The Physhbowl

MAG 77 - The Kind Mother

4 min read

Pre-Statement

Statement of Lucy Cooper regarding the disappearance of her mother.

Case Number

9941509

Audio By

Gertrude Robinson

Author

Lucy Cooper

Date of Statement

1994-09-15

Date of Event

August 1994

Date of Recording

1996-11-04

Locations

  • Draycott, Somerset

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Last Episode

The Smell of Blood

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Distant Cousin

Release Date

2017-08-10

Statement

Lucy Cooper did not get on with her mother, who was not supportive and frequently argued with her daughter. When she and her boyfriend Laurence got engaged after their graduation, her mother became enraged, saying he would drag her down. This turned out to be true, as Laurence would have two affairs and be jailed for embezzlement.

Lucy’s father, on the other hand, was a gentle man, and when he fell from a ladder she decided to try and patch things up with her parents. Although Lucy and her mother still argued bitterly, they tried to be civil with each other around her father.

During one summer Lucy started doing freelance work for the British Library, collecting oral histories, so she travelled up to Draycott to have a recording from her mother who was an authority on English and Welsh folklore.

Two weeks before this statement she went to her parent’s house and was met by a different woman. This woman acted as though she was Lucy’s mother, and her father seemed to believe that she was. Lucy went into the house in a state of shock. Around the house were photos of the family, and each photo of her mother was replaced by her NotMother. She suggested that they have a look through their photo albums, but all the photos were of this new woman. Whilst Lucy flicked through the album, she spotted her NotMother had an amused, mocking look in her eye.

She asked her neighbours, Tom Harrison and Joanne Fisher, to describe her mother and they described her NotMother in detail. Later, she went down to the local church of St Peter’s to ask Neil Angus, the vicar, about her. He gave the same description, but said a week before he had heard her give an anguished scream outside the church and had assumed she had fallen, though she was fine when he went to check on her. 

Lucy was convinced that something supernatural that took her mother’s identity, and the only evidence she has is her voice recordings on tape. She planned to take them to her father to try and convince him.

Final Comments

George Cooper died of carbon-monoxide poisoning two days after this statement was recorded. No other bodies were found and Rose Cooper had not been seen since. Gertrude suspected that this was the creature that Adelard Dekker referred to as the ‘NotThem’ in statement #9910607. Gertrude noted that any further investigation was pointless as the NotThem move on quickly after taking victims. She suspected it was an aspect of The Stranger and did not understand why some people could see through the disguise. 

Post-Statement

John has been sorting through the tapes Basira Hussain left for him and has taken particular notice of the box marked “Changeling/Imposter.” He realises that all the tapes that went missing during the Jane Prentiss incident have Sasha James’ voice on them. He cannot take this to anyone in case they discover Gertrude’s tapes. He decides to research the NotThem.

Continuity

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