1. You have an enormous black dog which must be walked for four hours daily or it puts its excess energy to use in lighting witch-fires in awkward places. One day you were feeling a little ill, so you asked the unreliable narrator to walk the dog instead. The unreliable narrator faithfully walked the dog for four hours. It is a complete mystery as to why everything is on fire.
2. You hid under the grand staircase to escape that thing that was knocking at your window in the height of the storm. Now there is a ‘delivery failed’ notice on the mat. You are going to have to pick up your artisan cheeses from the local depot twenty miles away.
3. The malign spirit possessing you has lapsed on its ghastly rent, and as a consequence you have been re-possessed by a bailiff. It is somewhat alarming to be in the possession of a supernatural bailiff. Your body spends more time in the high court of the dead that you would like.
4. You came to this graveyard on the cliff over the sea at the dead of night with the intent of digging up the grave of your long-lost love, which you believe to contain the silver dagger that alone can settle her unquiet ghost. It is a stressful situation. You were never very good at numbers when stressed. You believe you may have taken twenty rather than thirty paces from the old yew tree and may in consequence have dug up a badger.
5. A dread raven has settled over your door, from which it hourly proclaims your doom. You made a plan to get rid of the raven. The raven network appears to have got hold of this plan, because another smaller raven turned up to perch on the shoulder of the first and proclaim its doom. Now a third, even smaller one has turned up. You have recursive ravens. There is probably a lot of doom about to come down.
6. Lacking a cellar, you have walled up your rival beneath your floorboards. Unfortunately your rival is a mouse and seems to be enjoying it down there. Will the cheese board will never be safe?
7. Now that they the have closed the refinery across the bay, the mist no longer descends over the high moor at night and as a consequence gruesome deeds cannot be done unnoticed. You have a huge to-do list of gruesome deeds. The local undertaker has started to call you up regarding supply chain issues.
8. You have been staring into this abyss for some considerable time. It is not gazing back. In point of fact it is ignoring you completely. It looks like you will be going home alone tonight.
9. Your grandmother has refused to pass down the ancestral curse, instead bequeathing it to the local cats’ home.