Dark Muse News: The Fish in Jonah’s Puddle (To Say Nothing of the Demon) by Byron Leavitt
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The Fish in Jonah’s Puddle (To Say Nothing of the Demon) by Byron Leavitt
(Brain Waves Press, 2026.) Cover created by Miblart with interior illustration by the author.
A contemporary, cosmic-horror take on portal fantasy!
The Fish in Jonah’s Puddle (To Say Nothing of the Demon) is a young-adult, portal fantasy written by Byron Leavitt. It’s a contemporary, cosmic-horror take on the sub-genre that was a gateway for many of us. Recall the books like A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962), The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (1961), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (1950), The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1900), and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)?
All of the above have adult followings as much as their young adult readerships. Which portal fantasies grabbed you and helped you become addicted to fantasy?
These share fun tropes, usually involving a band of children being quickly transported to a magical realm that reflects their child-like perspectives. Readers get talking animals and landscapes made from toys (and manifestations of Rhyme and Reason). Oftentimes, the children are out to rescue family members. There is usually an evil, sorcerous entity hell-bent on destroying the children (IT, Wicked Witches, Queen of Hearts, etc.). Of course, the party of kids makes friends with goofy-alien things like scarecrows, empty-hearted tin puppets, Mad Hatters, and strange entities that guide them (three cheers for Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which).
The beauty of portal fantasies with child protagonists is that those journeys resonate with adults too, who, after decades of trying to make sense of the world, miss their younger, naive, adventurous take on life. When I heard Byron Leavitt, best known as a horror writer for Diemension Games’ Deep Madness and Dawn of Madness (including the Deep Madness: Shattered Seas spin-off novel reviewed on Black Gate), released a young adult adventure, I had to check it out. We interviewed Byron Leavitt in 2021 (Interview link), and it is wild to revisit the Q&A five years later and see foreshadowings of this book.
This post shares details of Jonah’s journey, art from the author, and excerpts. But wait, there is more! We used this opportunity to reconnect with Byron Leavitt and get answers to crazy questions about salmon, and discover lost connections of Black Gate with Jonah’s inception.
The Fish in Jonah’s Puddle Back Cover Blurb
The demon ate their parents. They intend to get them back.
Jonah Hutchins didn’t think twice about finding a salmon in a puddle in his backyard. He already had a dapper troll lurking in his basement and a snarky harpy roosting in the trees out front, after all. He didn’t even flinch when the fish named Stuart announced that several nearby puddles were portals to other dimensions.
But a demon also lurked in Stuart’s puddle — and it swallowed Jonah’s parents whole.
Jonah and his sister Debbie refuse to let the demon make them orphans. So they gather Jonah’s strange friends and plunge through the puddles into the worlds beyond on a wild rescue mission.
They discover wondrous places like a cardboard kingdom where spilled water could end everything and a crumbling world full of ghosts and mouths. They meet weird new allies, including a massive plastic dragon and an octopus-headed prophetess. But the demon is still hungry, and it won’t stop until it devours them all.
This book combines the awestruck adventure of Impossible Creatures with the dark, hungry dread of Coraline. It is a celebration of the imagination’s power and a whirlwind ride you won’t soon forget.
Welcome to The Fish in Jonah’s Puddle. Are you ready?
Wardrobes, Phone Booths, Rabbit Holes, and Tornadoes, clear room for demonic Puddles!
The Weird Fellowship & Key Allies
Let’s get acquainted with the children’s party.
- Jonah Hutchins: a boy with wild creativity, and as the title suggests, our key protagonist.
- Debbie Hutchins: Jonah’s younger sister, who initially thinks her brother is “weird”.
- Stuart: A highly mannered, angelic talking-salmon who appeared in a puddle within Jonah’s backyard after a trans-dimensional storm.
- Humphrey: A monstrous, but gentle, troll who can travel through shadows.
- Calisto: A harpy with powerful wings and a beautiful face framed by long black hair and jagged teeth. She can be grumpy and is a fierce fighter.
- Ms. Finch (Loretta): A six-foot-tall prophetess with an octopus head who lives in a cozy, grandmotherly dimension. She provides critical counsel, opens the “ways” between worlds.
- Sir Reginald: A brave tin soldier with a melted left foot who initially tries to stop the party in Toy Land but joins them after realizing their honorable intentions.
- Pete: A massive, plastic red dragon that Jonah befriends and names in Toy Land.
- Dave (Lord Davros von München-Bellyweather the Fourth): A survivor living inside the demon who is part crab, squid, and man.
Art
The Fish in Jonah’s Puddle features about ten drawings by the author. The cool thing is that Black Gate previewed some of these in 2021 with our interview with Byron Leavitt. Here’s the quick link to our discussion about his non-writing muses: OTHER DARK ARTS, YOUR DRAWINGS. Revealed there are images of Dave and Ms Finch. Those illustrations are shown in this article, with Humphry and Calistro now joining them.
Locations
- Jonah’s House and Backyard: The story begins here after a cosmic “trans-dimensional storm” leaves the yard littered with “deep puddles” that serve as portals to other realities.
- Ms. Finch’s House: Her abode can be reached through a puddle; it is a cozy, grandmotherly residence featuring a sitting room with floral prints and warm cherry wood furniture.
- Toy Land: Accessed via Ms. Finch’s front door, this world is constructed entirely of playthings; the ground is cardboard, the trees are plastic, and the sky has the texture of coarse paper.
- The Royal Castle: Situated within Toy Land, this is a massive hodge-podge fortress built from Lego bricks, Lincoln Logs, and sharpened #2 pencils. It houses a puppet theater that serves as the throne room for the realm’s rulers.
- The Dark City (Inside the Demon): This is the dark dimension within the demon’s soul. It is a bleak, “dead city” characterized by crumbling black skyscrapers, ankle-high grimy water, and a sky filled with ghostly green wisps and lightning.
Weird, wild, and darkly funny, The Fish in Jonah’s Puddle (To Say Nothing of the Demon) is a portal fantasy where imagination is dangerously good!
Excerpts
Creativity Actually Creates!
“I wonder if your mind can sometimes access them. Which would make the division between your world and others thinner near you.” “Huh,” Jonah said. “Care to elaborate?” “What were you thinking about when Humphrey appeared?” “I…” Jonah’s gaze darted around, and he winced. “It was a long time ago, and I was young, okay? But… I was pretending that I was a knight who had just discovered a massive troll. And then we teamed up and conquered an evil king.”…“Oh, man,” Debbie said. “Does that work for anyone? If so, I would bring my Flufferblooms to play with me. That would be incredible!”…“Flufferblooms?” Calisto asked. “What are those?” “They’re the flower people I draw.” Calisto guffawed. “And you call them… Flufferblooms?”
Consuming Wonder Bread
[Debbie] picked up Jonah’s slice of wonder and shoved it into his mouth. Jonah’s senses erupted. It wasn’t that new colors appeared. Instead, those already present became so vivid they almost burst with brilliance. The world seemed so alive— so vibrant. Sounds and melodies filled the air, shimmering with details Jonah had never noticed before. The taste, too, was an explosion of flavors that danced across his tongue like a parade of sweet, sour, salty, and tangy. These sensations were unlike anything he had experienced before.
The Maw
The meaty flooring soon formed an uneven shelf that stretched as far as Jonah could see in either direction. Then, it curved upward before him into a gooey, living wall. Jonah’s gaze traveled up the surface and finally landed on the mouth that pierced it. The Maw was big enough to devour buildings. Its needle teeth were more like swords, and it had so many. Maybe a dozen tentacles slithered out like tongues from inside it, wriggling as they quested across the shelf below. The mouth ate greedily. However, it didn’t consume meat, bone, or any physical matter. Instead, it devoured light and chewed on souls.
Any Biblical Undertones Are Subtle
The biblical account of Jonah (Old Testament) describes that character as being swallowed by a “great fish” (often thought to be called a whale nowadays). He survived for three days and three nights in its belly before being vomited onto dry land. His journey and survival are linked to obeying “the Lord’s” will. In The Fish in Jonah’s Puddle, there is a boy Jonah who is guided by a fish (a salmon named Stuart) who enables transportation to strange realms. Near clueless agnostics (i.e., me) detect some possible connections. However, Byron Leavitt steers clear of overt religious allegories (i.e., I recall feeling hoodwinked as a youth when I learned about Aslan being more than a lion in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia). Anyway, it is wild to note that creative horror writers (like Stephen King or Anne Rice) are often religious.
This tracks with Byron Leavitt’s style. He admits his reverence for a higher power and is inspired in many ways, but his spiritual muses are masked so well that most readers would never know. His stories feel pleasantly agnostic. From our 2021 interview, we cornered him on how he reconciled his weird art with perspectives on God; check out his answers to these prompts there: (1) DO YOU THINK GOD ENJOYS HORROR? (2) RELIGION IN WEIRD ART.
Interview Reconnect – Exclusive Arcana Revealed
We just had to connect with Byron Leavitt to ask a few questions. I’m very grateful that he was available and willing, since he revealed fascinating bits about the history of Jonah, Black Gate, and Jellyfish stomachs.
I’m curious if you eat salmon or have ever had a pet fish?
Actually, we eat salmon a lot, though our kids protested a bit after I first read the book to them. Ha! My kids have had pet fish. I’m not sure if I ever had one, but I had many pet crayfish—including one who had babies and then ate them. Her sole surviving offspring was an albino named Little Squirt who became translucent whenever he molted. He was a great crayfish. I’ve also had several pet jellyfish, one of which was named Peanut Butter the jelly. The other jellies died, but Peanut Butter lived on. Then, before her death, she gifted me with dozens (maybe more) of asexually produced baby jellyfish, which have clung to the sides of their aquarium in polyp form ever since. I was told jellyfish never have babies in home aquariums, particularly when there’s only one. But at one point in her life, Peanut Butter had five stomachs instead of the usual four, so she was never completely normal.
Also, any Easter eggs or cross-over secrets infused from your previous work in Jonah’s tale? Perhaps some of the same muses you had for so many years inspired Jonah and other characters. Any tidbits or treats for your Deep/Dawn-Madness fans?
I don’t think there are any connections with Deep or Dawn in this book. (I’ve saved those for a forthcoming novel called Under the Iridescent Sea.) However, that’s at least partially because this book predates them. The idea for this book came to me when I was a teenager. I then turned it into a novelette, which, interestingly enough, I submitted to Black Gate way back in the day when it was still a print magazine. In the end it was just a little too long and a little too different from the other stuff Black Gate was publishing to make it fit. So having the book reviewed in Black Gate is kind of a full-circle moment. The story sat for years after that. But I always wanted to turn it into a book. Jonah’s dad had mentioned there were no trolls in the basement or harpies in the trees, so I knew there had to be.
