The Bramble Circle

They say the bramble pie was sweet on the tongue and bitter in the blood. Served on this very doily at Madame Corvina’s midsummer séance, it was baked with berries plucked from the tangled hedgerows where nightshade roots crept unseen. The guests, a curious mix of high society and whispered occultists, thought themselves fortunate to taste such a rare treat. But as the medium’s chant began to rise, so too did their fevered visions — long-dead lovers at their shoulders, phantom hands grazing their skin.

By candle’s end, no one could say what was real and what had slipped through from the other side. Some claim the spirits answered that night; others insist it was only the poison working its way through. When dawn came, only the doily remained, faintly stained at the centre and marked with looping patterns that some swore were bramble thorns — and others, grasping hands.