you tea mint with honey.
Speaker 2: Okay, talk fast, Okay.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to give you these before you closed
up the shop tonight.
Speaker 2: Your house key?
Speaker 6: No, your house.
Speaker 2: Key, nick I said, I wasn't sure.
Speaker 5: It's been two years, tests two years, and you still
won't even talk about moving in with me.
Speaker 2: Is this really the time?
Speaker 6: It's never the time.
Speaker 5: You're always too busy, too tired to something.
Speaker 6: I'm not asking for a wedding. I'm just asking for.
Speaker 2: It a lot. You're asking for a lot too much.
I didn't say that.
Speaker 5: Don't you want to save some money on rent? And
you hate being alone when these storms roll through?
Speaker 6: And also we're in love?
Speaker 2: Yes to all of that, But I like my space.
We've got a good thing going on. What if we
ruin it all?
Speaker 6: What if we don't ruin it? What if it's great?
What if we're very happy together?
Speaker 2: What if reasoning isn't good enough?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I think what you mean is what we have
isn't good enough.
Speaker 3: Excuse me? This candle labeled the End is nigh? Is
that one for sale to?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, that one too? Nick? Wait here, just can
you take the key? It's pure chaos around here. I'll
probably just lose it. We'll talk later.
Speaker 6: Okay, you know what, don't worry about it. I got
the message loud and clear.
Speaker 2: Hey, don't be like that. We'll talk. I promise. Here,
take a candle. It's your favorite son. Can't fire promises?
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, thanks, just in case I'm not the one
who's scared of thunderstorms.
Speaker 2: Well that was something. It was nothing. Since one is
a breakup. Nothing that wasn't a breakup, was it. I've
been married three times, trust me, I know a breakup one.
I see one. I hate when he gets like this.
It's like, why does he have to make everything so complicated?
I mean, if he's gonna just keep pushing this, maybe
breaking up wouldn't be the worst thing. I'm glad you
feel that way, because let me remind you, you just
did and my life just got a whole lot more simple,
didn't it? Is that so it's easier to be alone?
You might want to let him know who?
Speaker 4: Nick?
Speaker 2: No, No, no him? Is that one of your cats?
Does it look like one of my cats? I don't know.
You have like a million cats. I have three, and
none of them are gray like him. Well, if he's
not yours, then who's is he? I don't know. I've
never seen him before. No caller? Maybe astray? Hey little guy,
where did you come from? Are you here all alone?
He likes you? No, he doesn't. He just likes the attention,
don't you. You love attention, and you know who will
give you lots of attention. This nice lady standing next
to me. Do you want to go home with Andy Marlene?
She's got lots of feline friends at our house for
you to play with. Looks like he's made his choice. Yes,
but I don't do pets. You do?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 2: Okay, cat, it's closing time. You don't have to go home,
But you can't stay here. Oh come on, it's just
a little rain. Don't you want to be free, live
your life? Go out there and be your own cat? Okay, fine,
you called my bluff. I think I've got some tuna
in my kitchen upstairs, but this is just for tonight. Okay,
once set storm passes. We're going to go out and
we're going to find whoever your human is. I'm sure
there's someone out there looking for you, and you know
how I know that it's because you are a way
too clean not to have someone who cares about you
and no offense. But you look pretty well fed, you know.
I bet you're someone has a big shady porch somewhere,
and I bet they've named you something ridiculous like mister Whiskerton,
and I bet they love you so much. And my someone,
unfortunately does not seem to want to text me back tonight.
Love is a bit more complicated when you're not a
super adorable cat. Hey, you saw Nick and I talking today?
Was that a breakup? Yes? Sorry, I don't speak cat. Okay,
one meal for yes? Two for now? Did Nick and
I break up? H? There goes the power? Hang on,
I got a candle right here. You're gonna love it.
It's midnight tempest. It was a limited batch, a local favorite.
Now isn't this nice? You and me sharing a candle
at dinner together? And after this we're gonna sit by
the fire and read. But which one any ideas? How
do you feel about vampires that glitter in the sun. Oh,
team Jacob, Wow, Okay, you're full of surprises. I mean,
you do realize he's a were wolf, which is like
basically a monster dog. What happened to the candle was
that you don't know how you would blow it out,
But no problem, I'll just relight it. As I turned
back to the bookshelf, the candle went out again, plunging
mister Whiskerton and me into darkness. Okay, that's weird, Let's
try that again. It must be a draft in here.
Maybe I left a window open somewhere. So when I
lit it a third time, I waited, making sure it
stayed lit this time. And the strangest thing happened. Did
you just see that it went out? The flame didn't sputter,
it didn't flicker, It just stopped like something had reached
and pinched it out. With the flashlight app on my
phone lighting our way, Mister Whiskerton and I descended the
stairs and I discovered where the draft was coming from.
The shop door was wide open, swinging in the wind,
rain poured and soaking the carpet. I hurried to the door,
but before I could, mister Whiskerton ran outside. Hey, I
thought you didn't want to go out there. It's a storm,
it's dangerous. But mister Whiskerton didn't come back in. Instead,
he sat on the sidewalk outside the shop and stared
back at me. Come back in where it's warm and dry.
I have more tuna for you, and we don't have
to read Twilight. Okay, we can pick any book you on.
How about that, mister Whiskerton darted under a parked car
across the street. No, don't do that. I thought about
closing the door, because that would be the simplest thing
to do, the easy thing. But then mister Whiskerton poked
his head out from under the superho He was so
wet and scared, and my heart broke. I grabbed a
pair of boots in a raincoat, and I stepped out
into the dark, stormy night. Mister Whiskerton, come on back.
You're not built for this weather. Neither of us are.
I looked into the car, but mister Whiskerton was gone.
I hear you, hold on. Maybe it was the rain
or the power outage, but the night seemed so much
darker than it should have been, the kind of dark
that doesn't care if you brought a flashlight, or rather
the phone flashlight app It was the kind of darkness
that reaches into your soul and finds your worst and
holds them right up to your face. Mister Whiskerton, wait,
come back here. I followed the sound of his meow
through the town, past the shuttered windows and darkened shops,
through the puddle filled empty streets. He was always just
out of reach, won mew ahead of me, almost like
he was luring me deeper. And then the pavement ended
and the marsh began. This was Marlene's territory. She gave
nature walks here year round discover the hidden jewel of
coastal Carolina. That's what it says on her website. I
went on a hike with her once, and all I
remember is mud and mosquitoes. Memory is funny like that.
As I went further into the marsh, I became painfully
aware of all the things I couldn't see, all the
things that could be watching, waiting, all the things that
hide in the dark. Mister Whiskerton's mews started sounding like
they were all around me, coming from every direction. As
soon as I started going in one direction, I'd have
to turn around and go the other way, which is
how I managed to get myself hopelessly lost. Mister Whiskerton,
where did you go? The marsh felt different than when
I had come here with Marlene. I stepped on something
that didn't feel like a rock or a stick. I
waved my feeble phone flash light over the soggy earth
and discovered an old camping thermos. As soon as I
touched it, the light changed, the storm disappeared completely, and
I found myself standing on the bank watching two very young,
very sunburned, very stupid teenagers pull a rowboat out onto
the sand. I am so sorry about your thermist. I
promise I'll work a devil shift at the candleshop this
week and I will buy you Anon.
Speaker 6: Don't worry about it, Tess. It's fine.
Speaker 2: But it was like a super expensive, fancy bigfoot thermist.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well it was a yetti and it's not a
big deal.
Speaker 2: Not a big deal. I thought it was forty ounces
of temperature controlled glory. Nick, isn't that what you said?
Speaker 6: Yep, thanks for reminding me. You're lucky. I love you, Wait,
you love me? Yeah, I'm crazy about you.
Speaker 2: Even after I dropped your thermist into the ocean.
Speaker 6: Tess, I'm gonna love you until the day I die.
Speaker 2: That's funny you say that, because I feel the exact
same way. And then the rain was back and the darkness.
I stumbled back, confused about what I had just seen.
Was I hallucinating? Mister Whiskerton? I hear you don't move.
As I followed the sound of the meows, the rain
got lighter again, and finally it stopped altogether. As I
reached another sandy spot where two people were sitting around
a campfire, two very familiar people. They were reading aloud
to each other from an old paperback, and.
Speaker 5: Then the monster leaped out from behind the tree and
tore his head off. Seriously, Pach three and the guy's
getting decapitated. Too scary for you, not even a little bit.
Let me find one that's really scary. Let's see, we
got vampires, we got ghosts, Oh, creature from the Black Lagoon.
Speaker 6: That one might be good. What do you think you
really want to know?
Speaker 2: What scares me?
Speaker 6: Wear wolves?
Speaker 2: No, I'm scared that you'll go away to college and
go meet someone else, and that I'll be struck taking
care of my family's shop.
Speaker 6: Hey, that's never gonna happen. Okay, you're the love of
my life.
Speaker 5: What if it changes, Nothing's gonna change, I.
Speaker 2: Promise, And just like that, the storm was back again.
I followed the sound of mister Whiskerton's me house, running
through the tall grass, ducking under branches, and that's how
I ended up at the dock. I felt the old
wooden plank creek under my footsteps, but I knew this
couldn't be real, because there we were again. I'm so
happy for you, She's she's great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm really happy to and it means
a lot that you're gonna be there.
Speaker 2: Well, it's your big day. I wouldn't miss that. But
I know what she's doing what I was doing, smiling
hard enough to keep from falling apart, trying everything to
hold back the dark. She had no idea five years
later he'd be divorced and somehow we'd both pick up
where we left off. But I wasn't the same girl anymore.
I'd spent years making sure I'd never be caught in
a storm like that again. And then the sky cracked
open and the thunder rolled, and I finally learned what
was hiding in the dark. It was all the things
that hurt too much to feel. Oh, mister Whiskerton, there
you are. Oh you poor thing. You're soaked. I'm so
glad you're okay. Any idea how to get out of here? Yeah?
Me neither. Maybe the dark wasn't something to avoid. Maybe
it's something you endure, something you just have to wait out.
The storm will pass, mister Whisker. Don't you worry about
a thing? It always does. I found a spot under
a tree, and I hugged the cat to my chest,
covering him with the raincoat, and together we made our
own little sanctuary from the storm. I don't know how
long we stayed there, hours maybe, but finally the thunder
faded away, and I felt the warm sun on my skin.
We're alive. Isn't that great, mister Whiskerton. Yeah? I know.
For a while there I had my doubts. Test, Oh, Test,
you're okay. She's okay. I found her.
Speaker 6: Tes We've been looking everywhere for you.
Speaker 2: I got lost in the marsh looking for mister Whiskerton.
Speaker 5: When I saw the tree on your shop, I thought,
I thought maybe you were inside.
Speaker 2: What happened to my shop? The storm happened, But we're
all here for you. Well, I've been talking about doing
those renovations for years.
Speaker 4: If there's one thing we know how to do well
in this town, it's rebuild. And obviously you can stay
with me for as long as you need until you
figure things out.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Unless you have other plans, let me get
back to you on that, Tessa.
Speaker 6: You don't have to move in with me, Okay, I
don't want to. I don't want to push.
Speaker 2: The reason we haven't moved in together is because I'm
scared you'll break my heart.
Speaker 5: There I said it, Yeah, I h I was kind
of picking up on that.
Speaker 6: You don't think I'm scared too.
Speaker 2: I guess we're both a little damaged.
Speaker 6: Do you want to maybe talk about it together?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 5: Okay, But but first, who is mister Whiskerton?
Speaker 2: Mister Whiskerton? I hope he is my cat? What if
is officially my new favorite question. What if that candle
was never meant to stay lit? What if mister Whiskerton
purposely led me into the marsh? What if getting lost
in that storm finally made me see the truth. I've
got a confession to make. I'm still afraid of thunder
and lightning, but now I know that storms are best
weathered together.
Speaker 1: What a delightfully catastrophic turn of events. Tests may have
feared the lightning, but it turns out the real storm
was brewing inside her all along.
Speaker 2: The power went out, a.
Speaker 1: Tree fell, and Love somehow managed to find its way
back home. Remember, little ghouls, Sometimes it takes a blackout
to show us where the light really is. And those
storms are scary. Sometimes the most terrifying thing is learning
to let someone in. A candle for Dark and Stormy
Nights was written, produced, and performed by your host, Julie Hopkins.
This has been another episode of Cozy Horror Podcast where
the darkness has never been so inviting. Until next time,
stay warm, stay wicked, and stay far far away from
the haunted Marsh