Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)
Stephen Nash’s killers have been revealed, and they’re now dead. So all Emily has to do is relax, right? If you think “yes,” you’ve read too many mediocre detective novels. The consequences of Emily’s investigation are only beginning to be felt, and Emily is finding out that being involved in people’s lives makes choices much, much more difficult. So she is forced to tell “Lies and things that feel like lies,” in chapter 38 of Prophecies and Penalties, my weekly serial about a murder at a Vermont religious commune.
This chapter is going up a day earlier than scheduled. Tomorrow is Halloween, and Halloween deserves a supernatural horror story. So, instead of a chapter of Prophecies and Penalties, I’ll be posting a horror story, written for the occasion.
Sillyverse 
I like the choice of illustration. but then I like Waterhouse. This is one I’ve not seen before. That delicious trickle of water is very apt for all things supernatural.
It’s Circe’s expression that gets me.
I intended the picture as a metaphor: just as Circe poisoned the waters, so lies corrupt the world in which Emily is moving.
I like the ambiguity of lies that echo through this episode. It’s a moral issue. And sometimes it is more ‘moral’ to lie than to fire the truth at someone.