Y'all. This was a LOT. Thank you so much to Patricia for commissioning this ENTIRE GHATDAMN BOOK, and I'm so delighted to have read it. I really need to check out more by Diana Wynn-Jones.
So this episode covers everything that led to Polly's memory being wiped out, and she's got some weird, fucked-up memories, y'all. Turns out that Laurel IS a fucking Fairy! I had theorized something like this in a long ago episode, but so much of my knowledge of that mythology didn't match up that I finally dropped the idea.
Not only is Laurel a fairy, but she's going to be sacrificing Thomas Lynn to keep her dumbass, shitbag fairy husband Mr. Leroy alive (just as I type this I realize that the name Leroy translates to The King and I feel like a fuckin dope). So now Polly has to save him.
However, I'm pretty confused as to how a lot of this goes down, and online searches for explanations really didn't pan out for me. If any of you out there have nice tight little thesis you can tell me about, i would love to hear it!
Thanks so much again to Patricia, and to all of you for listening.