It was a great day to sunbathe in Chook’s Creek. Tomas felt the golden glow of the sun warm his tentacles. He wasn’t sunbathing, however. He simply hadn’t found a replacement set of clothes yet. Instead, he was sneaking about the outskirts of town searching for some. Tomas was raised right and wasn’t willing to start breaking into homes and rummaging through cupboards, so he was pleased when he came across a clothing donation box outside of an old church.

Double checking that no one was around, he crept up to the box and extended a tentacle up through the donation slot. He grabbed onto the first thing he found and pulled it out. A white, extra small t-shirt with a unicorn printed on the front! “At least the box isn’t empty,” Tomas remained positive as he placed the t-shirt aside. Trying again, he found a single, bright yellow bathroom slipper. Then, a fishnet jacket. Tomas had never seen anything like it before. He decided it was probably a normal thing to wear. He hardly knew anything about fashion; he’d spent his life in church robes. Moving on, he pulled out some enormous khaki cargo shorts, then a pink ballerina slipper, then a shoelace. His tentacle scraped across every corner as Tomas prayed to find something else, but that was all there was. He wanted to cry.

“It’ll do,'' he forced himself to cheer up, grabbed his loot and hid out of sight behind the church. Pointing the damaged tentacle away from his new clothes, just in case he started bleeding again, he transformed for the first time in a week. He broke into a wide grin upon seeing that his arm had healed off into a stump already. Looking closer, he thought It might have even regrown a few millimetres, “That's the power of octopus healing!” he bragged to his stump, “Ok, time to get dressed!” A side effect of wandering injured through the wilderness for two weeks was that Tomas had been talking to himself a lot more recently.

“Hmm, I miss wearing pants the most,” the first thing he grabbed was the cargo shorts. With some difficulty from his missing hand, he pulled them up and found that they were indeed much too large for him. They fell down around his ankles as soon as he let go.

Tomas improvised by threading the shoelace through the belt loops and tried again. He was really missing his hand every time he struggled to pull up the pants, but his frustration was replaced by elation when his improvised belt worked! He successfully jumped up and down a few times making sure they held up. Wonderful!

Next, he pulled on the extra small unicorn t-shirt. Even on Tomas’ skinny body, he had to squeeze to fit and his midriff showed. But at least his nips weren’t exposed to the elements anymore. Wonderful!

Unfortunately, his heel hung off the back of the bathroom slipper, but the ballerina slipper fit like Cinderella’s shoe. Tomas put on the fishnet jacket last. It provided almost no cover from the sun or elements whatsoever, but he kinda liked it. He was officially dressed! Wonderful!

Tomas cringed when he looked down at his outfit. He promised himself to find a better set of clothes later. But now he didn’t have to worry about being arrested for public indecency. “Time to find Wanda.” he declared marching into town.

He located the centre of town easily enough, it was the pub. All roads in Chook’s Creek led to the pub. Tomas stood outside considering the building. Video games had taught him that taverns were where one went to get information. Which was just what he was looking for, so in he went.

Despite being only early afternoon, the pub was already crowded. It was really just one large room with several tables dotted around. There was a bar in the centre, surrounded by stools. The tables appeared to be filled by a rowdy drunk cricket team, judging by the uniforms, bats, balls, and wickets strewn around. Loud Aussie rock blasted out from TVs and speakers around the room. And slot machines lined the back walls adding more to the already high volume of the room.

Tomas got many strange looks for his clothes as he tiptoed over the cricket gear, towards the bar. Sitting down on an empty bar stool, he looked around. He eyed the various taps behind the bar and saw that they had one for cola. Having drunk nothing but river water for 2 weeks the very thought of the sugar-filled drink made Tomas’ mouth salivate. An elderly man approached Tomas. He was one of two workers behind the bar, the other being an equally elderly woman.

“G’DAY MATE, CAN I GET YA ANYTHING?!” the man practically shouted at Tomas.

Tomas winced at the man's volume, "Uhhh, hello, I’ll have a cola, please. Also, I’m looking for directions to…"

"WHAT?! SAY AGAIN." the man bellowed. He turned his head so the other ear was now facing Tomas.

Tomas raised his voice a little, "A Cola!".

"WHISKEY SODA? SURE THING MATE. HANG ON A TICK."

"No... Ummm," Tomas tried to protest but the man had already turned his back and began preparing the drink.

The woman bartender came to his rescue. She walked over and grabbed the man’s arm that was now holding the whiskey bottle and pushed it back down. She gave him a furious look and pointed toward the other end of the bar. The man hung his head and walked away.

She turned to Tomas and spoke at a much more reasonable volume, "Sorry about him darl,” She looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow, “Even if he wasn’t deaf as a doornail, he’d be bloody useless. We'd throw him out, but he owns the place. What was it you were after?"

Tomas smiled, “A cola, please. Also, I need directions”.

“Only that, No booze?” her eyebrow raised higher. Tomas nodded, so she poured his drink and placed it down on the bar in front of him, “That’ll be 4 bucks”.

Tomas blinked in surprise. Money was another concept that he was aware of through video games, but he had never actually used it in his life, “Uhhhh…”

The woman was staring at his stump, “You were looking for direction? Let me guess, you’re here for that new prosthetic place over by the post office, Mr Timothy’s. Right?”

“What? Oh, the arm. No. I’m looking for Madame Wanda. Do you know her? She cured a tree man.”

Tomas was beginning to think this lady’s one eyebrow was supernatural. Somehow it raised even higher at what he just said, “Wanda? What on earth do you want to see her for?” she looked him up and down again, “You’re not one of those circus mongrels, back to cause more trouble are ya?”

“Circus? I read about them in the news report. No, I’m not” Tomas reassured her.

“Alright, good. You’d have all these buggers up in arms if you were,” she said gesturing to the cricket team, “Wanda’s is only a couple of doors down, swing a right outside; can’t miss it. Hope you find what you need there. 4 bucks for the cola,” she smiled and held out her hand.

“Yeah, about that..”

A few moments later a bouncer and the deaf bartender heaved Tomas out the front door of the pub and onto the road. He landed with a loud thud.

“It just feels wrong, ya know?” the bouncer said, flinging Tomas’ loose bathroom slipper at the back of his head, “Look at his arm. He’s disabled. Look at his clothes, probably mentally disabled too. Telling ya, it feels like we’re the bad ones here.”

“NA, YOU’RE ALRIGHT, AY. THIS BLUDGER TRIED TO STEAL A WHISKEY SODA FROM SHERYL!” the deaf bartender reassured the worried bouncer. Turning to Tomas he said, “DON’T COME BACK YA THIEF!”

Thomas heard laughs from inside as they left him on the ground. He picked himself, and dusted himself off, then hobbled away towards Madame Wanda’s.

At the back of the pub, a man sitting on a pokie machine whispered into his phone, “Yes, I’m sure it's him. He’s really here.”

A few doors down, a lit-up sign advertised, "Reveal the mystery of the cosmos! Find your true love! Commune with the spirits! Madame Wanda's house of mystery and mystique!"

"Oh! This is promising,” Growing up in a cult, Tomas was prone to gullibility. He moved closer to inspect another sign.

Aura reading - $12 Palm reading -$15 Tarot card reading - $18 Horoscope - $9.99 BARGAIN! Crystal Aura cleanse - $25 Crystal ball viewing - $19 Aromatherapy - $22 Seance - $47

"Very nice! This looks like the real deal! I can’t believe I’ve finally made it,” Tomas began to tear up, “I travelled through hell. Ate nothing but raw fish for two weeks. Even got my arm bitten off. But I didn’t give up! Nope, I made it!" The relief and joy poured out of him, "No point in standing around out here all day, hehe." riding the high of powerful emotions, he went inside.

Wind chimes jingled with the door, and the overwhelming smell of heavy incense hit him immediately at the threshold. The dim interior of Madame Wanda’s gave Tomas shivers at its mystic vibes. Ambient didgeridoo music played from a CD player on a display selling meditation CDs. Dream catchers dangled from the roof. Candles, incense burners and crystals lined the shelves. There was a poster of a wolf howling at the moon that caught his eye. A caption underneath read, “The moon is my mother, my spirit is free”. That was almost word for word a Matriarch quote.

“Hello and welcome to Madame Wanda’s house of mystery and mystique, I am Madame Wanda,” a woman put away a celebrity magazine and stood to greet Tomas with a flourished curtsey, “How may I be of assistance to you. AHH! Sir, don't take another step! Your aura is in disarray and will break the feng shui meridians. DO NOT MOVE!”

Tomas did not move, “My aura?!” he asked, feeling his heartbeat raise.

“Do not fear, I’ll realign it before it does any more damage,” Wanda reassured him.

A plaster statue of a dragon with a crystal in its claws sat on one of the shelves. She grabbed it, removed its price tag and placed the tag down. Then brought the statue over and began waving it above Tomas’ body. She was given pause once upon seeing his clothes and again when she spotted his missing hand. However, she was a true professional and completed the crystal cleanse without any further interruption.

“Phew; fixed,” She declared “I believe your lower dantian was in turmoil, perhaps you’ve had some difficulties in your life recently?”

Tomas gulped, his eyes going wide.

“Auras are tricky, you may have to come back for a repeat session in the future. Now, please come in, you may place your jacket on the coat rack,” Wanda gestured to a log carved in the shape of several fairys in a tree. A price tag declared it was on sale at only $800. Several wooden coathangers hung off the carving, revealing the whole thing to be an elaborate coat rack.

Tomas looked at his fishnet jacket, “I'll just keep it on, thanks.”

“Alright dear, come sit,” Wanda had returned the dragon statue, sat down at a large table in the middle of the room and gestured for Tomas to do the same opposite her. The table was covered in a dark purple tablecloth and had several mystical nick-nacks on it, including a crystal ball and a pack of tarot cards.

Tomas took his first real look at Wanda.

She was a large lady in her late forties, wearing a long, lacy, black and purple dress. Her face held a LOT of makeup. Black lipstick, rosy cheeks and excessive purple gold eye eyeshadow stood out strongly against her pale skin. She had large gold hoop earrings, a gold stud on her nose, and several gold chain necklaces. Her long curly hair was dyed pitch black and adorned with a red scarf. To finish the “lady of mysticism'' look off, smoke curled upward from a long carved pipe she held in her hand. Tomas was very impressed. He sat down across from her.

“I hope you don't think this too forward of me, but you simply must let me read your palm. Men with only one hand give stronger impressions through their palms. But where are my manners? First, please tell me your name,” Wanda inquired.

“Oh right, hello. My name is Tomas. I didn’t know that about palm lines, would it matter much if the loss of my hand was only recent?” he asked with his hand out.

“Not at all! In fact, it’s even better,” Wanda took a hold of Tomas’ hand and gazed at it, “Oh yes, very strong impressions. Powerful lines. I see a lot here. Why don’t you tell me about yourself while I read the flows?”

“Oh um ok, my name is Tomas, I’m 22,”

“Haha, Tomas, dear, you’ve already told me your name, and I can see your age from your life line. Tell me about the real Tomas”

“Oh right, of course" The floodgates of Tomas' heart opened, "Well, I like video games. I grew in the Church of the Wolf compound nearby. Uh...I suppose you don’t know about that because it's a secret. Anyway, I’m kind of a celebrity there because I can turn into an octopus. That’s why I’m here actually. The other day they were going to sacrifice me and have me eaten by the Matriarch. She’s the leader by the way. She got struck by a bunch of lightning and I escaped as you can probably tell. I read an article about you curing some tree man or something? And thought what if she can do that for me too. So I escaped out into the wilderness and had to eat a bunch of raw fish and had my hand bitten off by a yowie. Oh, I like music too, especially this Norwegian heavy metal band called Troll Führer. Maybe not so much anymore because I think trolls are a type of yeti and I’m a bit traumatised by yetis after the whole yowie incident. They have this one song though…”

Tomas looked up to see Wanda was no longer looking at his palm; she was looking straight at him. Her eyes burned with intensity. Tomas felt very exposed all of a sudden, “Did you say you can turn into an octopus?” she asked.

“That’s right, look,” Tomas took his hand back and turned it into a tentacle.

Wanda to her credit didn’t even flinch. Rather, her intensity seemed to grow, "Is it some kind of octopus curse? I would be very interested in looking at your soul. Hang on, let me get my gear." her flamboyant tone from before was replaced with a fervent one.

“Wait, what gear?” Tomas was confused by the sudden change in Wanda.

She had put her pipe down on the table and gotten up. She went to the back of the room and started rummaging behind a curtain.

"My soul gear,” she called from behind the curtain, “I’ll need to take your soul out so I can get a good look at it."

“Pardon?”

Wanda walked back over holding two boxes and a sealed mason jar filled with clear liquid. She placed them on the table next to her pipe. Wanda sat down and opened the first box. She took out a stylish pair of sunglasses, "Have you ever seen the movie “Ghostbusters”?”

“Ghostbusters? With Bill Murray?”

“Yes, Spectacular film! It changed my life. After watching it, I began travelling the world, looking for ways to see and interact with the spiritual realm. I’m quite proud to say, I succeeded! Several years ago, I discovered a rare metal I named ‘Ectoplasmite’. Ectopasmite can interact directly with souls. These here are ‘soul sunglasses’. Made by creating slices of ectoplasmite thin enough to be transparent. Through them, you can see a person’s soul. Here, you can try them on and see for yourself, just don't drop them." She said, passing them over.

Tomas gingerly took the sunglasses and put them on. He looked at Wanda and could see a blurry light shining in the centre of her body, “Wow!”

"While inside a body it's hard to get a proper look at the soul. That's what these are for,” she opened the second box. It contained a pair of gloves and a long pair of BBQ tongs, "Souls naturally disintegrate upon leaving a body. However, these ectoplasmite laced gloves will let me hold your soul safely without it doing so. And these tongs here, I’m sure you can guess what they are made of, are what will allow me to remove and then reinsert your soul from your body without doing any damage in the first place."

"Is all this safe? You keep using words like “disintegrate” and “damage”" Tomas asked.

"Yes yes, perfectly safe. I've done it a dozen times before."

"Wait, this is going too fast. What will happen to my body if the soul is removed?"

“It’s actually quite fascinating. The body enters a coma-like state as soon as the soul leaves it and wakes up immediately once the soul is returned. A body can actually live for days without a soul.”

“And do you think you can cure my condition through this procedure?”

"Well.. that depends. For today I'm just going to take it out and have a look. See if I can identify the problem, then put it back. We'll discuss the price then, but realistically you shouldn't be looking at anything more than 120 dollars, plus the 25 for the aura cleanse and 15 for the palm reading. So 160 total." Wanda calculated the price with a smile

Tomas swore mentally. He didn’t know he would be charged for everything. In hindsight, he should have known better after his painful lesson in economics at the pub. He decided to worry about money later and redirected the topic,” What's the jar for?"

"Oh, this?" Wanda smiled and unscrewed the cap. Tomas could smell the strong alcohol from across the table, even through all the incense and perfume in the room, "This is special homemade moonshine," She took a sip and shuddered and offered the jar to Tomas, "It's for keeping my hands steady. Want some? Only 20 dollars for the jar."

Tomas shook his head, "No thank you, I don’t drink. Low alcohol tolerance."

"Oh, too bad. Alright, more for me" she said and took a second sip, ''Ok bring that chair around the table and sit here facing me.”

“You mean, right now?” Tomas was a little bit worried about how casually she planned to rip out his soul, “It’s my first time, I don’t know if I'm ready.”

Wanda held back a sigh, “Of course, right now. The best time to examine a soul is when the moon is in spiritual equinox, which it is right now. Hurry over before the cycle ends!” she urged.

Tomas panicked, “I see, yeah ok. Don’t want to miss the equinox.” Tomas did as he was asked swiftly dragging the chair behind him one-handed and got seated.

Wanda took a third sip of the moonshine and smiled at Tomas, "Let's begin". She put on the gloves and sunglasses, then delicately held the tongs as she brought them to his chest. They passed through his shirt and into his chest as if there was nothing there. Tomas felt a moment of discomfort, he was going to ask if that was normal but then everything went black.

Tomas’ body slumped into the chair. Wanda gently pulled his soul out and dropped it into her gloved hand. She turned away from his body and held the soul up to the light to get a better look. Her eyes squinted in concentration as she peered through her glasses at his soul. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. If she had to put a label on it, “nightmare” or “eldritch horror” came to mind. It undulated and squirmed in her hand. Tentacles, arms, eyeballs, teeth, and beaks protruded from it at random. However, disregarding its ugliness, what shocked her the most was, "It's just a weird-ass soul," She murmured. The one thing she had expected to find after witnessing Tomas transform was missing, "There's no curse”.

STEP 6: GUIDE THE SOUL

She was so focussed on the strange soul in her hands that she didn't see the second strange soul enter the room. This one was wrapped in red strings, which tugged it through the wall of her shop and into Tomas’ comatose body.

Tomas' body groaned.

Wanda was so startled she almost dropped his soul. She let out a shriek as her head swivelled to look at him. Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat as the body's hand reached out blindly and grabbed a hold of her pipe. It brought the pipe to its mouth and took a deep draw before slowly opening its eyes.

The body looked at her with eyebrows creased in confusion, then sniffed once as it picked up something in the air. Its eyes settled on the jar of moonshine. It reached over, picked the jar up, and gave it another sniff. Then, It jerked its head back and downed the whole jar in several loud glugs, “Ugh,” it groaned, closing its eyes and scrunching up its face as if in pain. Wanda shrieked again.

Through the sunglasses, she could see the undeniable glow of a soul within Tomas’s body. She looked from it to the one in her hand. She was breathing fast and sweat formed on her brow.

The body cleared Tomas’ throat and spoke. A stream of the worst words Wanda had ever experienced in her life came out of his mouth. "Holy Mackerel, Duck me. What in the name of all that is sacred on earth was that?! Tasted like a dog vomited up rotten milk into a jar of battery acid."