Review: Misty Winter Special 2020

Charlotte Baker, a newcomer to Lewin Girls’ Academy, writes in a journal. A science scholarship girl, Char (as she prefers to be called) is picked on by others in her dormitory and feels excluded. Teacher Mr Marks tries to persuade her to give the school a chance, but Char begins to notice small, odd things, like the way the girls hold their pens, the odd rituals and changing rules. She might have believed that they are just trolling her, but everything seems so elaborate and coordinated.

When she approaches the headmistress, Ms. Goldwyn, she finds her words twisted against her and is told that it is she who has the bad attitude, leading her to put up defensive barriers. Ms. Goldwyn advises her to join it, that the quirky nature of the school is because they have no timetables or formal structure.

Char continues to study the problem scientifically, through observation and evidence, writing up her thoughts in her field journal. Although it is not allowed, when the chance comes to read the journals of the other girls, she takes it—and discovers that they are all full of rambling, fearful paragraphs, troubling  and repetitive reflections and a fearful preoccupation  about an outbreak of TB that killed many pupils nearly two centuries earlier.

The aptly named 'Infection' by V.V. Glass & Anna Savory is a genuinely creepy and surprising story and has an ending that, like Picnic at Hanging Rock, doesn’t tie everything up in a nice bow.

In 'Home For Christmas', a babysitter, Martha, finds herself stuck in a smart house – a former orphanage – on Christmas Eve when the parents of her two wards cannot return home. The story has all the right ingredients for a holiday horror yarn: a well; a power cut; a creepy boy; a smart phone that shouldn’t be calling; and a terrible secret.

Delightful stuff from Lizzie Boyle and artist David Roach.