Happy to have Molly back on the blog! I’m always excited to hear about origin stories, and Molly has a great one!
Clouds in My Bathroom Sink – An Origin Story and a giveaway
Origin stories are great. Though the origin of the phrase is a bit nebulous, first appearing in print sometime between 1910 and 1915, origin stories themselves are as old as human communication. They explain how a place, a person or group of people, a custom, a goddess, superhero, etc. came to be. When people ask writers where they get their ideas, what inspired a plot or cast of characters, they’re asking for an origin story. I’ve got a doozy of an origin story for Emrys Lloyd, one of the main characters in my Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries. It involves an episode of pareidolia and my bathroom sink.
What is pareidolia? According to NASA, it’s “the psychological phenomenon where we see recognizable shapes in clouds, rock formations, or otherwise unrelated objects or data.” Cool. Why was NASA talking about pareidolia? Because in an image captured by their Chandra X-ray Observatory, of a spinning neutron star surrounded by a cloud of particles (poetically named PSR B1509-58), people saw faces and hands reaching toward . . . unfortunately that wasn’t revealed in the image. How does NASA’s neutron star relate to my bathroom sink? Here’s the story.
Once upon a time, before people arrived and redid our bathroom, we had a sink of beige faux marble. Fairly unattractive. And one morning, before walking to my day job in the children’s department of the public library, I stood at the sink brushing my teeth. Lo and behold, as I spit, a shape appeared in one of the cloudy white swirls that gave the sink its not quite realistic look of marble. And I was blown away.
Appearing out of the cloudy swirls, this shape was no fluffy bunny. Nor was it a humped camel or spouting whale. It was a face. Not just any face, but the face of a pirate. And not just a pirate, but the pirate’s hollow-eyed ghost with a big moustache and a plume in his hat. Imagine my surprise.
And my delight. Who wouldn’t want a haunted sink? As soon as I set eyes on him, Emrys Lloyd, pirate ghost, sprang to life. In my head, thank goodness, and not in our tiny bathroom; that would have been alarming. Maureen Nash, the protagonist in the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries (who sprang to life in my head soon after Emrys) was just as startled as I to meet the ghost. Lucky Maureen, though, she gets to hear him sing.
What interesting things have you seen in clouds, rock formations, sinks, or neutron stars? Tell me in a comment below for a chance to win a copy of There’ll Be Shell to Pay, book 2 in the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries. A winner will be chosen, at random, on 6/21/25.
ABOUT MOLLY: The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She writes the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries, the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries, and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch she writes books for Annie’s Fiction and Guideposts. MacRae’s short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. She’s a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and is a past-president of the Short Mystery Fiction Society.
ABOUT THERE’LL BE SHELL TO PAY:
When she’s not selling seashells by the North Carolina seashore from her shell shop, Maureen Nash is a crime-solving sleuth with a ghost pirate for a supernatural sidekick . . .
Maureen is still getting used to life on Ocracoke Island, learning how to play the “shell game” of her business—and ghost whispering with the spirit of Emrys Lloyd, the eighteenth-century Welsh pirate who haunts her shop, The Moon Shell. The spectral buccaneer has unburied a treasure hidden in the shop’s attic that turns out to be antique shell art stolen from Maureen’s late husband’s family years ago.
Victor “Shelly” Sullivan and his wife Lenrose visit the shop and specifically inquire about these rare items. Not only is it suspicious that this shell collector should arrive around the time Maureen found the art, but Emrys insists that Sullivan’s wife is an imposter because Lenrose is dead. A woman’s corpse the police have been unable to identify was discovered by the Fig Ladies, a group who formed an online fig appreciation society. They’re meeting on Ocracoke for the first time in person and count Lenrose among their number, so the woman can’t possibly be dead.
But Lenrose’s behavior doesn’t quite match the person the Fig Ladies interacted with online. Now, Maureen and Emrys—with assistance from the Fig Ladies—must prove the real Lenrose is dead and unmask her mysterious pretender before a desperate murderer strikes again . . .
Chicks on the Case 
I always see animals either chasing or simply having fun.
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I see a lot of rabbits, turtles, and camels.
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forgot to add: Congratulations on your upcoming book release.
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Thanks, Dru!
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Congrats on the new book! Love Emrys. He is such a fun character. I’ve seen the usual animals in clouds and rock formations. Sadly no pirates or other interesting characters.
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Thank you! Glad you like Emrys.
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Hello, makennedyinaz! Congratulations! You’re the winner of a copy of There’ll Be Shell to Pay. Thanks for reading Chicks on the Case. I’ll email you with details.
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I saw what looked like an elephant in the clouds.
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Good one!
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I see elephants, too. Think in my case it’s a fond memory of an illustration that went with an AA Milne poem (also Pooh’s heffalumps)
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“Help, help, a Herrible Hoffalump! Hoff, Hoff, a Hellible Horralump! Holl, Holl, a Hoffable Hellerump!”
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Hi, Molly! Thank you so much for visiting with us and sharing the charming origin story of your Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries. I loved it! It’s so inspiring. I love looking at clouds. The big, fluffy ones always make me think of floating kingdoms. It’s very soothing. Have you seen the Twilight Zone episode based on the patterns and faces we may see in tiling? Not so soothing. Congratulations on There’ll be Shell to Pay. Love the title. Best wishes for continued success!
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Thank you for the kind words, Patricia! I haven’t seen that Twilight Zone episode. I might look for it – or might not. I’m terrible chicken!
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That Twilight Zone episode still disturbs me, Molly. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up. 😶
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As origin stories go, this one is EPIC! I love your pirate ghost waiting right there for you to discover him. And your book sounds like a blast! Can’t wait to check it out!
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Thanks, Marla!
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I usually see animals in the clouds. Recently I found a rock and looking at it I saw a palm tree and a person sitting under it. I had to paint it to bring the picture out.
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Very cool, Anita.
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When Robin and I sit on our front porch in Hilo and watch the trade wind clouds roll by, we always tell each other the creatures we see–often elephants, for some reason.
It’s funny just how strong that instinct is in humans–to see shapes, particularly of living beings, in inanimate objects. It’s as if we have a need to make everything be like us.
Thanks so much for visiting the Chicks today, Molly with this fun post–such a marvelous origin story! And congrats on the new book!
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I wonder if that instinct goes along with the instinct to tell stories? I might have to explore that idea.
Thanks for having me here, today, Leslie.
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I loved the first book in this series and am really looking forward to reading There’ll Be Shell to Pay!
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Thank you! I’ve had a lot of funs spending time with those characters.
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That’s a fantastic origin story! I can’t think of any interesting stuff I’ve seen but if I do later I’ll add it here. Khpinelake (at) gmail (dot) com
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Please do add it later if you see something interesting! Thanks for the kind words and thanks for stopping by today.
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I see faces in my multicolored living room curtains. One of the images I see is a girl with pigtails that reminds me of Laura Ingils Wilder.
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Now that’s fun! What if the curtains flapped in the wind and she hopped off and into your room?
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Molly, welcome back! So great to have you. I love this concept and its name. I see these images all the time and I’m trying to think of one that stands out in particular. We put in a terrazzo tiled floor in our bathroom and when I’m, ahem, indisposed, I see all kind of faces in the tile.
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Who are those people in your bathroom floor? Yeow.
We used to see fox faces in our rough pine ceiling back in Tennessee.
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Thanks for being here, Molly! Such a wonderful story! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything in a sink before, but I love looking up at the clouds and seeing shapes. Mostly, it’s animals, but sometimes I’ve seen faces and silhouettes.
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Thanks for hosting me today, Jennifer! It’s always a pleasure to stop by the Chicks. Seeing silhouettes is cool. Makes you wonder how it got there. Is it the shadow of someone? If it is, where is that person?
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More mysteries for the writer brain to solve!
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Hi Molly, we’re so happy to have you visiting Chicks today! Congrats on your amazing new book (next I want to hear how you came up with those awesome titles). We haven’t had many fluffy clouds here in the Northeast lately, sigh. I’m having trouble remembering what they look like, because now we’ve just got dark, gloomy overcast (13 Saturdays in a row with rain!). In the meantime, I look for faces in the pine knots of our walls in our cabin-type house. They all look like ghosts with “O”-shaped mouths. Great for Halloween.
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Thanks, Lisa! It’s always a pleasure to visit the Chicks. 13 Saturdays in a row with rain is unkind.
We had rough pine walls and ceilings in our house in Tennessee. We saw fox faces. I can imagine those ghost faces, though!
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You could set up a haunted house, Lisa…
And hoping sunshine comes your way soon!
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Somehow I always see animals.
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Seeing animals is fun and comforting.
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I guess I don’t have much of an imagination, lol. I never see anything in clouds. I do like your first book, looking forward to the new one.
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Thanks, Erin. Glad you liked the first one and hope you like the second!
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Love the new cover I see faces in floor tile, walls and toasters. Deborah
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Those are excellent places to see faces!
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Congratulations on your new book! I like the inspiration behind your stories! Oh, clouds! Yes! I’m always amazed by their many phases! I have seen “butterfly” and “flying bird” clouds. I also saw “wispy ghosts” (wish I could attach the picture)..However, I have seen many “silver linings”! The beauty of nature! – Emily
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A photographer with our local paper took a picture of storm clouds yesterday that looked like the head of a gargantuan prehistoric sea creature. Amazing!
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Last time I really took a good look, I saw some sea creatures, such as whales. Perhaps it was my mind preparing me for the upcoming cruise we were going to do at the time.
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Thanks for having me on the sight, Chicks! It’s been fun. And congratulations to makennedyinaz for winning the copy of There’ll Be Shell to Pay!
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