stories: The Binnacle Boy / Saint Crispin's Follower / The Man of Influence

Here are three very different stories with two common threads: one is an element of the supernatural (whether real or imagined); the other is a focus on cast or sculpted figures (hence, Graven Images).

"The Binnacle Boy" is a binnacle (or compass casing) in the shape of a boy that comes into port (on a ship whose crew have all mysteriously died), is mounted in the town square, and becomes the receptacle for the townspeople's whispered secrets.

"Saint Crispin's Follower" is a shoemaker's apprentice who interprets the movements of a damaged weathervane as instructions from his patron saint, often to comical effect.

And "The Man of Influence" is an unsavory, unearthly, and highly unlikely patron who commissions a reluctant but desperate sculptor to carve his likeness in stone. ( )