Canon Hub » What a Wonderful World Hub / Those Twisted Pines Hub » Take It Away, My Darling » Anders & Robin

Chapter I.VIII

The next fifteen years of Tim's life bred few stories, though a good many important things happened. In two years, Alice Özdemir becomes Alice Wilson, and two months after that, Anders Wilson is born, on the 10th of April, 1984. On November 8th, 1986, Robin Wilson follows suit. As a fun sidenote, I came out as Faeowynn Wilson officially on October 25th, 1995, which also fits into this time frame. I really wanted to wear a certain costume with my friends. Thank you for pushing me, Halloween. But enough about me.
Much like a sibling might live in the shadow of another, this decade-and-a-half lives squarely in the shadow of events yet to come. Yet I find it important to document somehow, and struggle to recall stories of my dad's that truly highlight the transience of this period. So instead, speaking of siblings, I would like to take this time to honor my brothers, though I see them more like my cousins. Though we are familial and love each other dearly, we grew up in very different settings, both in terms of our parents and our surroundings. To thank them for their support (both emotional and managerial) in this time of struggle, I entreat you to join me for a story that my brothers told me.

* * * * *

So now, we find ourselves on a Saturday morning, sometime in the 1990s (memory is so fickle).
Via the magic of practiced internal rhythms, Anders and Robin both opened their eyes at almost 7:00 on the dot. The only reason they hadn't, is because their brains had first booted up at 6:45, as was tradition, so that they didn't have to immediately be wide awake, instead letting their minds acquiesce to all the responsibilities of being alert. So instead, they were, in their individual rooms, staring at the clock.
In Robin's room, it was 6:58. His room was the attic, repurposed. Not because there were no other rooms available, but because Robin really liked it. Its insulation was lacking, so it would be very cold in winter, very hot in summer. For the summer months, he slept in his underwear and without sheets, a fun humming day in and day out. In winter, he slept next to the metal "chimney", which was usually heated by the late-night fires that Tim would light (he found the couch more comfortable than a bed in the cold months). The rest of the room was relatively Spartan. Aside from a toy chest repurposed to be a clothes chest, a small shelf that Tim built for Robin to put some few books and stuffed animals on, and of course the bed and associated tiny bedside table, the only notable features of the room were the window and that Robin was the only person short enough to stand fully upright in it. This, of course, was what Robin loved most about living in the attic.
In Anders' room, it was 6:59, because there was a delay between their two clocks which no one had noticed yet. Anders was silently very smug about being the first one to the breakfast table by one minute every single time. Well, silently smug most of the time. Robin is very vocal whenever someone tries to say Anders was "silent" about anything, chiding his older sibling for being a very gloat-happy child. Anders' room was fairly standard, except that he slept in the top bunk of a bunk bed that he alone occupied. The bottom bunk, once occupied by the youngest, had been changed into a desk, which Anders used to do his homework and store his mini-library (though it should be noted that it did a poor job of that; stacks of books spilled onto the floor in every corner of the room).
And then it was 7:00.
Anders shot out of bed, and Robin followed maybe forty-five seconds afterwards, clambering to switch out of his sleeping-clothes and into his daytime-garments. Robin, for his part, wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a tee with a large monkey face on it that read "THIS IS BANANAS!" Anders was mostly the same, except that his wardrobe had mostly little, tiny polos his size, which his mom thought were just adorable on him. Anders didn't care enough to protest, and so he became a well-dressed little man.
Anders came out of his bedroom and walked down the hall to the bathroom, finding it already open and containing his younger brother.
"Hey!"
Robin paused the brushing of his teeth to stick a tongue out at Anders: "I shlept an mah closhes!"
"Red, don't talk around your toothbrush!" In family legend, the Wilson household is actually one giant ear that connects directly to Alice at all times.
Robin spat out toothpaste, and turned to Anders: "I slept in my clothes."
"You shouldn't sleep in your clothes!"
"Don't sleep in your clothes, Redhead!"
"Okay Mom!" Robin shouted back, and then kicked Anders in the shoulder (he still wasn't tall enough to reach the sink without aid).
Anders giggled, and then retrieved his own toothbrush and toothpaste, proceeding to spend a full thirty seconds brushing his teeth, then flossing, and then just as he was rinsing with mouthwash, Robin said:
"Get out of the bathroom, I need to go!"
Anders couldn't speak, and so gave him a look.
"Come on Andie, I need to go, get out of the bathroom!"
Anders pointed at the mouthful of mouthwash, and shook his head.
"Mom!"
"Andie, finish in the kitchen!"
Anders shot Robin a glare, and Robin reciprocated. But he listened to Alice, and ran into the kitchen to spit out his mouth wash.
"But Mom," he said, "I didn't run my head under water!"
"Just do that here."
"The sink is too high!"
Alice pulled over a chair, and helped Anders stand on it. After being hoisted up, he ran his hair under water and ran soap through it. He toweled off using a clean kitchen rag, then tossing it into the dirty rag bin under the sink and next to the trash can.
"Where's Dad?" Anders asked.
"Out helping Frank with his sheep, got some kind of digestion problem." Alice didn't hide the disapproval in her voice — she thought she'd made it clear how important family breakfast was to her. "But he made you and your brother stir fry."
"Then what are you making?"
"Dinner. It's a crockpot dish, it's going to cook for a very long time."
"Oh. Okay."
Anders sat at the table in the living room, situating himself in front of a bowl of stir fry.
"Don't eat before Robin is there with you!"
"I know, Mom."
Anders just kicked his feet back and forth, more than a little smug that, even despite Robin's newest tactic, he had made it to the table first. Like always. A win for Anders.
Robin came through moments later, and asked Alice basically the same questions, garnering the same responses, and then sitting down in front of his bowl of stir fry. Anders and Robin both said a prayer, to which Alice silently smiled, and then dug in.
At its conclusion, Anders and Robin peeled into their respective morning activities: reading for Anders, piano for Robin. Each got about forty minutes in, and then used the last five minutes before their bike ride to become prepared for that.
Without nudging from their mom, the brothers met in the garage at 7:55 on the dot. Wordlessly, each pulled their bike helmets off a shelf crowded with other knick-knacks — hammers, nails, screwdrivers, screws, extension cables, a bottle of mold killer, packages of sponges that really should have been in the kitchen, piles of clothes and accessories that were slated to be donated to some non-profit, the like. Anders then went to the door of the garage, and pushed the button to open it. As the garage door opened, Robin brought the bikes from within to the street, and Anders closed the garage door as soon as he was out. He then ran out the garage, down the hall, and through the door, to emerge into the outdoors, where Robin was waiting.
Anders couldn't contain his excitement, strapping his bike helmet on the way to the street, climbing onto the bike as soon as he reached it and Robin had let go of it. At 8:00 exactly, the boys were pedaling down the street, flanked on both sides by fields, sometimes full of corn, sometimes full of small stout trees, other times full of cows, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, alpaca, and sheep. And when they passed the sheep, they shouted: "Morning Dad!"
Tim looked up from a sheep's mouth he was holding open, and took the time to wave to his boys before passing out of view behind a barn. Anders smiled. Even when his dad wasn't at work, he was finding some way to be with animals.
The day was young, the land was flat. Close by were the fences, animals, and crops, but not far from that were the woods, thick and piney, lines of firs that sometimes cut small portions out of the farmland to reclaim, or found home in the pig pen of a farmer who didn't much mind. Though the open air, sun just above the horizon and cloudless blue skies were nice, Anders and Robin were headed for the treeline, where the road began to loosen, snaking instead of straight, curving instead of rigid, as organic and natural as a large gray river.
"I bet you I can get there first!" Anders yelled as he pelted forwards.
"Hey, no fair, Mom said stick together!"
"Then you're gonna have to catch up!"
Robin groaned and sped up, to which Anders giggled: and now it was a competition. The race was simple, until they finally passed the growing number of pines, and the road began to twist and turn. The brothers fought to make the tightest turns around the corners, sometimes banking so sharply that they appeared for a moment to be horizontal on their bikes, a miracle alone responsible for their perseverance against gravity to stay upon their vehicles.
Then, ignoring the lanes of the road and unable to hear a motor over their giggling and shouting, Anders nearly collided with a large black truck, its front peeking from around the corner just enough of a warning for Anders to glide out of the way, left only with half-deaf ears from its honks, better than a half-dead body from its bumper. Anders suddenly stopped on the side of the road, and held a hand to his racing heart in his chest.
Robin stopped just in front of him, staring wide-eyed at his older brother he suddenly felt he must keep in his vision at all times.
"Don't tell Mom," Anders gasped, and Robin nodded his head.
"It's not that far," Robin pointed out. "Let's walk." Anders agreed.
They held their bikes by the handles, and walked them the rest of the way up the wooded hill. Pollen filled the air, telling the boys it was spring, close to the end of their school year. They had already begun planning what their summer weeks would look like with Alice — nearly every hour of every day of the week would have some regulated, timed activity. With the freedom that came in the absence of school, Robin and Anders had excitedly suggested a bike ride every day. Come summer, they wanted to begin exploring every possible nook and cranny local to their area. Once finished, they could tell anyone where anything was, from the general to the esoteric. It was an ability their mom had over the entirety of Clackamas County. So, of course, their goal was the entirety of Oregon, just to one up her. But for this summer, they'd start small. A town like Boring felt like an entire world to kids their age.
They soon passed the burnt tree stump by the side of the road that told them they were nearing their destination. The boys looked at each other, smiled, and started to walk faster. Then, there was the fallen branch, and the baby tree, and finally, the trail. Unmarked.
Unmarked trailheads are magical things. It was only recognizable as a trail because of the rough look to the dirt, the absence of plants along the path, the lighter hue to the ground. They always beg questions; if they aren't on the maps, who knows they're here? Who walks them? And why make a trail here and not somewhere else? Do they lead to a nice secluded swimming spot? A clearing, a grove? A hut? For these reasons, the brothers loved finding unmarked trails. This one was just far enough out that when they found it first last Sunday, they had to bike back at that very moment to get home on time. But on a Saturday such as this one, there was an entire hour-and-a-half more allowance. A little more than forty-five minutes out and back, as the ride home was shorter on bike.
"Should we walk it?"
"Dad says not to bike new trails."
"Ok."
They found bushes behind which to hide their bikes, hearing in their head the warnings Alice had given them about people stealing bikes, and started down the trail.
The woods were temperate, the forest floor dim as the trees blocked all the morning light. A waft of pine passed under the boys' noses. This aroma, and the scent of manure from their neighborhood, would come to define their home, bringing them back to a place of calm no matter where in the world they were. But for now, necessarily, it was all they knew, and they paid it as much mind as one does the language they speak. The sounds of their confident steps sometimes mingled with those of a scurrying squirrel, a waking bird, or a dashing lizard. The trail was level, uphill to their left and downhill to their right.
Robin kept track of the time on a watch he got for Christmas, Anders on one he got for his birthday. They had not yet developed the skills necessary to appreciate nature as anything more than the state of things. They peered around not as wanderers in an art gallery, but as residents in their home. The trees were bedposts, dirt and dust soft sheets, animals pets and stumps tables. The only excitement in their hearts came from the idea that they might discover something special at the end.
"Pew!"
"What?"
Anders turned around, and saw that Robin was pointing with both his hands at Anders, thumbs straight up to imitate pistols. "Pew!" he shouted again, and this time, Anders ducked.
The game was on.
Suddenly, Anders and Robin were ducking between trees, rolling out of the way of one another, and shooting whenever they found an opportunity. No one kept track of how many times one or the other was shot, they would only yell "ow!" and feign an injury for a few seconds and then keep going. (Well, maybe Robin counted, but he didn't say anything.) In an instant, roles were made — Anders was suddenly Li'l Bill, the snooping scoundrel that stole Robin's — or should I say Robin Hood's — fair lady, a woman by the name of Maggie Belle, played sometimes by their friend Olivia who came to visit.
"You can't have her, Bill! Pew! Pew!"
"She made her own choice! Pew!"
"Augh! I've been hit!"
And so on and so forth, the game continued, until finally Robin caught Anders at the edge of a large stone, dramatized at this moment to be a large, sheer cliff. "She'll never be yours, Bill! Any last words?"
"Yeah… you'll never take me alive!"
Anders threw himself off the top, diving into the dirt and bed of dead pine needles, suddenly tumbling down the hill, over and over himself.
"You can't get away that easy!"
Robin threw himself after, laughing as he deliberately rolled and tumbled down the hill. But before he reached the bottom—
"Ow!"
"I didn't shoot you."
"Ow!"
Inertia finally put Robin's momentum aside, and he stood up at the flattened out bottom of the hill. As he wiped dirt from his pants and shirt, he looked towards Anders' voice, and saw the source of his pain: a statue.
It looked like a raccoon, minus one important detail; it was missing its tail. By the pose of the statue, it looked rather startled. Its eyes were wide, one of its front paws was off the ground, the angle of its back and front legs made its body into a subtle U-shape, with its head facing towards the hill.
Anders was splayed out on the ground, rubbing his head where it had made high-velocity contact with the stone, no longer Li'l Bill, now once more a child. Robin, however, approached it, perplexed as he was just by it being here.
"Is there a house nearby?" Robin asked.
"How should I know?" Anders snapped, still rubbing his head. And then: "Sorry."
"It's okay. I left my band-aid box on my bike. I can run back and get it."
"It's fine."
Robin circled the statue. Its detail was unimaginable — each individual fur seemed to have been rendered in the stone, each sign of dust and grime accumulated from the wild touched upon in its coat. Never before had Robin seen any art this intricate. It fascinated him.
"Do you hear that?" Anders said as he finally got to his feet.
"Hear what?"
"Sounds like a bird."
Robin giggled. "No duh."
"No, really really close."
Pulling out of his artistic daze, Robin began to hear it too. A tweeting, coming from the statue.
"Look!"
Robin circled to where Anders was, pointing into the slightly open mouth of the sculpture, and as he approached, the tweeting became louder and louder. Once he reached Anders' side, he crouched down and peered in. Sure enough, the vague outline of a bluebird became apparent, squirming inside the stone jaws and jowls.
"It sounds hurt!" Anders blurted.
"How did it get in there?"
"I don't know! We have to help it."
"How?"
The boys stewed on it for a second. They had nothing heavy enough to crack open the statue — and should they want to? Robin was very upset by the thought of breaking it open, but Anders seemed to find that of little consequence. Robin tried to remind him that it was probably someone's property, but Anders didn't seem to hear him.
"Dad," Anders concluded.
"Dad," Robin agreed.
They dashed back to the trail, then back up the trail, then wrangled their bikes out of bushes, put their helmets back on, stood them up on the side of the road, and flew across pavement on their way towards their father's work.

* * * * *

The farm supply store was never really bustling, but given their town, it was never fully quiet either. A steady flow of customers went in and out every day, buying feed or new chickens or replacing a rake, shovel, or some other tool of the trade. Tim knew nearly every person who went through, so it wasn't often he would be surprised when someone stepped through the door, but just about the last people he expected to see were his two boys, covered head to toe in dirt and sweat, rushing in like a boy had fallen into the well.
"What's going on, boys?"
"There's a hurt bird!!"
"What?"
The boys talked over each other:
"It's stuck—" "—sounds really hurt—" "—new trail we found—" "—rolled down a hill—" "—found a statue—" "—Andie hit his head—" "—mouth slightly open—"
"Boys! Slow down! Now explain, one at a time."
The two divulged the situation in full, and emphasized the urgency of the bird's fate.
"We don't know how hurt it is, Dad," they said. "We need to go save it."
Tim struggled to push down the wave of pride he felt, hearing his sons so fervently describe the plight of a bluebird, but it wormed its way into his expression, a golden, beaming smile spreading from cheek to cheek and pushing up his eyes.
"How can you be smiling at a time like this!?" Anders scolded.
Tim covered his mouth, embarrassment helping him force the smile down. Once ready, he addressed them: "I can't leave the store here for another maybe eight hours, I'm sorry, maybe you should go home and get your mom? If you save it and bring it home, I can probably help it when I get off work, okay?"
The boys frowned at this, telling Tim over and over that this was more important than work, but Tim was unyielding, reinforcing the need for him to be here. He was, after all, the only employee in the building at that moment. If he left, the store closed, and he would have to explain that to his boss.
Anders and Robin wouldn't let it go, couldn't let it go, only whining louder, insisting harder, raising their voices until everyone in the farm supply heard them asking, pleading, begging for Tim to leave his desk and come with them to the trail. And just as the scale in Tim's mind was tipping in favor of abandoning his post to water this emerging trait of his boys', someone came from around a shelf of feeds. Someone with a long, mountain-man beard, unkempt but not unsightly, and a balding tanned head.
"Al!" Tim greeted. "Have you met my boys? Anders, Robin, this is Al."
Al gave them a warm smile, but Anders only waved, and Robin spared but a glance for the stranger.
"Hi boys," Al spoke with a deep and resounding bass. "I hear you've found a hurt bird?"
"Yea!"
"A bluebird!"
"It's caught in the mouth of a statue!"
"I know, I know. I heard it across the store, ahaheh. Tim, why don't I go in your stead, eh? I don't have to be home for a bit, I've got tools in my truck, we could go take a crack at it, get a bird unstuck."
"Oh!" Tim expelled. "Yes, that sounds great!"
"What do you say, boys?"
The boys rumbled with agreement, to which Albert just laughed. "Sounds like a yes to me. Come on, we'll go faster if we all take my truck."

* * * * *

"We, we swear it was here!"
Anders stood in one spot, staring at where the raccoon used to be, whereas Robin stood right where the raccoon used to be, trying to see if he could summon it into existence by occupying the same space.
"It was a statue of a raccoon with no tail! I swear it!"
"I don't doubt you," Al said. "But it looks like someone took it away."
"Noo! Noo!" Robin started to throw a fit. He stomped the ground, kicked rocks, hurled sticks.
"Woah there, Red, wooah. There's no need to get so angry."
"It's not fair! It was right here!!"
Albert wasn't entirely sure how to calm Robin down, and so he stood by as the nearly-middleschooler paced and raged around the spot where this supposed statue resided. He looked down to Anders, the calmer child, as he just stood and watched his brother toil. So, Albert shrugged, and thought to himself: I guess we'll just wait this out. He ain't hurting anybody anyhow.
So Al found a sturdy, straight tree, and leaned up against it, closing his eyes and enjoying the few warm rays of sun that weren't impeded by branches. Robin's fire became a white noise, akin to construction work, loud but untroubling. And to it, Albert found a zen, and tuned in.
A good few minutes passed before Al noticed the forest was once again calm, and he cracked open an eye to see Robin, seated and defeated on the ground, having found his screaming accomplished nothing, did little to pull the statue back into existence.
"Are you done there, son?"
Robin sniffled.
Albert pulled himself into a standing position, took in a deep breath of air, and said: "Well, alright then. We best get you back home, right?"
Anders turned to Al, and said, keeping some but not all of the worry out of his voice: "We're really late to be home. Mom's gonna be worried."
"Is that so?" Al turned to Robin. "Hear that? We have to leave, Momma's waitin'."
Robin sniffled again.
"Would you come with us if I carried you on my back?"
Robin raised his head to make eye contact, and solemnly nodded.
"Alright boy, here we go."
Al picked up Robin, who was small even for his age, and led the boys back to the truck. To this day, my brothers still swear that they both saw that statue, and can lead anyone back to the spot where it was. To this day, they recount with ardor that day that they found it, and tried to save the bluebird. Now, they laugh about it, about what a strange thing it was to find as kids, an unexplained phenomenon, that no one really believed at the time.
What's odd is that everyone does now.

« Alice Özdemir | Stories My Dad Told Me | Wilson's Wildlife Shelter »


Act I: Et Ecce Equus Pallidus | In Memoria, Adytum
<< Case Study 02: The Divoši of Prague | Case Study 03: The Darkwater Lodge |

An Anthropological Approach to Sarkicism
Dr. Isabelle Beaumont, Department of Anthropology

Forward:
Our understanding of Sarkicism has changed dramatically over the last few decades. What we have learned has revealed a diverse and shifting paradigm far different from the monolithic creed that was first hypothesized. We are now able to paint a broader, more detailed picture of the Nälkä religion, its various sects and cultural traditions.
Modern sects are the product of divergent interpretations, many bearing a mere superficial resemblance to their ancient progenitor cult. Most unexpected, especially among early scholars of Sarkicism such as myself, are the seemingly benevolent intentions of its founders. The road to hell, it is often said, is paved with good intentions - an aphorism the Foundation must always keep close in mind, for despite the aeons between us, we gaze into that very same abyss.
And like the ancient Adytites, we have found it full of monsters.
Dr. Beaumont, a relative newcomer to the Foundation and to the research into the mysteries of Sarkicism and the Nälkä faith, has provided invaluable research into two new Sarkic cults. Her work in and among the peoples of the South Louisiana Bayou has yielded interesting results into both the Proto-Sarkic cult The Church of the Eternal Mother, as well as the Neo-Sarkic cult, the Darkwater Lodge. Presented here is the first of her reports.
- Dr. Judith Low, Senior Adviser at the Department of History - Religious GoI Threat Analysis.

CASE STUDY 03: The Darkwater Lodge

Eyô âng'ayô a ne viô - Eyô, which is God, multiplied itself like mushrooms.

Overview:

The sigil of the Darkwater Lodge.

The Darkwater Lodge is the modern moniker assumed by the long standing alliance and intermarriage between the two large Sabatier and Duvernay families. Originally from the Akan peoples of the area now known as Ghana, it is believed that the heads of the two families immigrated1 to the United States during the period of the transatlantic slave trade sometime in the late 16th century.
This group differs from most other Neo-Sarkic cults in that their principally Nälkän religious practices represent a fusion of Nälkä with other West African religious rituals. While this is superficially similar to how such beliefs form the core of more recent religious evolutions such as Voodoo and Santeria, the fusion that has given rise to the Lodge appears to have happened prior to the immigration of the Darkwater families to the local area.
History:
The original families of the Lodge first integrated with the Akan peoples sometime during the Sarkic Diaspora between 1200-1000 BCE. They represent a co-mingling of both haplogroup N (M231), a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup typical of Northern Eurasia along with haplogroup L2a (mtDNA), which is more typical of western Africa.2 A majority of their own knowledge of this time period comes from oral traditions passed down from family head to family head, and much of the knowledge of their Adytite history has been lost along with most of their stories of their Akan heritage.
The progenitors of the Lodge arrived on the North American continent sometime between 1675 and 1695. The oral traditions are specific enough to pinpoint this time period, but only through comparison of similar progenitor folk stories that exist within other cultural groups that trace their existence to the same period. The earliest tales within the Lodge tell of violence and death on scale that is also substantiated through the record of various slave revolts and the subsequent military actions that were required to stamp them out. From these tales, we can ascertain that the group originally settled on the Caribbean island of St. John in the Danish West Indies under the leadership of an individual that is only referred to as Naman da ke Tsatsa.3
Their time in the West Indies was exceptionally violent. According to the same tales, as well as others collected from other cultural groups, the Lodge was primarily made up of Naman da ke Tsatsa and what we believe was their Halkost. They were involved in multiple slave uprisings and revolts, though it is of particular note that the goal of this original Karcist4 was the brutal murder of the white slave owners rather than the emancipation of the local slave population. There are numerous reports in both the Lodge's lore and in others that the Naman routinely used the local population to further their own desire to wreak havoc on the white landowners, and would do nothing to prevent the retribution meted out on the slave populations.
These violent and bloody actions culminated in the 1733 slave insurrection. Led by an Akwamu chief, King June, a foreman on one of the Danish estates, Naman and several other leaders were able to gain control of the majority of the island of St. John and proceeded to brutally murder the white population. The tales go on to say that this was insufficient to sate Naman's bloodlust, as the Karcist continued its rampage onto the slave population, murdering and raping a full third of the population before it was stopped by King June and a few others. What happened after is unclear, but the slave revolt was ultimately put down by several hundred French and Swiss troops sent from Martinique in April, 1734.
After this insurrection, the Lodge moved to the mainland and settled near the newly-formed city of New Orleans, where the Lodge remains to this day. There are not many tales from this time period, and it is unclear whether or not Naman da ke Tsatsa was fully recovered from its ouster from St. John.

Karcist Enitan Sabatier.

What is clear is that at some point in the late 1700s, there was significant disruption within the hierarchy of the family group, resulting in the structure that we see now. Enitan Sabatier, the titular head of the Sabatier family, is the primary leading voice within the Lodge, and has assumed the mantel of Karcist for the cult.
This change in leadership is not much discussed by the members of the Lodge, but it has resulted in significant deviation from their original purpose. Largely, the distinction between what constitutes a "Neo-Sarkic" cult from a "Proto-Sarkic" one is not entirely applicable here. It is clear that the original leadership of the Lodge preferred the much more direct approach to apotheosis that is generally found in other Neo-Sarkic sects, but the current Karcist appears to operate with significantly greater discretion. As it stands, the Darkwater Lodge exhibits traits that is common to both classifications of Sarkic cults, though their past history has led the Department and through them the Overwatch Command to remain satisfied with its current classification.
Culture, Tradition, and Misconceptions:
The Lodge are all adherents to a religion that they refer to as Äkum'nälkä, or just Nälkä. While the majority of their closely-held religious practices bear significant resemblance to what we would consider mainline Nälkän religious practices, many of the names of their revered deities have been changed to or merged with traditionally Akom5 religious deities.

A statue representing the God(dess) Nyambe.

The primary pantheon of deities include:

Nyamien - Their progenitor deity, Creator of the World. Typically depicted as an amorphous entity, with multiple eyes and mouths.6

The ŋorok'si na Hargitsaa - The Seven Butchers of Chaos, the Fountains of Power. Daya, Biyu, Uku, Hudu, Biyar, Shida, and Bakwai.7

Nyambe or Nyame - The first Human, Guardian of Creation, the Drafter of new peoples. Typically depicted as an elongated human with both male and female attributes. Some include the tail of a fish in the place of feet/legs.8

Wasire - The God of the Dead, Judge of the Afterlife. Typically depicted as a powerfully built male with horns, grasping a shepherd's crook and wearing a crown.9

Asaase Yaa - Wife of Wasire, Goddess of Death, the Knife of Judgment. Typically depicted as a feminine figure clothed in an occluding robe and holding a bared knife.10

The population of the Darkwater Lodge is currently made up of approximately 49 individuals. 22 members of the Sabatier family headed by Enitan Sabatier, 18 members of the Duvernay family headed by Enu Duvernay, and 9 lesser-ranked individuals who have joined the Lodge over the years. While Enitan and Enu operate as an exclusively married couple, their children remain independent members of the two separate families. While all of the Sabatier and Duvernay children claim to be progeny of the union between Enitan and Enu, they each carry genetic material of one or the other, not both. How this is achieved is currently unknown.
The entire population of the Lodge currently resides in a residential compound made up of two large Creole-style townhouses and three smaller outbuildings. All five structures are enclosed within an eight foot wall surrounding an 0.032 km2 area within the confines of the pocket dimension known as LoI-504 ("La Rue Macabre"). While it isn't clear when the Lodge compound was moved to La Rue Macabre, they have been long-term residents of both Rue Macabre and the region surrounding New Orleans, LA. They hold a place of regard among the citizens of Rue Macabre, and can often be seen interacting politely with them on Market Day. Of particular note is their ongoing peaceful relationship with the Mekhanics, a Cogwork Orthodoxy sect that also resides in La Rue Macabre.
Overall, the Lodge members practice their particular form of Nälkä in the relative peace and seclusion offered by their citizenship within La Rue Macabre. In this aspect, they more closely resemble other Proto-Sarkic sects, though their specific religious adherence is more closely aligned with what has been found in Neo-Sarkicism. While they are following the path of personal apotheosis as laid out by Grand Karcist Ion, their version of The Valkzaron11 includes the directive to proceed further along the path of apotheosis and to eventually supplant Nyam[b]e as the Guardian Creation.
According to their Valkzaron, Nyam[b]e was cast down during a great conflagration12, cast out by Nyamien for being insufficient for the task set to them by the Creator. The Lodge considers Naman da ke Tsatsa to have been equally cast out by Nyamien, though for different reasons.

+ Interview with Volutaar Enu Duvernay

- Hide Transcript

Volutaar Enu Duvernay.

Audio Log Transcript
Date: 2012/11/29 @ 17:20
Interviewer: Dr. Isabelle Beaumont
Interviewed: Volutaar Enu Duvernay
Forward: Gaining an interview with the Volutaar is quite the feat. While not quite as important as Enitan Sabatier in the hierarchy of the Darkwater Lodge, Enu Duvernay is the keeper of the Lodge's lore and holds a position of religious authority within the sect that may be equal to that of the Karcist.

[BEGIN LOG]
Dr. Beaumont: Good evening Ms. Duvernay. Or should I say Mrs. Sabatier? I do not wish to be rude.
E. Duvernay: <laughs> Ms. Duvernay is fine if we must be formal. Enu works as well, I do not stand on protocol with baƙo'ta13.
Dr. Beaumont: Ok, Ms. Duvernay. First, I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate that your people would prefer to remain secluded, and I understand the great trust you have shown in me.
E. Duvernay: Of course, Dr. Beaumont. Manma Natau speaks quite highly of you. Her praise does not come lightly, so you must truly be special.
Dr. Beaumont: I… I'm not sure what to say to that. Thank you. It is always nice to be recognized by one's work. <paper rustling> Now, if I may, I'd like to discuss with you a bit about your history. I understand that you are the keeper of the Lodge's oral tradition?
E. Duvernay: I suppose you could look at it that way, Dr. Beaumont. I am the keeper of the tales primarily because I remember most of them. We have not needed to pass the stories from mother to daughter in quite some time. <short pause> So yes, for your purposes, I am.
Dr. Beaumont: Well, that should certainly make this easier then. I am curious about the time after you first arrived on this side of the Atlantic. I know that your people would rather not speak of those times, they have all referred me to you.
E. Duvernay: Those were dark days indeed. Those are unpleasant memories for my people; we do not like to dwell upon them. Naman da ke Tsatsa led us then, though his eyes were clouded by hate, and his steps were no longer guided by Nyamien. <a longer pause>
Dr. Beaumont: If you would rather, we can speak on other things-
E. Duvernay: No. I think it important that we face our sins, learn from them. <takes a deep breath> In those days, we were hunted. Before, Naman was the son of a holy man, a leader among all the tribes of the Akan. When first we came across, we had been tricked, sold onto the ships of the kasuwa bayi by those Wise Ones who were jealous of Naman's father, and his close walk with Nyamien. When we sailed, we were told it would be to a new world, where Naman would share of Nyamien to our peoples who had already sailed.
It became clear very quickly that this was not how it was to be. Naman was beaten without mercy, chained in the bottom of the ship, held mostly submerged beneath the offal of all those trapped within. It was there his hate grew, in quiet stories told in whispers while huddled in a stinking ship surrounded by the dead and dying. It was in those stories did we hear the corruption of ŋorok'si na Hargitsaa, the Butchers. <another long pause>
And when we landed, Naman stepped free from the boat, the white devils nothing but empty husks behind.
Dr. Beaumont: So you were not brought here as slaves?
E. Duvernay: Oh yes, we were slaves. Maybe not to the Português or the Danêsh, but we were still slaves, and Naman held our collars.
Dr. Beaumont: Is that why he was so violent after?
E. Duvernay: Perhaps, in part. The call of the ŋorok'si na Hargitsaa is an alluring one, chaotic, corrupt. To pull upon their power is to pull upon their corruption, the taint of their evil is close to the surface. It is easy to gain strength, but not so easy to avoid the call of that Abyss. Naman was already so full of hate and rage. Hatred towards both the kasuwa bayi, but also to the others, those that tricked him.
Dr. Beaumont: Which is why he didn't try and protect the other slaves.
E. Duvernay: He did not care what color their skin was. He cared only about his hate. Eventually, we could no longer even call it vengeance. It was murder, plain and simple. When June led his uprising, we thought that things would be different. After, when the whites had all been killed, Naman would not stop. Could not stop. So many of our brothers and sisters fell to his knife, to his call, to his halkost. <another long pause>
Dr. Beaumont: We do not have to continue, if you would rather speak on something else.
E. Duvernay: You are kind, but no. I must finish this. We tell this to our children, so they know the danger of drawing too much upon the ŋorok'si na Hargitsaa.
I was not able to stop him. I tried, but I was just a girl then, not strong enough. It was Aquashie and Breffu that finally stopped Naman, though the effort cost both of them their lives. They fought for several days, and many of the Holkost were used up in the struggle. In the end, Naman da ke Tsatsa lay wounded, Aquashie was dead, and Breffu was much diminished. When the soldiers came, she had not the strength to hold them, and she took her own life.
Dr. Beaumont: Breffu was your mother?
E. Duvernay: She was Volutaar before me, Naman's only confidant. He raged at her betrayal, but she had cursed him, given him a sickness. Nyamien touched her, gave her the strength to end Naman's bloodlust, but not enough to stop his bloodlust. It was then that I began to whisper the secrets of Nälkä to Enitan. He was a boy then, younger even than me, but he would grow. Together, with the few Halkost that remained, we carried Naman from that place.
Dr. Beaumont: It was then that you came here?
E. Duvernay: Not to here, but to someplace similar. I doubt Papa Legba and the others would have accepted us with Naman still as Karcist. That came later.
Dr. Beaumont: After Mr. Sarbatier?
E. Duvernay: Yes. My lovely Enitan. When we arrived here, in the place near to this, he was such a help in getting us settled. We had to hide, find a way to fit in with those few communities that were here at the time. Naman would fade in an out of lucidity, but mostly he would lay upon his mat in the heat and rant. It was Enitan that helped set up our small village, did most of the fishing, traded with the plantations. We became the Sarbatier and the Duvernay almost overnight.
<sigh> We were a small commune, but too many to pass as a single family. Naman had lost control over the Halkost, and they were disoriented, lost. He had never let them think much for themselves, and now they had forgotten how. Enitan helped there, too. I taught him enough of how to draw upon ŋorok'si na Hargitsaa to save them, to take away their fear. It definitely made it easier to have their help in keeping us fed.
Dr. Beaumont: How did the other… um, immigrants in the area react to you?
E. Duvernay: The other slaves, you mean. It was fine, for a while. They would trade secretly with us, share some of what they brought in during harvest. Some of them taught us how to plant and harvest for ourselves. We met the Natau during that time, and their kindness saved our family, after.
Dr. Beaumont: After?
E. Duvernay: Eventually the other slaves grew resentful of our freedom. I'll never know what exactly happened. Maybe Enitan was too bold? Maybe one of the plantation slaves wanted to gain favor with their masters? It didn't matter, the result was the same.
<takes a long breath> They came in the night, raided our village with fire, the gun, and the sword. They burned our fields, our homes, and… and they woke Naman da ke Tsatsa. No, no more. I have shared enough truth for today.
Dr. Beaumont: All right. Would you like to pick up later, then?
E. Duvernay: Yes. That would be better.
Dr. Beaumont: Thank you, Ms. Duvernay.
[END LOG]

Afterword: It is interesting to note that while the Volutaar speaks so carefully about not drawing upon the Archons, it is clear that she has done so extensively. Her appearance is still that of a young girl, despite her obvious age. The Manmas Natau are much older in appearance, and I wonder now if that is by choice, or their approach to Lihakut'ak14 precludes the use of it so extensively upon themselves.

The Lodge celebrates several holy days, all centered around the cycle of purification and cleansing. The primary Äkum'nälkä festival is the Akwasidae festival, a fourty-day season of celebration which culminates in a purification rite called Odwira. Whether by coincidence or design, this season now coincides directly with the Mardi Gras month-long festivities. This ritual is of paramount significance to the Lodge, and has both public and private elements.

A Sabatier family celebrant at the beginning of the Nsämanf'tsatsa15 ritual.

The public portions of the ritual revolve mostly around visitation with their ancestors, which appears to be quite literal. Each Tenth Night during the festival, one of the lower-ranking members of the Lodge will undergo ritual cleansing and will be anointed as a vessel for one of the Lodge's ancestors.
This portion of the ritual involves 10 days of self mortification and excess, which daily includes hours of manual labor, extensive bouts of ritual mortification of the flesh, and celebrating long into the night. At the end of the ten-day period, the celebrant is nearly dead from exhaustion and blood loss. It is then that the celebrant is taken into the larger of the two residential structures,16 where they meet privately with the Karcist and the Volutaar.
If the celebrant is not acceptable at the end of this period, they will be marked with a series of ritual scars, and they will not be allowed to attempt again for an indeterminate period of time and will no longer take part in the remainder of the festival. If the celebrant is found to be an acceptable vessel, they will re-emerge as a host for one of the Lodge's ancestors, which they will "carry" for the next several days. This period is marked with more celebration and excess, eventually leading to the "host" returning to the big house with the Karcist, from whence they will not return.

+ Observations on the Nsämanf'tsatsa Ritual.

- Hide Log

Event Log
Date: 2013/02/12-13
Observer: Dr. Isabelle Beaumont
Event: Private Nsämanf'tsatsa Ritual, held at "The Big House", Darkwater Lodge Compound, La Rue Macabre.

The Baƙar Fata, the Black Flesh.

21:11 -
All this week, I've been spending a lot of time at the Darkwater compound, taking notes about the Akwasidae festival. Despite being so closed-mouth about their private rituals, the Darkwater people are really quite warm and inviting. Just as the celebration outside have increased in intensity over the last several days leading up to Mardi Gras, so have the celebrations in La Rue Macabre begun to reach ever more frantic heights.
There are what amounts to parades every night, processions of what must be everyone in Rue Macabre dancing in the street down to the Market Square, where music and drinking will continue long into the night. I've not gotten much sleep over the past few weeks, and it's been quite the adventure. It has been a nice change from the slow pace of life at the Natau village.
The Darkwater folk have been right there in the thick of it, especially when one of their Nsämanf'tsatsa is around to join in the festivities. Whenever one of them joins the fray, the Darkwater people become ever more frantic in their celebration of life. Some of the things I've seen out in public surpasses even the debauchery I've observed out in the Quarter, and no one here seems to even bat an eye.
After the last Tenth Day ritual, I asked Ms. Duvernay if she'd be willing to let me observe the private goings on up at the Big House. At first she seemed quite hesitant about it, but her mood changed a great deal after speaking with Enitan Sabatier.
02:21 -
I remember thinking that having an opportunity to view an Äkum'nälkä ritual up close would be quite exciting.
I was told that Neo-Sarkic rituals are much more vibrant and stylized than the Proto-Sarkic rituals, and I'll admit, I was filled with more than a little trepidation. If my experience with Nälkän rituals has taught me anything, I could never be truly prepared.
We began with a procession back through the streets of Rue Macabre from Market Square to the Darkwater compound. As we drew nearer to the compound, the mood of the crowd became increasingly somber, so that as we passed under the arch and onto the Darkwater grounds, the Lodge members walked in silence, their steps matching the cadence of Karcist Enitan's low chant.
I stood in the courtyard with the rest of the Sabatier & Duvernay as the Nsämanf'tsatsa gave his farewells to the rest of the crowd. They had lapsed entirely into Akan Kasa, and I could only catch a few words here in there that were obviously more Adytite in origin. As I waited, the Volutaar slipped up beside me and began to translate some of what the Nsämanf'tsatsa was saying.
She told me that the ancestor that was inhabiting the young man was an ancient matron named Akuba Mánsã Nkruamah, and she was born and died long before the Darkwater peoples left Ghana. She was extolling her family on the virtues of living a simple life, and to take care of the children.
After her speech, she followed Karcist Enitan into the Big House, and I followed along with Ms. Duvernay. I wasn't sure what to expect going into that house. I'd not yet had the opportunity, and I guess I was expecting something similar to the communal house that the Natau live in.
I was not expecting the tasteful decor that would have been common in any of the old and majestic houses that are everywhere throughout the Quarter. Whatever the Sabatier and the Duvernay are, they've been established families in the Quarter for a long time, and the wealth exhibited in their house shows it.
The Karcist led us downstairs and into a cellar I had no idea could even exist in the near-wetlands that seemed ever present in Rue Macabre. The air grew cool and damp, with a musty odor reminiscent of an old mausoleum. The stairway was lit by old Edison lamps, and it continued down far deeper than I expected.
Eventually, we paused before an open doorway. Up until this point, the Nsämanf'tsatsa had been chatting amicably with both Mr. Sabatier and Ms. Duvernay, but as we stepped down onto the final landing before that door, she fell quiet, and I could see her host's hands trembling slightly as he waited patiently for whatever was to come next.
There are more Darkwater Lodge members than we originally estimated. Far more.
When I turned the corner into that room, I turned into the gaping maw of a hell I never knew could exist. The walls of that vast chamber were lined with thrones, and upon each sat a thing so twisted that I struggle to even remember. Corpses, all, but cursed with animation and a kind of half-life. Each was emaciated and skeletal, but the normal processes of death and decay had been halted by the same horrible power that sustained them.
The Karcist and his Volutaar ascended to a round dais in the center of the room, upon which stood a small plinth. Cradled in a wooden stand atop the plinth was a black bowl, covered in dark stains and sigils in a language I did not know. Perhaps someone more versed in the language of Adytum would be able to decipher the words upon that fell instrument, but I fear their sanity would be wrested from them by such a translation.
The Nsämanf'tsatsa ascended the dais behind the two, and s/he knelt before them. I stood far back, just inside the doorway, afraid to step too close to the things that slowly writhed on their thrones. I counted nearly three hundred such occupied thrones arrayed around the room, with only a few score more beyond that.
It was as I tried to quickly count the thrones did I realize that what I thought was merely texture to the floor was a network of desiccated umbilical cords stretching from each of the things on their thrones. The twitching mass merged together beneath the raised dais, where I assume they coagulated to form the trunk of the plinth atop it.
The three upon the dais began to chant in unison, using a variant of Akan-kasa that was far more familiar to me, after listening to the cursed syllables of true Adytite I'd studied before. I only caught a few words here and there, and it was enough for me to wish I had no understanding of that tongue. They spoke, perhaps, of Apotheosis, of ascenscion, and as they chanted both the Karcist and the Volutaar began to change.
I thought that they had begun to reach towards each other, their hands sliding over each other's exposed flesh. When they began to meld together into a single thing, I had to force myself to stay quiet. For long minutes I watched as they began to dance slowly around the kneeling form of their ancestor, stroking them with more hands than even their melded form should have had. It was as if there were three different beings melded into that abomination, rather than merely the two.
The realization hit me like a stone in my stomach, and as they began to pull something wet and wriggling from the torso of their kneeling companion, I turned and fled that place.
Naman da ke Tsatsa. The Flesh that Walked. The Volutaar lied to me.

Footnotes
1. The Darkwater elders strictly refer to their relocation to North America as "immigration", and present extreme reluctance to discuss their first years on this continent.
2. For further reading into the genetic makeup of The Darkwater Lodge and other Sarkic cults, see An exploration of the forced spread of haplogroup N(M231) represented by the Sarkic Diaspora and the impact of the Adytite/Mekhanite War by Dr. Ishmael ibn Tayyeb, Ph.D., M.D., J.D.
3. Loosely translated as The Flesh that Walks.
4. The spiritual and secular leaders among Sarkic organizations.
5. The Akan traditional religion, from the Akan Kasa "akom," which translates loosely as "prophecy."
6. Analogous to Yaldaboath.
7. Sometimes referred to as Abosom, but their description does not match the entities of the same name within mainline Akom. Perhaps analogous to the Archons, though they are often referenced as the source of the Lodge's carnomantic power.
8. Analogous to Ion, though in some practice, Nyame appears to be a fusion of Ion and Lovataar.
9. Analogous to a fusion of Nadox and Orok.
10. Analogous to Saarn.
11. A collection of stories and religious dictates that amounts to a Nälkän "bible"
12. Likely the Adytite War
13. The word represents linguistic drift between Adytite and Akan. While all of the Lodge speaks English remarkably well, their rituals and private observances are all conducted in this language. For now, little is known about the specifics of this private tongue.
14. Carnomancy, the art of fleshcrafting.
15. Loosely translated as "Walking Ancestor"
16. Referred to, semi-ironically, as "The Big House".


In the infinite time that she had spent painting the cosmos, she was still alone.

Blood.
The taste of liquid iron on the tip of her tongue forced her to retch. Only, she couldn't. She tried to force herself. Again, again, and again. But nothing came from the pit of her stomach.
It was everywhere. Her tongue curled loosely and danced across a thousand stars, tracing a slick path of scarlet ichor across a black canvas.
She could taste every meager droplet of red ink that ran its course like a raging river cutting through the Void between the stars themselves. But then, she realised a sudden shocking truth that wounded her like she had wounded them.
In the infinite time that she had spent painting the cosmos, she was still alone. The loneliness was tactile and the silence was deafening. A million stars twinkled below her tongue and head, and yet all she had was the silence and the blood. Oh, the blood.
The blood was the sweetest symphony, a cacaphony of bliss, euphoria, release. And everything bled.
She swooped her body around, drinking in the sights, and sounds of the tumbling marbles beneath her gaze. Those belonged to her. She could taste them. She could smell them.
Her body was wreathed in layers upon layers of silken robes: pinks and oranges, greens and blues, purples and reds. But her skin was pale and smooth as porcelain, a mask that she could retreat behind.
Delicately, she gathered her skirts and robes, swiftly moving away to gaze upon another shining rock. The rocks were her favourite to observe, and to toy with. She would only have to gesture with her elongated, delicate fingers and the blood, the sweet rapturous blood, would pour fourth and desecrate the rock.
Its ugly mismatched hues and rough-hewed surfaces would become awash with her sweet ambrosia. And it would no longer be ugly but rather, beautiful.
Down and down she span, spreading her arms out wide and running her fingertips against the Void between the stars and the heavens. And with a gentle caress, she discovered her design, and her purpose.
The blood was her single purpose. It was the only thing she could feel, taste or see other than the ugly rocks, and the stars that twinkled and danced amongst the Void.
But then it struck again, the feeling of emptiness. She was alone in a canvas covered in black tar. Her design was the only illustration upon the page.
She would solve that. She would have a companion beside her.
And so, she caressed and brutalised the very matter surrounding her until it was given shape and form. She began to mould and guide the matter into a figure. Another entity bathed in the sea of black that permeated all around her. But then her fingers fell and the red figure collapsed back into the Void.
Fury overtook her as she punched, clawed and shrieked at the degenerating figure, cursing it for ever having been, or ever having not been. She could feel herself falling, collapsing into the same Void that her creation had. And she cried, and cried.
Then, she was awake and Mary realised that her grandmother's stories had been true all along.

Part 1: Blood, without Forme.| Part 2: As of yet, unwritten.


new butterfly (has plenty)
jewelry (doesn't care about it)
new laptop ($$$)
clothes (lame)
concert tickets (no concerts soon)

Mark Kiryu leaned back in his office chair, tapping his pen against the side of his head. Every time a half-decent idea popped into his head, logic shot it down. Dammit, what kind of a brother was he? He had run through this exhausting song-and-dance every Christmas of his adult life, and only for his sister. His parents were easy to buy for, and so were his friends. Riven didn't celebrate Christmas, but would appreciate a small token of gratitude here or there. He'd get a dried fruit basket for Shen, and receive a box of chocolates in return, just like every year. But his perfect system of notes and lists about what to get for everyone fell apart when it came to Zyn. His main problem with gifting: she was just too good at it.
When he was 17, he bought her a new Sony Walkman for Christmas. She got him a box filled with his favorite candies and sweets, along with a new wallet to replace his duct-taped mess that he'd complained about to her the week previous.
When she turned 21, he took her for her first drink and bought a fine wine. She gifted him a handmade copy of the scrapbook she had made collecting all her favorite memories with her family.
On his 28th birthday, she somehow managed to pull enough strings and call in enough favors to get Mark 10 minutes with SCP-999. For her 23rd, he got her earrings.
In short, Zyn was ten times the gifter he was. But after last year's fiasco involving his gift of an arrangement of Glad Roaches (which turned out to be Bad Roaches), he'd decided; this year, Mark would finally produce a heartfelt gift of such overwhelming thoughtfulness that he would finally be freed from his lifelong gift-debt.
That is, if he could think of one.
So far, that didn't seem to be the case. All his ideas were… boring, mundane. They weren't thoughtful. He needed something impressive, something grandstanding, something unique to-
"Mark? You're still here?"
Riven Mercer stood in the doorway, holding a steaming Foundation-seal mug.
"Hey Rivs. Yeah, just uh, just getting some work done. You know how it is."
Riven raised an eyebrow, glancing at the mountain of crumpled Post-its in the trashcan.
"That doesn't look like work to me."
Mark sighed and laughed.
"Yeah, you got me. I'm trying to think of a Christmas gift for Zyn."
"She likes butterflies, how about something related to that?"
"Already thought about it. She's got everything there is to have for butterfly-keepers. And I've already gotten her new butterflies before. I need something… special. It's gotta be really impressive, y'know?"
"Why's that?"
"She always gets me these real thought-out and unique gifts. And then I get her something boring and store-made. So, this year, I'm going all out."
He glanced dejectedly at the overflowing trash can.
"'Cept I'm all out of ideas."
Riven nodded before glancing at the clock.
"Well, I've always been told that what matters is the message, not the gift. But if you have both, more power to you. I have to be getting home now, though — see you tomorrow, Mark."
"Nigh- hold on, Rivs."
Riven peered through the half-closed door.
"Do you think… you could, I don't know, maybe ask her what she wants? Real casual? And tell me? Pretty please?"
Riven smiled and shook his head, shutting the door behind him.
Mark returned to his brainstorming.
The phrase bounced around in his brain — "What matters is the message, not the gift." Something was there, he could feel it, just on the edge of his brain. The message, not the gift.
Then it clicked.
He glanced at his watch. Good, it wasn't too late - they should still be up. He grabbed the phone on his desk and lifted it to his ear, punching in a number of a Site office. Time to call in a favor of his own.

"Paging Researcher Zyn Kiryu to Aviary 17. Zyn Kiryu to Aviary 17."
Zyn looked up from her desk, her data entry half-finished. Riven met her eyes.
"Sounds important. You better not keep 'em waiting. Though a part of me says you should — serves 'em right for scheduling us to work on Christmas."
"I thought you didn't celebrate Christmas?"
"I don't, but I do celebrate days off."
Zyn snickered before getting up and briskly exiting the office area of Kiryu Labs, leaving the door swinging behind her.
A few minutes of walking through the deserted research wing of Site-19 and then the more bustling biological containment wing later, Zyn arrived at the door to Aviary 17. A placard by the door read "CURRENTLY HOUSING: SCP-408". She opened the door and stepped inside. To her surprise, her brother stood by the glass window looking into the large meshed enclosure.
"Mark? What's going on?"
"They asked for you, sis."
"W- the butterflies?"
"Yeah. They say they have a message for you."
He leaned forward, pressing a button on the wall-mounted intercom.
"She's here."
He motioned Zyn forward.
Inside, all was still. The green bushes and hanging trees obscured vision into the depths of the enclosure. She began to wonder whether this was a joke or something. 408? Her dream project asking for her?
Suddenly, the greenery exploded. Butterflies flooded out of every branch, leaf, and crevice, forming a swirling, shifting mass in the center of the enclosure. She gasped. Slowly, they began to settle down, covering every visible surface with their black wings. Mark handed her a pen and paper.
"Note down what they say."
She gulped and nodded.
A splotch of color appeared on one of the butterflies. It spread out and twisted a little before stopping and leaping over to a new spot, and spreading out in a different pattern. She realized they were letters, and began scribbling.
A few seconds later, she held the notepad in front of her, the kaleidoscope of butterflies still spread out in her line of sight. She read aloud.

My little sister
My best friend, my pride and joy
Merry Christmas, Zyn.

She looked at her brother. Mark smiled.
"Merry Christmas, sis."


The moonlight glimmered off the wet asphalt, reflected off the rain puddles scattered across the roadway. The wind lightly blew across the town, barely picking up a single leaf on the dead, brown, grass. The citizens of Treynor welcomed the new rainfall, the six hours of nonstop rain that had already occurred seemed like the town's relief it desperately needed. The farmers hoped this would bring life to the croplands, which was full of cornstalk that had all wilted or died during the early summer drought. As the clock reached 11:30pm, a man walked out of the town's local bar wearing a jet black suit jacket and matching dress pants, carrying a brown duffel bag with a gray sweatshirt and pair of blue jeans in it.
The man reached into his left pocket, hoisting his bag onto his right shoulder, and pulled out a box of cigarettes. He pulled his lighter from his right pocket, and pulled a cigarette out of the box with his free hand. When he stopped at the main intersection of the town, he tried to light it, only for the flame to die out in the rain. He muttered to himself, and continued to walk down main street.
His mind raced from topic to topic on the walk home, all while his formal wear was getting slowly more and more drenched. His leather dress shoes splashed water all over his ankles, and the man continued to think about everything that lead up to here. Had all his life really led up to him being stood up in his hometown's local bar? He kept walking, his past mistakes and choices piling up inside his conscience, then suddenly halted. He looked out at the town's graveyard, and decided to pay a quick visit.
He walked past the rows of gravestones until he found the one he wanted to see. The one tombstone that looked the most run down of all of them. The name was barely legible, for the low maintenance this one got. All that could be seen was the years, "1922-1973", etched into the stone slate. The man knelt down on one knee, and solemnly put his hand on the top right of the tombstone.
"I'm sorry Dad…" The man whispered, a tear forming in his eye.
The man began to cry, as he continued to mutter to the gravestone. "I'm sorry I don't visit all that often… you know the religious folk never saw eye to eye with us. I would've buried you out back, but town hall wouldn't give me the green light. I'm sorry I let you down, even on your last wish…" He muttered, his tears becoming more and more frequent.
His tears rained down onto the ground, seeping into the dirt. After he finished his apologizing, he pulled out a cigarette. "This… this is all I can give you. I'm sorry I don't have anything else…" He said, resting the cigarette on the base of the headstone.
As the man went to stand up, he caught a glimpse of his old high school. Seeing the building reminded him of all the problems he had growing up. His benign existence granting him no validation. All he was, was a loner. He drifted through those years alone, those four damned years with no one paying any attention to him. Every attempt at notoriety, every attempt at human validation, all taken and crushed like a damn insect. This town was nothing but hardships for him and his dad, but they never left. They couldn't.
His remorse and shame quickly boiled over into anger while continuing his walk. He was one the town's three Vietnam veterans, and the only one to have made it out alive. While the other two were mourned, he was hated. While before his time in service he was called a "nobody" or a "loner", when he had returned to his town expecting a celebration like the one welcoming World War II veterans back, he was yelled at. His former classmates threw trash at him, calling him a "psychotic baby killer". When he had returned back in 1973, all he was greeted with was his terminally ill father, bedridden and losing the fight against lung cancer.
His father didn't want to be buried in the town's graveyard. He didn't want the religious treatment. And he couldn't even give his father that.
When the man opened the door to his house, he threw the duffel bag at the wall in a fit of rage. Tears streamed down his cheeks, as he hurriedly lit a cigarette to try and calm his nerves. He saw a small, steel box in the corner under his desk. He knew that it was finally time for him. No one would notice. No one cared about the so-called "baby killing psychopath". No one cared about the loner. No one cared at all. He opened the lid to reveal a .357 magnum revolver, with three bullets in the box.
Loading the cylinder with a bullet, he put the barrel to his left ear. All his events in his life, all the events that proved his isolated and benign existence raced through his head. He shed one last tear, as the trigger pulled. The gunshot echoed throughout the wilted cornfields and the empty streets, but just like the man, was unheard. But yet, whether from incompetence or luck, the bullet missed his brain, leading him to bleed out.
The man laid on the ground of his home, his head bleeding out like a broken faucet. He was dying. Alone. Just like how he had lived.
The town continued as normal for a week, but at noon of the next Saturday, people started to note how the man hadn't been seen in a week. The town's mechanic realized he hadn't come to check in on his car, as he normally had done every day since it got wrecked. The manager at the town's gas station was suspicious why he had missed a week's worth of work. The town's grave-keeper had mentioned a cigarette appearing on the man's father's grave.
The bartender, mechanic, gas station manager, and grave-keeper all went to the man's house, where they knocked on the door. There was no response. Then, the bartender the gunshot. The shot that echoed throughout the empty night a week ago. The mechanic slowly opened the front door, where they saw the man's corpse, with blood splattered on the walls and rats munching on his rotten corpse. They stood in shock, and grabbed the corpse. The grave digger returned to the graveyard, and began to dig the newest addition to the town's field of corpses, while the mechanic went to inform the mayor of the most recent death.
The funeral was small. A couple former classmates and the four men who found his corpse were the only ones attending. But after the man's funeral, he was quickly forgotten. His house was sold, his name wasn't mentioned. And just like his father's grave, it became so rarely maintained that all that could be read was "1949-1976".
The man's spirit still lingered, seeking out those who were like him. Those who were forgotten. Those who were going to die alone. He visited deaths of every era, to be there for the person about to die. He knew what it was like to die alone, and didn't want anyone to suffer the same fate. All he could do is pull out a cigarette from his front pocket, and be there for them. He had died alone. No one should have to suffer the same fate. He watched over those near death who were outcasts like him, and he always reminded himself of one thing:
No one dies alone.


Canon Hub » What a Wonderful World Hub / Those Twisted Pines Hub » Take It Away, My Darling » Alice Özdemir

Chapter I.VII

"Sir, are you aware you're heading to Boring?"
Tim was parked on the side of a paved but not particularly maintained woodland road, somewhere up in Oregon. After his trip to the redwoods, forests were particularly appealing to him, and the Pacific Northwest of the United States is legendary for its lush and gorgeous forests.
"Yes officer, I am."
Tim really didn't think he was going that fast, but to be fair, he hadn't seen any postings for the speed limit. He figured that he must have just been tired, and half-closed eyes made him look inebriated. The recent divorce had taken a lot out of him, and his sleep schedule was still recovering.
"Any particular reason you're headed there?"
"Going where the road takes me, sir."
He'd seen the sign for the town covered by bushes a half-mile back, looking like it hadn't seen a human hand in centuries. A part of him wondered if the place was a kind of ghost town, but listening to the tone of this highway patrolman made it feel more like some sort of Chernobyl-scale tragedy.
"And you are aware that Boring is a dead end with the only way out being through this here road?"
The officer's pungent breath stung Tim's nostrils, but a polite upbringing kept him from plugging his nose. The patrolman was an average size, all around, but for whatever reason, Tim had a really hard time describing his face. When he looked at it, it wasn't wrong. All the things were in all the right places. When he tried to recall it, the first word that came to mind would be "unremarkable", but that implied a coherency to his recollection that would allow him to come to such a conclusion. In truth, there was no such coherency. Things such as the color of his hair, the thickness of his lips, and the width of his eyes are all nebulous. Yet somehow, in the moment, it didn't seem so bothering.
"Not until now I wasn't."
The man's eyebrows — whatever hue they might have been — raised.
"And you still want to go to Boring?"
"I… yes?"
Remembering his confusion, Tim would shake his head as he retold this story. Right here he'd get a little creeping smile, spreading inch-by-inch across his face, knowing those things that younger Tim knew nothing of.
"I see. Go on ahead then, young man. You have yourself a nice little vacation."
Tim smiled and nodded, more than a little anxious to have this uncomfortable interaction over with. He waited until the officer was a healthy distance away, and then started his car back up. Jeez, what was that guy's issue? As he took the car from park into drive, he peeked in his rear-view mirror, and saw the patrolman talking into his radio. Was this what the Boring Police Department was like? If so, he'd really rather not meet more of them.
He hadn't even gotten a ticket. What was that about?

* * * * *

No offense to anyone, I think that Boring always lived up to its name a little more than everyone else. I think that's because of some false expectations. Tim loves to talk things up — friends he'd made, experiences he'd had, and especially places he'd been. Boring was no exception. When I heard about Boring, Tim talked like it was a little slice of paradise.
In the dreamworld of Tim's perceptions, the trees were as tall as the mountains; the rivers roared and rumbled year-round; the birdsongs were choirs and orchestras; deer glittered in the sun; gentle breezes played with the trees like Mother Nature was dancing and cavorting, her dress twisting at her hips, pollen and the scent of pine drifting down to the dirt and underbrush. There is truth to this, and there isn't truth to this. But it was inevitable that on my first visit, my critical eye spotted the exaggerations first.
By these descriptions, Tim made it sound like the town was wreathed in forest, only but small shafts of sunlight finding their way through the evergreen canopy, a fairyland of wilderness and wonder. When I first visited, I saw things differently. So, now that you know how Tim perceived his surroundings, allow me to color this story with a more accurate depiction of the town here discussed.
When Tim drove in, the trees began to part ways, and he was greeted by a plethora of single-story buildings in the middle of a relatively flat valley (soon to turn into the foothills of the Cascades). While it is circled by trees, the majority of its land is either grassy or rural; much of the population of the unincorporated territory are farmers (as I'm sure you would know). And despite being a very small little place, it is only 15 miles from downtown Portland, so its relative "seclusion" is, well, limited.
But just about none of these things crossed Tim's mind. The words that stuck with him were "Pacific Northwest." This was exactly where he wanted to be.
So he found a place on the side of the road, parked his truck, and stepped out. He had been in the car for two days straight, punctuated by fast food, bathroom breaks, and one stop into a motel. And now, he was here. Enough distance was between him and San Diego. He felt this could be his first exploration.
The weather was temperate: the hot sun moderated by the cool breeze coming from the west, stirring the sparse foliage in the town center — a couple short trees and one or two garden displays. He breathed in the sweet country fresh air, for a moment willingly forgetting his circumstances, past, or any other details of his character. Here, he was new, because here was new. Tim Wilson? Who's that? Today he was Explorer of the Unknown, Traveler to the North, Searcher of Colder Climates; hiker, climber, woodsman. With this new identity, he opened his eyes, and looked east towards the mountains that were now his close neighbors.
"Hello, mountains! Hello, forest!" he called.
He stretched out his arms, like he was a plant trying to photosynthesize most efficiently, and then let them fall to his sides, his hands sliding into the pockets of his thin jacket.
"Hello, Oregon," he said quieter.
And then he crossed the street, and entered the closest building: the local library. Once inside, he approached the counter, where a young lady sat behind the desk, reading Dune by Frank Herbert. He leaned onto the desk and decided to wait for her to notice him. There was no rush after all. In the time it took, he studied the appearance of the Oregonian woman.
She had a pointed chin and a poof of brown hair done up in a bun, making her whole head shaped roughly like an acorn. Her nose was round in shape but flat against her face, which was peppered with freckles. She wore a long white dress with a minimalist orange flower design to break it up. Her glasses were stocky, lime green things, and behind them were gorgeous, forest-green eyes.
"I haven't seen you around, before."
Her nasal alto voice reminded Tim that if he was staring into her eyes, she'd looked up from her book and noticed him. How long that eye contact was, Tim could not know.
"Um, no!" He tried to find something else in the room to stare at. "I'm a tourist. And —"
"A tourist!"
"Yes, yes, a tourist! I'm —"
"From where?"
"California. San Diego."
"That's pretty far."
"It is, and I noticed —"
"What brings you up here?"
"Uh, exploring! Which —"
"Ooo."
"Which is why —"
"Exploring what exactly?"
Tim chose not to respond, and instead used silence to invite the librarian to reflect on the conversation so far. Reading his expression, the librarian shrugged, not looking even a little embarrassed. "Sorry. I've lived here my whole life. People come from Portland all the time, but anyone else is a little exciting."
"It's okay."
The library entered its first characteristic silence.
"So," Tim began, when the librarian's cooperation became clear, "I'm in the library, because this town doesn't look to have a gift shop, and I figured here would be the second best place to go for information! Specifically, um, I'm looking for some wildlife books. Stuff that lives in the area, that I could go searching for. Got anything like that? Uhh, bird books, birding? 'Oregon Wildlife' or something similar?"
"Mhmm," returned the librarian. "We have a small section just over here. Includes some maps of hiking trails, too."
"Perfect," Tim purred as the librarian came from behind the desk to show him towards the section.
While Tim perused the aisle, the librarian stayed close by. He wasn't sure what to say to her, but he figured that it was an innocent gesture. He became more okay with it as he found it reaffirmed his idea of "new." People even recognized that he was new. That felt good. That felt invigorating. He pulled out a book of Oregon birds, a guide containing hiking trails around Clackamas County, and a compendium of the foliage in the area.
He pressed the books onto the counter, which the librarian — freshly back at her post — cataloged in her list of books being checked out, stamped a time to have them returned into, and then handed back to Tim. He was still recovering from the hassle of first interacting with her, the momentary relapse into his teenage misanthropy, but flipping through the birding guide and smelling its pages raised his spirits.
So he started again.
"So what places would you suggest to an outsider such as myself?"
"Oh, sure!" She pulled the hiker's guide from his hands without warning and without asking for it, and proceeded to flip to a topographical map of the area. She pointed to the local creeks, suggested her favorite swimming spots, outlined a collection of trailheads he wouldn't find on the map, where they went — she particularly talked up one that went to the peak of one of the pre-mountain ridges.
"Beautiful up there," she toted. "Catch it at sunset and you won't regret it. Though you might have a hard time getting back down!"
She donned a sly smile, then resumed. Tim was enthralled; her finger passed over the map with such confidence and precision. She traced the valleys, the hills, the ridges, the canyons, all the little trees like she'd walked them all before. Tim experimented with her, querying on the best views along a certain road. She pressed her hand to her lips, eyes passing over the map in confusion. Briefly. And then she had oriented herself with other landmarks she knew by heart, and seamlessly strung together a series of suggestions.
"There's a waterfall here; a turnout here with one of the biggest trees in the county; if you go down this highway at night you're likely to see a lot of bats, they live in a cave right around here…"
So this is what it's like growing up in a small town, Tim thought. By god if I could be born again.
"Do you believe in the occult?"
"Huh?" Tim was struck out of his daze by the non-sequitur.
"It's just that, we don't get many tourists, but a lot of the ones we do believe in wicca."
"Wicca? I don't even know what that is."
"Oh. Well. Witchcraft. But, it's been modernized. That's a dirty simplification, for future reference, but anyhow. Not a lot of sacrificing little animals, a lot more laying herbs in a circle and lighting candles. Somehow some people have got it in their heads that Boring is a great place to do rituals. I was asking, because I can point you to some little clearings in the woods where people go. To do that kind of thing."
Tim blinked a few times. "Do you believe in witchcraft?"
"I don't believe it does anything. But… how long are you planning on staying?"
"Um…"
"In Boring?"
He paused.
"I don't know. Honestly, I'm figuring all this out as I go. But with this map, it looks like I'll be touring the county more than this small town. Probably stay the night here, hit the trails tomorrow morning, see where I end up. Why?"
"Tourists don't usually come back."
That gave him pause. "That's an odd observation, how many tourists do you expect to recognize on return trips? Tourists are generally transient residents anyhow."
"It's just something you notice when you live one place your whole life. Never seen a tourist's face twice."
Tim's cheeks wrinkled into a smile. "So, you think that after I leave this library, you're likely to never see me, not ever again?"
"If the pattern holds true, definitely not."
Tim put his hand down flat against the counter. "It's a challenge, then. I swear to you I'll come back."
"You swear?"
"I swear."
The librarian leaned back, head tilted upwards just slightly, still maintaining eye contact.
"I would like it if you did."
"I will!"
Tim picked up the hiking book, and stuffed the two others under his arm, turning to head out the door.
"What time?" She called after him.
"I don't know, whenever I wake up!"
And with that he pushed the library doors opened, stepped out into the town, and disappeared across the street.

* * * * *

The very next day, when she came to open her library, he was already there. It looked like he had fallen asleep, a sun hat pulled down over his eyes to keep him shielded from the sunrise, leaning against the doors. He wore a dirt-brown shirt, khaki pants, and hiking boots. He was brown, head to toe, from his hair to his shoelaces. His pudgy belly plus slim, fit legs made him look like a sort of root vegetable, just pulled out of the ground. The relayed the observation made her smile. And, noticing that she hadn't caught his name, she tagged him in her mind as Mr. Rutabaga.
Mr. Rutabaga had to move so she could get to her job. So she tapped his shoulder with a stick.
"Mmm," he said, flinching at the pokes, "five more minutes."
The librarian chuckled at him, and he chuckled back, lifting his sun hat.
"I'm back."
"You are. I need to get past you."
"No conversation?"
"I need to open shop."
"Ah. I'll go back to sleep then."
"Just as long as you're not falling asleep on the door."
Tim just smiled at her, and then sat back down, leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window just next to the door. She fiddled her keys out of her pocket, opened the door, went inside, and locked it behind her. Tim pulled his hat over his eyes again, and waited. An intermittent wind flapped a flag across the street, a car would go by every minute or two, and birds could be heard chirping to welcome in the new day. To these sounds, Tim nearly nodded off, enjoying the serenity that city life had lacked for 25 years of his life.
Then, he heard the library doors open again.
"Are you just going to sit out there? You look like the wind's gonna give you pneumonia."
Tim leaned his head back to see from under the brim of his hat. "I've never really minded the cold."
"Why're you still here anyways? You beat me, you're back."
"Well you said you'd like it if I came back, thought there'd be a bigger moment!"
"What bigger moment would there be? You proved me wrong."
"Well," Tim scooted so he would be sitting more upright, "would you like to see me again? Make it a thing. Me seeing you, you seeing me."
The librarian's expression remained static, her pose almost describable as terse — abrupt and short of words. Tim thought it was funny that she was telling him about catching pneumonia from the cold; she looked stick-thin herself.
"What's your name?"
"Alice Özdemir."
"Hi, Alice. I'm Tim Wilson. And I need a hiking buddy." Tim waited for a response. When none came: "See, you talking about this 'not coming back' thing has me all superstitious, makes me think that if I decide to go out and explore all the trails, I might not be able to find this place again. Like you're some sorta dream town. And I got —"
"Four o'clock."
"Huh?"
"The library closes at three thirty, I got to go home and get some things. Meet by the Not So Boring Bar & Grill. At four."
She went inside, closed the door, and locked it to finish readying the store. Tim just smiled, wider and wider. Flapping flag, running cars, chirping birds. He pulled the hat over his eyes again, wind whistling in his ears, and caught up on a few missing hours of sleep.

* * * * *

Tim got in the passenger seat of the bright red truck, and Alice shoved a poofy brown coat into his arms.
"Wear this, you looked frigid this morning."
He obliged, and pushed his arms through the smooth plastic sleeves.
"Also, thought it fit with your outfit."
Tim nodded in approval. "Thanks, it has been pretty windy today."
"Mhmm."
Alice's figure looked tiny when put into the driver's seat of the truck; her legs barely reached the gas and brakes, and her head didn't touch the headrest. She wasn't much shorter than Tim, but the truck was huge.
"Why'd you get a truck that's so…"
"Big?"
"Yeah."
"It was my dad's truck."
"Oh."
She manhandled the stick-shift, which looked like it fought her at every moment, and got the car onto the nearly empty road.
"So where are we going?"
Alice smiled and glanced at him, but didn't say anything.
"Oh, huh. We're gonna play it like that, then."
Once again Alice refused to respond, checking over her shoulder before making a left-hand turn instead. Though farmland made up most of the town, it took mere moments before they were under the thick covering of leaves.
"Hey, isn't there only one way in and out of this town?"
"What?"
"When I came through, there was a patrolman who stopped me, said there was only one way in and out."
"Well that's a lie. Clackamas Highway goes straight through the middle of town. That's at least two ways out. Then we got the rural roads. Did you even look at the map while I pointed out landmarks to you?"
Tim felt a fog dissipate in his head, and suddenly he could visualize the map clearly, something he hadn't even noticed he was unable to do the day before.
"Huh," he said, and left it at that.
During the truck drive, Alice finally pushed Tim into divulging on his life before. Though Tim didn't want to discuss it, he enjoyed someone being interested in him, and Alice enjoyed learning firsthand about life outside the little town.
"Don't get me wrong, I love it here", she'd said, "but it would be nice to leave someday."
Tim, of course, tried to warn her against it. He spouted all the things he found better about life in small towns, out in the wilderness. The access to nature, hiking trails, creeks, secluded swimming spots, how you could know everyone you interact with, community, the sights and the sounds, the local businesses, the notable presence of stars, and all the rest of it. His exuberance took up a good half of the car ride, during which Alice intently listened. Whenever he'd say something that made very little sense to her, she'd remind him that he's a "stranger", and make some comment about how she shouldn't even be talking to him.
They suddenly pulled off to the side of the road in the middle of what Tim thought might be rightly considered "nowhere" — which was exactly where he liked to be, as it so happened. Alice parted a small row of bushes to reveal the beginnings of an unmarked trail that snaked through layers of dead pine needles, dirt, and small scraggly shrubs. She had donned a rather large looking backpack, and trudged down the path without saying a thing.
"Wait, what's in the pack?" Tim asked.
But Alice just gave him that smile she gave him earlier and kept walking. Tim accepted that it was part of the surprise, and started walking after her.
The trees grew thicker, the space between them thinner, and all the while they trekked downhill. Several times Tim had to stop to catch his breath, unable to keep up with the deceptively speedy young woman. After the third time, he felt it prudent to mention to her his heart, and after that she started to walk a little bit slower.
"Are you even going to be able to make it back up?"
Tim chuckled, and then let out a long sigh. "Yes, but it's going to suck."
And in another fifteen minutes of hiking, Alice started almost vibrating. She skipped forward, passing through two trees, and disappearing behind another.
"Hey, wait up, where are you goi—?"
And as Tim passed right where she had just been, he stepped into a tiny clearing, nearly perfectly circular, where the trees decided they had ought not to grow. The land was flat and without foliage, like a camping spot. Alice stood in the center, and stared at him with a mischievous grin.
"So, we're… camping?"
"No. Better."
She took her backpack off, pressed it onto the ground in front of her, kneeled down to rummage through, and pulled out a book, which she then handed to Tim. It was purple, green, and square. Its cover read…
"'Nature Spells: Wicca for the Trail'. That seems… oddly specific."
"Is it? I am finding use for it."
"Use? I thought you didn't believe in this stuff."
"I don't believe it does anything, is what I said. Do I believe it is a fun, silly thing to do, out in the middle of the woods at night? Absolutely."
"At night? How long are we staying out here?"
"It's about six, sun dips down at maybe seven, seven-thirty, and making the circle, setting up the candles, and familiarizing ourselves with the spell should take roughly an hour. What do you say? I even brought…"
She plunged her hands into her pack again, pulling them back out to reveal rolls of some silky black material.
"…robes."
"Robes!?"
"Robes," she spat.
Tim looked nearly appalled, but Alice motioned to hand him the robes anyways, and raised her eyebrows at him. Tim glanced down at the robe, then at her, then at the robe, then at her again, then at the robe one last time…
"Fine," he picked it up between his thumb and forefinger as if it was a soiled rag, "but I'll let you know that this is just because you've been a great help to me."
"Works for me!"
They each donned the ceremonial attire, and got to work laying candles; building a fire (ashes on the ground marked where this had clearly been done before); dropping sprigs of various herbs (sage, rosemary, mandrake) in very specific spots; traced a pentagram; spread salt; and, lastly, sat down together to read the actual ritual with the aid of a headlamp, as the sun had sunk beneath the pines of the trees.
"It's a welcoming spell."
"A welcoming spell?"
"Yes," she poked her finger down onto the page. "It's about asking the local spirits and powers-that-be for safe passage. Praying to be welcomed as a stranger in a strange land, swearing you will do no harm here. That's what it's about. I chose it for you, 'cause you're new here. I thought it would be a great first thing to do."
"Well it's too late for that, I did two hikes between you opening the library and meeting me by the bar and grill."
"Shhh. It's symbolic."
"Alright, alright."
And so, once the first stars began to peek through the great black veil above, Tim and Alice lit the candles, and the fire, and recited the possibly-gibberish contained in the little purple-green book. Many an outrageous arm motion were had, much more volume than required was spoken with, and the spirits and powers-that-be were invoked!
"Spirits!!" Alice cried. "Let this strange man from San Diego stay here in Oregon unmolested by your wrath, may his soul and the soil become as one, may he not be foreign but instead a new addition to the body of these woods, a feature as fixed as the plains, as iconic as the mountains. If he migrates, let him do so as a bird, returning to find that he is still welcome, a home from here on. Spirits, hear me, and be at peace."
The forest was silent except for the crackle of the fire, motionless except for the flickering orange light from the candles. Alice put her hands at her side, once more at ease, and pulled the hood of her robe off.
"Wow," Tim said. "I think you went off-script."
"And so what if I did? I want you to be welcome here. It's just a spell about having the spirits listen to you, I should be able to say what I want."
Tim pulled his hood off as well, making eye contact with Alice.
"Do you think it worked?"
They each stood in silence, scanning the environment, listening for any new sounds. Not a single candle had flickered out, there was no new gust of wind. The stars did not shine brighter, nor disappear from sight. Nothing stirred.
"Probably not," Alice shrugged. "But I've always wanted to do that."
"Have you?"
"Yes." Alice began blowing out candles and picking them up.
"Why?" Tim followed suit.
Alice shrugged again. "You'd be surprised how many people come into the library to get wicca books. I've just always wanted to know what it was all about. Have the experience. Plus, you're a tourist, and it's a tourist thing to do." She saw doubt in his eyes. "Trust me."
Tim yielded, putting his hands in front of himself up for a brief moment.
Tim asked if they had any easy way to put the fire out. Alice said they could smother it with dirt, or they could just wait. Tim offered his opinion by taking a seat near the fire, and Alice followed suit. They took the robes off, packed everything back up and then sat there, staring deeply into the fire's red-orange core, its licks shooting into the air like fish from a pond.
"And my mom was into it."
"Was?"
Alice just looked at him.
"Oh," Tim whispered. "Sorry."
The fire popped, flickered, and twisted. Occasionally, owls would hoot, and Alice pointed out when she thought she heard a coyote howl, but Tim didn't catch it. Eventually, the plasma died down, and all that was left were embers. Alice got up and scooped handfuls of dirt onto the fire until the darkness of night surrounded them, and they had only her headlamp to go by.
"Alright Tim, I think we'd better get going. I have to open the library tomorrow, just like every day."
Tim started to stand, dreading the long walk back up the hill.
"Where are you staying, anyhow? We don't have a motel, or hotel, due to, you know, no one stopping by."
"Oh. I just slept in my truck."
"In your truck!?"
"Yeah."
"You're not doing that tonight."
"Who are you to tell me what I am or am not doing?"
"I have a guest room, do you want it or not?"
Tim's eyes widened. "Well, thank you! That's very kind!"
Their conversation continued in this way, all the way up the hill, however slowly they went. Or so was supposed, by the creatures of the night, the insects and arachnids on the trees in the clearing they left. Without their presence, and the absence of the fire crackling, the woods were quieter than ever. A half-moon lit everything in dark blue light, as if the world were underwater. But soon, there was a noise. Cracking twigs from behind the treeline.
Something great, furred, and heavy stepped into the clearing recently vacated, and gazed up the path the humans had just walked. Its hooves disturbed the ashes of their campfire, its short tail twitched. And then, just like that, its antlers flared to life, orange and red and yellow, hot and glowing, radiant. The flames coiled around its horns like snakes on branches, contained but restless, pushing against the boundaries of their home. The deer only stared on and up the path. An ear twitched, a nose sniffed. And then it jolted into the woods, away from the clearing, between the trees.
And the woods were silent once more.

« & the Endings Thereof | Stories My Dad Told Me | Anders & Robin »