September 21, 2010
My Suburbs.
Thinking back on my childhood, there are three things that immediately pop to mind: snakes, bats, and the old stump of what was probably an oak that was just large enough to make a fantastic pedestal for an eight-year-old.
The fourth thing, coming immediately on the heels of those, was the utter insistence of the people around me that fantasy and adventure happened elsewhere. At the beach, maybe, or in the woods of the mountains where we’d go camping, or in Grandma and Grandpa’s huge backyard with the twisty crabapples and the bamboo and the big holly I could climb like a ladder. But those were all not home: fantasy and wonder are for wild places, or quarter-acre backyards that seem wild and vast to a gradeschooler. Not for cities. Not for suburbs.
Even now, that attitude persists. Except now, at least, some people are reclaiming the fantasy of a city, the cracks and nooks and crannies where faeries hide, and have hidden since Ur, waiting for us to notice.
But the cities are always figured, in such reclaiming, as wildernesses, as jungles, and again I am told that wild places are where wonder lies, and where I need to go to seek it, and the various suburbs which I’ve haunted all my life are too mundane, too boring, too cookie-cutter conformity to house fantasy.
Clearly, these naysayers haven’t looked very hard.
There are just as many nooks and crannies and strange straggling wild things in a suburb as in a city, or in the mythic wild itself. There are great dark lobster-pots, big enough to serve as boats for children adventuring in their pantry. There are snakes curling across the sidewalk, or under the bush, or in the pool, bats in the fireplace like demons emerging from the embers of hell, foxes curled up on driveways as if the cars were holding the spot for them, butterflies battering kamikaze-style at your windows, hard black walnuts falling on your head with unerring, unnerving accuracy, crows chattering with your cat every morning, fey-touched things all. There are smoky sneaky ghosts like puffs of mist creeping across your carpet, and shadow voices in the night, rattling down the air vents, and the not-quite-people that wander your halls at night and watch you as you scarper along. There are brownies, and boggles, and bogeymen, and bunnymen, and nightmares, and dreamlings, and woody-hags; there are croakie frogs and cats and bats and little blue geckos and the occasional mighty cougar walking down your quiet streets.
These are the fey things: the loose brick in your wall, the wiggly flagstone on your path, the cobbles that don’t – quite – match. The storm drains sucking down hurricane waters like great thirsty giants, and if you turn fast enough you might see a troll peeping from under its newfangled bridge. If you step into your yawing closet, you might step out in fairyland; if you’re willing, look in the flowers, under the leaf-piles, in the runoff, up in the eaves, and you will find your wonder.
There are great strangenesses everywhere, and no place is too normal, too human, too bland, to house some.
The strangenesses, the little wonders, make those things normal, in the profound way real things are.
October 30, 2008
Occoquan.
The winds die down as you step outside.
The sky should be gray, but the clouds are bitter orange/burnt umber/something smoky like paprika.
It is strangely warm. (It was cold on the ride down, cold enough for your jacket – jewel-toned like a hummingbird – but now outside on an empty street with no real lights to speak of, it is oppressive, so you slip it off.)
You only catch glimpses of the river from here; there are other buildings – houses, a few, and shops – standing in your way. Watching like moai.
Surprisingly, you can’t see the bridge.
There are people nearby, people outside with you, but the road is cold (except strangely not for you) and dark (save for that eldritch glow of mundane houselights) and empty.
And the paprika sky still drags your eyes out towards the other shore.
And down the other side of the street, a streetlight that you could have sworn wasn’t there before is on, brilliant and bright, the clearest thing around -
- And as you stare at it, mesmerized like a rodent before a snake, the wind whips down the street like a long, long sigh,
and you see the head, resting not sixty feet up the road, with its open mouth swallowing the street and its streetlight-bright eye, and its long back curving away in forested hills across the river.
October 17, 2008
Thursday Morning, On My Walk.
Thursday morning, on my walk,
I passed two trees, and between them
was fog,
frosting the land behind it
as if it were ice.
A red sun sat in a branch.
Below that, framed perfectly,
a flaming bush.
Then I walked too far,
and it was gone.
April 10, 2008
Arawn and Me.
“Oh, and you’re now registered at Miskatonic University.”
I coughed, inhaled my tea, and screeched something approaching the word “what” at Arawn. Arawn, the bastard, started laughing. Still coughing, I groped for a napkin, giving him my best “you’d better explain this now” glare.
“Look,” Arawn said between fits of laughter, “you need more background information than I can give you. There are people at Miskatonic who specialize in exactly the kind of stuff you need to know. Besides, the whole valley’s a liminal zone. You’ll be able to interact with them – well, somewhat – and they’re used to dealing with soul wanderers.”
“And from what you’ve told me of liminal realms, the time I spend there will matter a great deal; it’s not like the other soul wanderings where time doesn’t matter.”
“Well, yes. But it’s not really that bad.”
“I’ve read those fairy tales.”
“The Miskatonic Valley’s time has a very regular relationship to your time – it’s faster. An hour of your time is equal to about four hours of Miskatonic time. And besides, I’ve already asked someone to come and wake you if you need it.”
“Who?” I asked. I’d learned to be wary of Arawn’s messengers.
Arawn grinned. “Your cat.”
This time, I didn’t choke on my tea. “You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “Cats are liminal creatures. They traverse the threshold realms naturally. And you’re one of her humans; you’ll be easy for her to find.” Arawn grinned again, reaching down to rub Abigail’s head. She purred and batted at his hand. “Yes, she’ll find you easily enough.”
Sitting on a Log in Annwn.
Coming fully aware in the middle of a dream is always disconcerting, especially when it’s not accompanied with the usual wakefulness. I was rather surprised, in a resigned way, to find myself suddenly sitting on a log on top of a green hill, watching a purple sunset.
“It took you long enough. I’ve been trying to pull you over here for hours.”
I twisted around. The Fool stood behind me, looking stranger than usual in the fading light.
“I was sleeping,” I responded testily. I have enough trouble sleeping normally; setting my soul wandering around in the otherworld is not my idea of a restful night.
The Fool graced me with a demented, toothy grin. “You still are, technically. Come on.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me unceremoniously to my feet. “We’ve people to see.”
Grumbling, I shook off his arm and set off after him. It would be another long night.
A Conversation.
“You do realize that you’re as uncanny to us as we are to you.”
I shot Arawn a look over the top of my computer. (He had, once again, shown up without warning.)
Arawn shrugged. “It’s true. This whole world of yours is weird,” he said, poking at my cat. She batted at his gloved finger.
“What prompted this conversation?” I asked.
Arawn waved dismissively. “I’ve been reading your notes.” He grinned at my glare. “I got a friend to pull them out of your computer for me.”
“Some of you are pretty damn weird even by your own standards,” I said, focusing on my game again.
A gloved hand folded the laptop’s screen down gently. “There’s a difference between weird and uncanny,” the Fool said, his eyes burning black.
Our eyes locked; for the first time, I understood what it feels like to be hypnotized.
After what seemed like an eon, Arawn broke eye contact, flipping his braid back with a curse. Abigail, annoyed at the loss of her toy, pounced playfully on his foot. I rolled my eyes.
“See?” Arawn said, tickling the cat. “Full of strange and savage beasts, this world is.”
A Visit to a Library.
“Tell me, Nathan, just how that book ended up here, anyway,” I said in exasperation. The last thing I really wanted to do was test the effectiveness of wildcard glamours in the middle of a busy human public library.
Nathan looked back at me, amusement glinting in his currently brown eyes. “It was donated by a generous patron, I think.”
“Or a mean one,” I muttered.
Nathan almost smiled. “We should be thankful,” he said. “It hasn’t eaten anyone, apparently.
“Unfortunately,” he said after a moment, “we need someone to tell us, in person, where it is, or it will remain hidden.”
I glared at him. “I doubt even wildcard glamour’s good enough to stand up to close scrutiny.”
“It’s not,” Nathan said, heading toward a short woman bent over a cart of books. I followed, none too happily, and hoped the glamours held.
“Excuse me, miss,” Nathan said, letting a false brightness creep into his voice. “Do you work here?”
The woman sighed, straightened, and turned to face us, one hand still on the cart. “Can I help you?”
I felt myself relax; it was clear that she had trouble seeing, even with her glasses on. She wouldn’t see through the glamours.
“I’m looking for a book.” Nathan held out a slip of paper. “Can you help me find it?”
The woman looked at the paper, then pointed to the far wall. “It should be over in nonfiction, somewhere in the 290s. Fourth or fifth row.” She turned to me, one eyebrow raised.
“I’m with him,” I said.
“Okay. I hope you find it,” the woman said. “If you don’t, ask at Information. It might be on a cart in the back.”
Nathan nodded to her and walked off in the direction she’d indicated. She turned back to her shelving.
A few minutes later, as we left the library with the book, I noticed that the amused glint was back in Nathan’s eyes. “What?” I asked.
“That woman we spoke to … do you know who she was?” I shook my head; Nathan’s eyes crinkled in silent laughter.
“The woman that Arawn’s been talking to in those dreams of his.”
