Be warned: a riotous blend of eerie folklore, misfiring time, and cryptid capers awaits. Venture deep into Abner Percy’s chaotic enclave, where each odd encounter and spectral prank defies all common expectations absolutely.
From The Brainardsville Blabber, August 1893 Edition
—with due astonishment and semi-skeptical reverence—
“It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
—Macbeth, which is to say, very likely true if you’re anywhere near the back side of Chateaugay Lake come high summer.
The Case of the Whisper-Fanged Whiffler of the North End Backwater (Also Known as the Baffling Bamboozle at Abner Percy’s Forge Store)
To begin this regrettably accurate account, let it be plainly stated: the creature—cryptid, nuisance, spirit, or unlicensed mischief-engine—we now recognize (reluctantly) as The Whisper-Fanged Whiffler is, according to all available reports, simultaneously translucent, sarcastic, and completely without moral restraint.
It all began—or perhaps never properly began at all—when Miss Prudence LeClair of Albany, visiting her convalescing uncle on the north shore of Upper Chateaugay Lake, reported hearing “prolonged snickering in the cattails” followed by a small stampede of frogs playing what she described as “a jig not known to polite society.”
This—being July and unusually humid—might’ve been ignored as heatstroke. But alas, several guides, a steamboat pirate or two, and a rusticated insurance adjuster from Malone all heard something that week: a burbling hum that interrupted card games, curdled cream, and reportedly caused Doc Bunker’s horse to compose a brief yet haunting melody on a jew’s harp it had never before possessed.
Then came the Tuesday of the Baffling Bamboozle.
The Bamboozle (So Called)
It was a bluebird day at Abner Percy’s Forge Mercantile Emporium, now mercifully reduced to a general store, lending library, and chessboxing ring. The sun, one witness claimed, was “a little too yellow to trust.” Old Fred Kirby, picker of gooseberries and picker of bones, had just cracked a fresh jug of birch beer soda when a sudden whoosh! blew through the stovepipe, knocked a broom clear off the wall, and turned all the clocks backward precisely one hour and seven seconds.
The effect was immediate.
Fred Kirby remembered a debt he’d paid in 1879 and demanded his nickel back. Eugene “Old Veritas” Miller claimed to have seen tomorrow, but only the dull bits. Meanwhile, Nathaniel Collins turned briefly invisible, a condition no one noticed due to his customary quietness and beige wardrobe.
Outside, a kettle screamed though no fire burned; inside, checkers pieces re-ordered themselves into complex runes. A faint snorting chuckle echoed from beneath the floorboards—a creature, it seemed, entirely amused by its own prankish cosmology.
Abner Percy himself stumbled out from the back room, covered in sawdust and clutching an old Lenape fishing calendar, which now bizarrely depicted the year 1642 and featured, in its margins, a recipe for “Spirit Soup (Do Not Prepare Alone).”
On the Nature of the Creature
Descriptions vary, but The Whisper-Fanged Whiffler (a name attributed to a delirious but enthusiastic Mrs. Flora Batchelder of Ellenburg Depot) is said to:
- Resemble an otter made entirely of wind and resentment;
- Emit a smell faintly reminiscent of burnt pinecones and childhood embarrassment;
- Whisper unsettling compliments in Abenaki and Haudenosaunee dialects no longer spoken this side of the mountain;
- And vanish entirely when directly addressed with logic.
Local Abenaki elder and trapper Joseph “Whistles-once” Madahòk, when asked, narrowed his eyes and said only, “That thing’s got no right being in the world we agreed upon.” He then took his canoe onto the lake and has not returned comment.
Some say the creature lives beneath a collapsed beaver lodge near the narrows. Others claim it is the ghost of a misprinted map. But most agree that it has a wicked sense of humor and no known predator—except possibly boredom.
Witnesses of Note
- Perly Genaway—found talking backwards and reportedly winning a checkers match he hadn’t yet begun.
- Captain Tully of the Steamboat Emma—claims the Whiffler rewrote his navigation charts in rhyme. “Every direction was a riddle,” he said. “I ended up in Goose Bay, emotionally and geographically.”
- Miss Prudence LeClair—currently keeping a journal of the Whiffler’s visits, though pages routinely vanish and reappear rewritten in French, with footnotes on early North Country Pirate Improvisation.
Philosophical Addendum
One Reverend Hiram Bellweather, recently returned from an unsuccessful missionary trip to the Adirondack hermits, proclaimed at town meeting: “I do believe we have met an Idea with legs.”
To which Old Veritas replied: “Legs, and the manners of a coyote with a poet’s education.”
Closing Remarks
The editors of The Brainardsville Blabber can confirm the following:
- A day was lost and found again in Abner Percy’s store.
- Several temporal anomalies occurred but failed to pay their tab.
- The creature in question is neither confirmable nor deniable.
- Fred Kirby still wants his nickel.
As ever, dear readers, we remain committed to the pursuit of Truth, Folly, and the curious spaces in between. And we warn all future visitors to Upper Chateaugay Lake: if your pickle jar sings “Oh Susanna” in the key of K-flat minor, do not open it.
Stay suspicious. Stay dry. And remember:
If it sounds true, it probably isn’t—
but if it giggles when you’re not looking, it probably lives here.
—Yours in befuddlement,
The Editors, Brainardsville Blabber
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?