The Sandman - Issue 25 - Season of Mists - Chapter Four

In Issue 25, Season of Mists - Chapter Four, we segue from the main plotline in The Dreaming into a self-contained story that reveals the impact of Lucifer's decision to close Hell on the world outside. As Death mentioned during her brief conversation with Morpheus in the last issue, the dead are coming back, and here we see how.

This issue's biggest claim to fame is the introduction of the Dead Boy Detectives, seen most recently in live-action on Doom Patrol when they came to the aid of Doom Manor's eccentric residents. The sleuthing duo of Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland are two characters who, much like their journey in this tale, will have a life beyond The Sandman comics. First in publication and more recently with Netflix planning to develop a series around them.

While their origins were not delved into very deeply on Doom Patrol owing to copyright issues and whatnot, this issue is where their story begins.

Our tale begins in December 1990 inside a lonely attic beautifully depicted by superstar guest artist Matt Wagner. In its dark confines, a young boy dressed in a traditional English school boy's uniform is leaning over another dressed in contemporary clothing, who is in an awful way. Edwin tries to comfort Charles, who is walking the thin alleyway between Dream and Delirium. In his feverish state, he is tormented by harrowing images of blood-gorged worms feasting on him, sending him racing into the snowy night with terror. Except it's not snow coming down on him but the skeletal remains of dead birds. Dead bird still moving, trying to fly. Charles crushes them underfoot, mad with horror while perfectly crystalizing the situation of the souls Lucifer set adrift.

"The whole world was covered with dead birds trying to fly."

Edwin can do nothing to alleviate Charles's condition except to be a comforting presence in what is obviously the last moments of Charles's life. When Charles comments that Edwin's hand is cold, we finally grasp that Edwin is already dead, a fact Charles is aware of. Sunday hymns singing reminds the dying Charles that it's been only six days since his road to the afterlife began.

We return to the previous Monday, in the austere dining room of an English boarding school where only three people are present. There's an eeriness to the empty seats that Wagner captures perfectly and expands upon the further we go into the issue. Present are thirteen-year-old Charles, the Headmaster and Matron Gribble. Throughout their conversation, we learn it's Christmas break, and all the students have gone home to their families, except Charles.

Charles' father has been detained in Kuwait and is being held hostage due to hostilities. Charles is forced to remain at the school with no other family to care for him. The Headmaster tries to offer comfort but is simply not cut out for providing emotional support. However, Matron does show her sympathy even if they both look like villains in every Hammer horror movie involving boarding schools. For the holidays, Charles is to be left to his own devices.

He goes outside into the cold, taking us on a short tour of the gothic grounds while Neil briefly explains the boy's circumstances. His father is an architect who designs hospitals and travels abroad, while his mother died years before. Since arriving at the school, Charles has been trying to gather the nerve to write his father a letter begging him to come home. Instead, he passes the time reading, losing himself in the adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel, trying to forget that the spirits of those who came before often leave parts of themselves behind in these halls. So he is never truly alone.

We return to the present, where he questions Edwin what it was like to die. Edwin thinks he went to Hell, where he is stalked through endless corridors by an unseen menace, both terrible and lonely, ready to pounce if he dares to run. Until his return to the world, this nightmare is all Edwin knows of the afterlife, and he's been running this horrifying wheel for seventy-five years. When Charles says he's not afraid to die, Edwin counters with good reason he should be.

We returned to Charles on the previous Tuesday, where the atmosphere of the oppressive school had shifted into something much darker. No one is there to give him breakfast, driving him to break out the stores in his locker before he takes a walk through the solitary grounds. When lunch is absent, Charles goes to the Headmaster's office to investigate.

The Headmaster is not alone. With him is his mother. After introductions, Charles learns the lady has been dead since 1942 and has spent that time in Hell, no doubt for satiating the 'Hunnish' sexual appetites of her late husband. I suspect her tenure in Hell might have something to do with the unhealthy relationship she might have with her son. Charles leaves, not knowing what to make of all this.

His encounter with Matron is even more unsettling. She is having visitations of her own. Her visitors are the children she buried, the born and the unborn, whole and unformed. Like any doting mother, she doesn't see ghosts; she sees her children returned to her. When they speak, Charles's nerve snaps, and he flees. He returns to his dorm room, frightened and alone, seeing ghosts through his window. Overhead, the lights burn into the night until sleep takes him.

In the present, Charles asks Edwin why he chose the attic as his hiding place. As it turns out, Edwin's dead body is hidden in the attic after his murder. His killers, would-be cultists trying to raise devils, dressed up and practised grisly animal sacrifices, hid his body in a trunk. Edwin was never found, even though a thorough search of the attic would have revealed not only his corpse but plenty of crime scene evidence including the pentagram on the floor.

On Wednesday, Charles wakes up abruptly to the presence of three new ghosts, Barrow, Skinner and Cheeseman, who call themselves the Old Boys. Not since Henry Bowers of IT has fiction introduced such grotesque bullies. All sadistic sociopaths, the trio are overjoyed to find a new victim to torment. Charles is their new Bug, and they intend to have their fun. However, before they can begin their assaults on Charles, they are interrupted by the Headmaster, not the one Charles is familiar with but the Reverend Parkinson, who was in charge of the school between 1901 and 1916. Parkinson reveals to the readers and later Charles that it is most likely the Old Boys who were responsible for Edwin's murder, even if nothing could be proven.

But Parkinson and the Old Boys aren't the only ghosts returning from the afterlife. Previous alumni are assembled in the hall. Charles is surrounded by classmates who died as adults but were sent back to this Purgatory to endure Parkinson's authoritarian version of education. Forced to attend classes and dips in icy pools his living body is ill-equipped to take, Charles is forced to find food in the kitchen because none of his dead classmates eat.

Unfortunately for him, he is quickly set upon by the Old Boys in the sizeable empty kitchen, beyond anyone's help. For his part, Charles doesn't back down and points out that three against one isn't very fair. However, Skinner counters that nothing is fair. He died in World War I while Barrow and Cheeseman were taken by diphtheria even after they sacrificed a boy. Offering a child to the Devil didn't gain them much street cred in Hell, and they still burned.

In a rather unsettling number of panels, we see Charles' brutal torture with hot stoves and meat forks. When his body finally gives up, the Old Boys leave Charles on the tiled floor, unconscious and severely injured. He's a pathetic bug, in their opinion, lacking the endurance of their former victims. Only after they leave does Edwin appear to Charles for the first time, displaying the kindness that none of the other returning spirits are capable of showing. Then again, they all did come from Hell. It begs the question of whether Edwin actually went there. It's in my headcanon that Edwin has been stuck at the school because his bones were never found.

Edwin takes Charles to his refuge, one of the attics beneath the many roofs of the school building. Charles spends the Friday in feverish delirium, his wounds growing steadily infected from lack of treatment, while Edwin (bless his heart) does what he can to tend to him. Regaining consciousness on Saturday does little to improve Charles's condition. His wounds have turned septic, and he is too weak and in pain to fight the infection running through his body. All the while, Edwin sits at his side, making sure he's never alone.

On Sunday, where our tale began, Charles Rowland dies.

Greeting him in aerobic gear, no less, is Death. Can I reiterate how much I love this character? I assume she's in workout gear because she has a lot of work to do. She tells Charles it's time to go, and Charles is shocked to see the condition of his dead body. Death assures him she's seen worse. However, when Charles learns that leaving with Death means abandoning Edwin, he refuses. Edwin is his friend, and he's going nowhere without him. Death is in no mood for arguments with the afterlife in chaos and agrees to let Charles stay for a while. She'll come back for him when things 'are less crazy'.

Once she's gone, the two boys ponder what comes next. Charles decides they're not staying at the school one minute longer. Edwin is less sure because their bodies are there, but Charles points out rightly that doesn't mean they are bound to the attic where they died. Who knows how long it will be before Death comes back for them. When Edwin admits his fear of leaving, Charles asks if he wants to be a ghost in an attic forever. Edwin decides he does not and supposes growing up is about leaving things behind.

As the two leave the school, they pass the Headmaster and his mother, reliving the worst BDSM experience ever. Edwin wonders if these wandering spirits will ever go back to Hell, and Charles explains quite astutely, as Lucifer did to Morpheus, Hell is something people carry with them. It's not a place. It's a state of mind. People take their guilt with them.

Meanwhile, the Old Boys turn on each other without a new Bug, with Barrow becoming the victim instead. Ugh, so vile. Charles explains that the Old Boys and even Headmaster Parkinson continue to do what they've always done, torturing others and themselves because they don't know any better. He and Edwin will do something different. They're going out into the world. It will be a while before Death comes looking for them, so they're going to make the most of life or death before then.

There's a whole world waiting for them to explore.

And that's it for this recap! Next week, I'm on vacation - I'll try and squeeze in a recap, if I'm not completely up to my neck in Pina Coladas and Mai-Tais.

NEXT - Issue 26 - Chapter Five

PREVIOUS - Issue 24 - Chapter Three