Timothy Merlin

Harker’s Variations

Fiction EN ↓ 11 episodes

A serialized fiction podcast of uncanny tales. In a modern Britain haunted by its own history, Harker’s Variations follows two reluctant guardians navigating strange encounters with miskept relics, supernatural hungers, and faith that refuses to stay buried. Haunted bookshops, submerged archives, and dangerous rituals surface in ordinary streets, cafés, and cathedrals, revealing how old faiths continue to shape the present in ways both subtle and volatile. These stories explore what happens when sacred things are handled without care—and what it costs to keep them without letting them consume...

Author

Timothy Merlin

Episodes

The Keeping of Relics 24.03.2026 33:35

Tonight's story begins in a crowd that cannot decide whether it is celebrating or praying. And with a relic that remembers a church older than empire and far less interested in being useful to power. It is a tale about what we keep, what we borrow, and what is lost when care is mistaken for control. Welcome to our season finale.

Not How It Happened: An Interlude 21.03.2026 12:09

What follows isn’t a story in the usual sense. It’s closer, quieter, and more personal — a moment that slipped between chapters and didn’t ask to be kept. This interlude includes intimate and sensual material, treated with care rather than spectacle. If that isn’t what you’re in the mood for just now, you may wish to return to it another time. Otherwise, it may be worth stopping for a moment. Some...

The Unbitten Fruit 17.03.2026 37:55

This story begins with a hesitation - the kind that feels harmless in the moment, and only later reveals itself as the hinge on which everything turns.

The Failure of Consecrated Ground 10.03.2026 41:03

This story reminds us that sometimes we do not mean to invite something in. But once it is welcomed - even accidentally - structures have a way of deciding it belongs.

The Shape of Transcendence 04.03.2026 40:14

This story is about transcendence — what it promises, what it costs, and the subtle moment when becoming more begins to mean becoming less. It follows a retreat that offers healing without force, peace without doctrine, and a gentleness that asks very little — except, in time, for more of you than you intended to give.

The Saint of the Long Silence 25.02.2026 26:16

This episode travels north to a place where grief was meant to be endured, and discovers that endurance is not the same thing as care.

Harker's, Interrupted 18.02.2026 28:19

This story is about good intentions, poor timing, and the quiet damage done when care is offered without consent.

Sketches in the Margin: An Interlude 15.02.2026 13:24

The Longing at St Bride's Kirk 11.02.2026 41:19

This episode takes place on an island, where certain feelings have been politely endured for far longer than is healthy. Before we begin. This episode carries an explicit label due to a single moment of strong language, brief and unadorned. It appears once, near the end, and is not otherwise repeated.

The Keys of Canterbury 04.02.2026 29:12

This story concerns authority, access, and the long British habit of mistaking stewardship for ownership.

A Meeting at Harker's 04.02.2026 29:05

This story begins, as many do, with a conversation that seems unimportant until it very much isn't. Before we begin. This story includes sensual and intimate description-language that lingers in the body and in desire, treated with care rather than spectacle. If that isn’t what you’re in the mood for just now, you may wish to return to it another time. Otherwise, it may be worth stopping for a mom...