I woke to the Dreaming for the first time in a long time.

I was back in the cult-church of my youth. I felt the earth shake with every strike from orbit, heard the fire and damnation from the pulpit, read the news on my phone with shaking, terrified hands; recognizing, somehow, that this truly was the End. There was no final chapter, it was being written around us and the last time I’d Dreamed this had been 2010 in a run-down apartment as I watched the sky torn asunder and the earth split.

The cold weight of the veil hung heavy on my head and across my shoulders as I gripped my phone in hands going white and blue from effort and chill. My brother shook me, tried to snap me out and away to go do something, anything, but sit tamely by. I refused. Not out of piety or false modesty, but because I knew I was not yet ready to believe it.

And so I sat, listening to the drone of people behind me as they stayed or left or ran downstairs in despair for coffee and soda and whatever creature comforts had been brought by the congregation. And I… stayed until it was finished.

The downstairs of the church had a stairway, a singular landing, and another few steps down to the basement floor. Plain white and grey “marble” tile, folding chairs and tables, and old accordion-style “walls” that could be dragged from the edges of the room to create classrooms, or meeting areas closed off from the rest of the area. A few were being used as impromptu praying circles, but for the most part the church had cleared by the time I went below.

It seems in Dreams there’s nothing left for me in this space; which makes sense since the Severing I performed, and the fact that I simply want nothing to do with this place any longer, even if I AM dragged back night after night.

I took nothing from them, this time, save the knowledge of who was present and who was missing, and exited the church from below.

I found myself in the parking lot, my small tabby in my arms as I ran along the lilac bushes for the cars, SCREAMING with everything I had for help. She made no move to bite or claw, knowing as I did that all the youths behind me had been torturing her. The leader kept approaching, hand held out demanding her return. I refused. He looked nearly apologetic as he kept coming, saying “But I have to.” I refused a third time, and the world went sideways.

I was back in the basement, cat nowhere to be found which didn’t feel strange. Jeff, Susan, and a few other shadowy figures stood around me, saying things like this was our final chance to do whatever it was we hadn’t yet.

He referenced the local tattoo shop, and also “Who’s feathers say *static*…?” I knew he was referencing my tattoos even though I don’t currently have any with feathers. I was also granted an image of my next ink, the layout, and the words that will be encircling it.

I woke to the sound of an owl outside somewhere in the neighborhood.

Watch Me Rise indeed.

“I come to bring Freedom, and not Peace.”

The light around Them was blinding, as it usually is. I doubt very much that I have ever seen Omnia face-to-face, save once. The distracting after-image of glazed, blind-violet eyes and salt-white hands conceals Their next words- But they are still lingering like the sound of music when the singer has stopped, my head rings with it.

They are a creature of the Grey, even more than I am. The in-between, the always-were and never-was. Humanity, in all its thousands of permutations, its never-ending change averaged into this face, this form, shifting forever beneath that ice-blue robe. White tinged blue like morning snow, dazzling forever when the light hits, with afterimages and impressions that are no more a lie than the Entity they conceal and reveal at once.

If Somnium is my Patron, They are my Parent. A concert-harmony of Light and Dark, compulsion and free will, the rise and fall of the tides led by the ever-present moon and witnessed by the sun. Attended by as many stars and planets as the sky can hold, in all its glory.

Their presence is a firestorm, super novas and rebirth shattering the veil around Their feet and I, when did I fall to my knees? When did Omnia turn “She” and “Mother” in my mind…? That neutrality traded in one moment for the understanding that this, this is as it should be. Freedom, not Peace. Love, in intricacy and not complacency made more so by indolent, insolent demand for sameness.

Omnia is all things. The Divine Parent. Loving Acceptance. Arms open wide to the universe, beckoning.

And here I am, at the feet, bathed in the glow of that acceptance, wrestling with my thoughts and the ride and fall of words that I cannot comprehend. The grey of the hearth is sharp beneath my knees, soapstone and silver falling from my hands. Distantly, I can hear the singing on the River’s edge and the many calling back and forth in song and dancing-

The dreams of the night turning brilliant and blinding if only for a few moments. And it is the mundane that cling now more than anything, now that I am awake. The taste of chocolate in my mouth and the spark of heated metal against my skin… shaking them off and picking up the thread of the Dreaming is harder than ever.

“Freedom, and not Peace. Autonomy, sovereignty, crowns on crowns, unbound and loosed, the world shaken to its foundations and rebuilt. Peace is not freedom, and it comes at the cost of will.”

I Dreamed last night and I was spooked enough that I didn’t want to be home all day.

So I rode through the heat to the local coffee after hitting the gym, and I wrote it all out, and I am still spooked. I am also feeling very compelled to write about it.

So…. consider this your forewarning of a Dream post incoming. You will not receive another.

Return To Whiskey Downs

The Downs have changed a lot over the past few decades. It was one of the first things I noticed when I looked at the old gardens.

Gone were the ornamentally created front lawns with their hedges and potted flowers in large, decorative basins. Gone were the flowering trees and willows, gone were the streams and the fountains and the sound of chimes in the wind like crystal and bell. The air was dead of all things but the sighing trees and even that seemed more memory than present whisper.

The creatures that still lived in the high-walled kitchen gardens were not much better off. Even if those in the Great House had moved on, or disappeared, or passed, they still lived among the holes in the hedgerows, or stole the dusty, questionable hospitality of the gardener’s quarters.

I found myself rearranging the bricks beneath the dirt. Exposing the worn-down stones to the air after gods only knows how long beneath the earth; scraping back the loam and rotting leaves and the good black thickness beneath my digging, searching fingers that, in a moment’s glance, looked more molelike than human.

When the dirt and debris had been cleared away; all by hand, for all the tools’ handles seemed rotted and splintered in the sun; I fell to re-arranging the bricks. They were supposed to form raised beds, once upon a time. Silver-grey and red sandstone in the most beautiful patterns. All I found were the grey and blackened, as if fire had come or the long years spent apart had desecrated all my childhood heart held sacred.

Hours in the dappled shade and silent, twisting breeze exposed the foundations. The patterns I had laid in laughter and a summer’s joy. Before the heat had settled in my bones and made every move a misery when the index climbed too high. Back when the sun’s caress left freckles only in its wake and dancing-bright eyes; not reddened skin and desperate, drained exhaustion.

When I was finished, the bed was raised again, and the path between it and the gardener’s cottage had been squared and straightened again as well. It was a little frightening, really, how the mounded black earth looked more a grave than garden, but there was nothing left in my shoulders but ache and I had not the tools to enact further change.
The vines that climbed the cottage walls concerned, for the way they insinuated themselves between the bricks and seemed to cover more than a third of the roof. They, too, would have to be removed; and yet… and yet I did not reach for them, wary as I was that they might now indeed be holding the building together even as they ripped it apart.

The glass windows in their casements were still perfect and uncracked. The little diamond panes bright, if dusty, where they stood reflecting the sun. I knew the drapes inside would crumble if I touched them, the sink was full of half-done dishes and a thick layer of dust. Spiders spun webs in the corners and the furniture… taken from the Great House on the abbey grounds, when the new things had been acquired in some long-ago year, looked as though perhaps, with a new upholstered cushion and perhaps, perhaps, some polish….

But I did not throw open the door. Did not shove my shoulder to it and command it yield to me. Did not even reach for the knob to check that it were locked… I was, yet again, on the outside. Couldn’t even remember finding the door in the bank beneath the tree roots… didn’t remember the dry streambed and the sunny, dappled shade that shifted in every rustling breeze and the call of distant hawks-

But I had put one small corner of the garden to rights, and in time perhaps the denizens of the hedge and heathrows would repopulate it. I sank back down on my knees and brushed the path clear of dirt and leaves, plucked the grass from the verge and discarded it beneath some hedge or other. The birds might use it, perhaps, if it struck their fancy.

When I rose there was black dirt clinging to my hands, a testament to its time gone fallow with nothing but the changing seasons dropping leaves to turn to mulch and only the rummaging about of the wind to till it. It should not be so ill-used, the grounds I had loved so much, ran wild on, should not be so silent.

No sheep bells calling across the moor. No distant barking of the hunting hounds. No choirs in the abbey, no whistling in the fields. No laughter from the club at the end of the lane, no sighing, crying notes from Fox’s violin or Badger’s low baritone-bass. No high clear ringing from Mouse’s pipes-

And so the dreaming fell to pieces much as the first in a decade had, with potential peeking from under leaves and behind the sturdy trunks of ancient oak and apple trees. When I looked over my shoulder, shadows were moving and there was a smile on my face. Perhaps not so dead and forgotten as all that…

Perhaps I could still go home, after all.

The Deep Dark

I could hear them down the hall… playing video games, talking to the dog? the cats? I don’t know. I was content enough to stand at the butcher block counters and cook instead. All my utensils and needs lined up in a very neat row against the colored tile backsplash, laid against beautiful sage-green walls. Calming. Carefree.

Waves beat against the cliffs outside and I knew without doubt what was waiting down the shore. I didn’t pay attention. Instead I directed my mind towards making better meringue in a small white stand mixer with a steel bowl, and getting sourdough and ciabatta toast ready. Light fluffy eggs, parbroiled in a brand new stainless steel oven and toast browned in the simple white toaster, before being set in a skillet with browning butter.

Down the coast, they combed the beaches and the caves. Crawled over the rocks like black insects flashing oilslick colors in the light. Everything they searched for was already lying safe with me… and I was Busy.

Their technology had given them the blueprints of every room hewed into the rock of the cliffs. The sea stacks towered over the water, their insides riddled with maze like catacombs and hiding places for the People. I knew their places, intimately. Had watched over them in silence, I could not tell how long. Witness, called up from the blackness of my own Deep Dark.

The black gravel slid like sand under my feet, leaving its mark in swirling smoke stains along my calves. I felt no burning. The cave walls were sharp and slick, no blood flowed from any touch of mine. Other voices howled in the dark, my own did not join them. Closer than their next breath, farther than they could ever hope to reach.

The yolks joined the fluffy white nest beneath the broiler, and the toast, now closer to french than plain browned bread, was slid onto plates round and white as the moon. Music came from somewhere, and its echo matched my heartbeat as I moved from the island to the counter and back again, smooth as a dancer. I could see past the pillars into the living room if I cared to… I did not. No need. I knew where they were; the second half of my soul and my god; without needing to reassure myself with my dreaming eyes.

I knew the three that led just as intimately as the new technology had betrayed their secrets to the outside world. I did nothing. The red plants that grew like spider’s legs outside the entrance to their dwellings tore at clothing and shredded skin… I knew too well the numbing effect its thorns could have. I said nothing. The earth swallowed them whole.

Things in the deepest reaches stirred. Not ours, not ours, not our People. And the figure on the beach merely whispered to the ice-salt wind “no.”

The earth moved.

I looked into the distant sea, leaned against the sun-warmed glass of the door, pulled aside the curtains. Just our cliffs, the edge of the bluffs, sloping down and away into the raging spring seas below. Just green, and yellow, and the deep grey and dirty whites of any northern coastline… I remembered the blacks and the reds. I remembered soaring on aching wings down the riverlands, over downed trees and under ever-growing canopies. Saw mouths yawning wide to catch the unwary, black and brown fur and slick shining scales alike.

I heard the thunder as yet one more world slid into the unforgiving salt deep… its children resigned to their fates or accepting of this turning of the Wheel. But the timers were going off, and there were things to be cleaned in a stainless steel sink, food to plate, and lovers to call to the table.

I paused at the shelf above the oven, a spidery plant in black, grainy soil. It nearly seemed to smile back at me as smoky stains ran along an outstretched finger.

I think we understand each other.

linkedsoul:

ayellowbirds:

monstersdownthepath:

vonbaghager:

A faerie introduces himself. Then, holding out a hand, asks, “And your name, please?”

And, like a fool, you give it to him.

I got asked for clarification on this (but can’t reblog that particular post cuz on mobile), which I’m more than happy to provide.

In this post, a faerie is asking for ‘your’ name. The way he is wording it, however, and the accompanying beckoning motion, makes it seem as though he is asking for you to physically hand your name over. Which, because of how some faeries operate, he is.

In this instance, saying your name aloud to the fae would be literally giving your name over to him, the exact consequences of which are left up to the imagination–usually, a fae even knowing your name gives it some measure of power over you, but giving something your name would likely let it completely take over your life.

In this instance, the wording you want to use is something like “I will not give you my name, but I will tell you that it’s [name].” Alternately, you can just lie to him.

Might i suggest the less direct yet still name-preserving “you may call me…”? It dodges the request while still giving an answer of a name, which does not even have to be yours, but any name you feel like telling the fae they can use to refer to you. I would recommend “Ainsel”.

The first time he asks for your name is the first time you meet him. He appears as you walk by the færie ring, that you have not entered because your grandmother has repeated so many times not to do so, and, curious of your presence, watches as you jump when you notice him.

You recognize him instantly. It is the Fæ whose influence your village is under, the one the elders have told you and your friends to be wary about, for the people who have been seen walking away with him have never come back.

You don’t know what he does to them. The villagers have never dared to confront him about it, never dare to address to him at all. He is not evil: he sometimes speaks blessings upon the cattle, talks the horses to calm after a storm, ensures a good harvest for the farmers, makes the flower bloom in spring even when the weather is still too cold. He is, simply, a Fæ, whose ways humans cannot understand.

“Hello, little one,” he says as you stand very still, back straight, hands fidgeting with the fabric of your skirt.

You do not go away – you cannot. This, your grandmother has taught you, would be considered as an offense, and you could be cursed, or he could take out his wrath onto the village. You do not shy away from his stare, however, even not knowing if this will displease him or not. You are eight, have the courage and the recklessness of your childhood innocence, the boldness of those who have not yet learnt how to fear; but you have been warned against the Fæs, who like to toy with humans and play tricks upon them, so you do not defy him either.

He walks up to you. You pray he will stay in the færie ring, as it feels like a protection, and fortunately, he does. He isn’t too malicious to the youngest ones, you have been told once – just do not know if this is true or not. You knew a girl your age called Nimia, that has been caught a year ago, and she has never come back to the village, and her parents have cried all week cursing the Fæ.

You summon to your memory everything your grandmother has taught you to ward off Fæs, and protect yourself against their tricks. You do not want to be the next Nimia.

He introduces himself as Áed, although you suspect it is merely a nickname. Then, holding out a hand, he asks, “And your name, please?”

There is your grandmother’s warning at the back of your head: names give power over people. The Fæ is asking you to literally give him your name, and who knows what he’ll do with it – he might as well use it to take you away, like he surely did to Nimia. To all the people who have never been seen again. To your own mother, two years after you were born, even though she was too clever to be caught by a Fæ’s trick.

So you remain quiet, watching him with wide eyes, until his own stare darkens, and he shakes his hand under your nose.

“Your name, little one.”

You pull yourself together. He might curse you if you don’t answer. You gather your courage, and, with the spontaneity of children who have freedom in their veins and do not bend to rules, you stretch out your hand back without touching his.

“I am sorry, lord Fæ. I haven’t heard you very well. Can you give me your name, please?”

He looks at you with surprised amusement. “Oh, well played, little one. You’re clever. Just for this one, I will let you go.”

He retreats his hand, and you scramble back as quickly as you can, bowing to him clumsily before taking your leave.

You had passed by the færie ring to go the well to wishes, even though the elders forbid the youth its access, disobedient little child that you are. You just wanted to wish for your father to let you wear your mother’s necklace – ‘not yet’, he always says, ‘when you are thirteen’. You forget about going there, after this encounter. You go back home, and your grandmother scolds you for having been gone for so long.

You do not tell her about the Fæ. She has already lost her daughter to him. If she knew he had tried to lure you, you would not be able to leave the house again – and you value your freedom too much for that.

The second time he asks for your name, you are fifteen, and you have ran to the well to wishes again, forgetting the elders’ warnings. You have sworn to yourself you would not go back home anyway. You are not sure what you want to wish for, but at least for all this pain within you to fade; just to be more, or maybe less, like your mother, to accept the village’s rules better, to simply fit in and be happy that way.

Eyes full of tears, breath uneven, barefooted on the grass, your mother’s necklace beating against your chest as run, you have not made a detour to avoid passing by the færie ring. You trip and fall in front of it, and Áed finds you curled there, crying and cursing to the world.

“Those are not pretty words,” he says.

You freeze. You push yourself on your elbows, sees the færie ring, feels dread slip into your head. It is only the second time you see him, and you are not a child anymore. You have learnt to fear.

The Fæ, who has taken Nimia, then Lettie, on the day of her wedding, and even the old Mack, hovers over you curiously, at the edge of the færie ring. You remember to keep still, not to offend him. You feel the fear you should have felt when you were eight; and yet again, as tonight sadness and despair have already filled your heart, you do not manage to remain terrified.

“I don’t care,” you answer, sitting on your knees.

He finally sits down, too. He does not talk, so you do not feel compelled to talk either, and silence stretches between you for a while.

“Were you going to the well to wishes?” he asks eventually. You nod. “It does not work anymore. Whatever you wish for, it will not grant it.”

You feel your chest tightening.

“You might not say the truth.”

He smiles. “Indeed. I might not. But you can try yourself.”

It might have been his way to allow you to leave – but you do not find it in yourself to do so. You are tired. You have run as fast as you could from your home. Your grandmother must be worried about you, and she will probably never let you stray from the village again. Your father’s shouts still resonates in your ears, saying you are not a good daughter, that you will never be, asking why you feel such a need to always run free, just like your mother, then asking why you cannot be her.

You know you should listen to your elders, tame yourself, learn to properly take care of your household, and stop fleeing from your duties and your classes to explore the wild. You just cannot help it. You were already a disobedient child; but the teenager you are now cannot bear authority.

Freedom.

Is it too little to ask?

“Are you going to stay here?” Áed asks.

You shrug, unable to answer properly. You feel too pitiful to try to talk with a Fæ – a tricky exercise, as Fæs like to twist words as they like and get human souls from a clumsy sentence.

“You can,” Áed then says. “I will watch over you.”

“This sounds too nice, lord Fæ.” You haven’t been able to prevent the dryness of your tone. “It might be another trick.”

And yet, you lay on your back, somewhat desperate, arms crossed behind your head, not knowing where else to go or what else to do. The Fæ, after all, is not evil, you remind yourself. He also does good things, occasionally. You might just be lucky.

“Aren’t you afraid, little one? I know you do not trust me.”

“I am too tired for that.”

He laughs. “Will you not give me your name, then?”

“I cannot give you my name,” you reply. You know what it would lead to. Giving your name to a Fæ is giving him the power to take over your life. “But I will tell you that it’s…”

You hesitate. The Fæ knowing your name would also give him some power – that is what has lost Lettie, you’ve been told.

“Elaine.”

You close your eyes, and Áed simply laughs. He does not speak afterwards; yet you remain wary, and heavy thoughts are on your mind, so you do not find sleep easily. You end up turning towards him, and opening your eyes again, wondering if he has left, too bored to stay watching over a sleeping human.

But he’s still there.

“Little liar,” he says, not smiling but not sounding angry either. “This is your mother’s name.”

You are somehow not surprised he has noticed. Your grandmother said your mother used to go the well to wishes often – she might have met him too, talked with him, before he took her away. Just like you, your mother didn’t fear the way to the well to wishes and the færie ring. The same recklessness, the same need for freedom runs into your veins. That might be why your family is so afraid to lose you.

“You remember her?”

“I do. I remember Nimia, also. That foolish girl, Lettie. The old Mack, who tried to cut the færie ring. And all the others.”

“Why do you take them away?”

He looks at you. “Humans are fascinating. You poor little things, so weak and powerless, your lives are so short, and you do not know half the wonders that exist. And yet. You manage to find happiness.”

You feel yourself drifting off to sleep, listening to the soothing velvet of his voice. Exhaustion has caught up to you. Your eyes are already closing off.

“It is no reason to take it away from us,” you murmur, tiredly.

He keeps on staring at you, but does not answer. After a while, you simply close your eyes again, and this time, sleep finds you after a few minutes.

When you wake up, Áed is gone. You go back home, and your grandmother cries when you arrive. She forbids you to leave ever again. Your father apologizes for his harsh words, and you apologize for your rebellious attitude.

“Where were you?” your grandmother asks, once the calm has returned to the household.

“I slept by the færie ring,” you say. “But the Fæ wasn’t there.”

You can hear it in your head, ‘little liar’ said with his voice, and it somehow makes you want to smile.

“You shouldn’t,” your grandmother admonishes. “Your mother used to do that too, and look where that led her. You were lucky.”

“Yes,” you reply, and this time you think it, too.

The third time he asks for your name, four years have passed ever since you have slept by the færie ring, and your grandmother has still not allowed you out of the village. She does not like the longing looks you throw to the forest and the valleys beyond either, says you are now of age to be married, and should do so before she picks you a husband herself. This annoys you. She has, however, loosened her strict watch, and you can come and go out of the house mostly as you please.

For a few months, now, Kevan has been courting you, and you enjoy having the freedom to spend time with him. He is the blacksmith’s son, has had several lovers before you; but he assures you he can only look at you now, that you are the special one, and he swears if you marry him, he will make you the happiest woman of all Qelt.

You always laugh at that. He is cute and charming, but freedom is still your keyword, and you do not see yourself speaking vows to anyone yet. He shrugs, whenever this is your answer, then takes you in his arms, and makes you laugh some more.

But tonight, he doesn’t shrug. He has drunk, you know, maybe too much, and you look at him in slight fear when he grabs your arm too tightly after you have refused him once again.

“Why?” he groans. “I’m nice to you.”

“I know, Kevan,” you reply, trying to keep your calm. He is simply drunk. You have talked to more drunk boys than one, nothing has ever happened to you. “Now let go of me, please. I told you, I simply do not want to marry yet–”

“You do more than that. You refuse yourself to me. I’m courting you, but it never goes further than an embrace.”

“I do not owe you more than an embrace. If this bores you, you’re free to woo another woman.”

He pulls you to him, and his grip hurts, this time. “I do not want another woman!”

“Kevan, you’re drunk!”

You put a firm hand on his chest to keep some distance between you, keeps your head away from his. You know what he wants, but you do not want it.

“Why don’t you love me?” he asks, accusatory.

Part of you feels guilty. Part of you feels angry.

“I don’t owe you feelings.”

“You’ve seduced me. You’ve let me court you.”

You thought you loved him. You simply wanted to take it slow, to grow a friendship with this charming boy, before doing anything. You enjoyed his attention. You enjoyed playing this little game of cat and mouse with him, thinking it would end well for the both of you once you would have decided your freedom could also be with him.

But not anymore.

Your freedom cannot be with a man who will not wait for you, yet will not move on to someone befitting him better.

“I just wanted time, Kevan,” you try, despite knowing the idea of a future with him is over. “Can you understand that?”

“No!” he roars. “I’ve waited enough. You’re mine, you hear me?!”

“You’re drunk, you don’t know what you’re saying, you-”

“YOU’RE MINE!”

He pulls you closer, and you break free. He screams your name, but you’re already running out of the inn, under the confused eyes of the other villagers who have always seen you two getting along so well, and do not understand what has happened.

Kevan screams your name again, chasing after you.

Fear takes over.

What is he going to do? He is drunk, simply, he surely himself does not understand his own acts. But what if he catches you? Will he just shout? Will he cry? Will he stop himself, being the charming boy he has always been?

Unless this charm of his was nothing but a way to get into your bed, and this friendship you wanted, he has never had any use of it?

And if he catches you, he will get his way with you, whether you want it or not?

No, he wouldn’t do that. He isn’t like that. He might not go that far.

But you can feel his need for bruising kisses, for his hands on your skin, at least, and you can see yourself crying as he holds you tight and calls you his, because it is not how it was supposed to be – and this, you do not want at all.

He calls you names. Yells insults. You run, never turning back, never slowing down. You cannot lead him to your home, you think. Your grandmother and your father are sleeping and you should not even be out, and he would get you before the door.

So, you keep on running.

Your legs carry you to the only place where you’ve found safety outside the village, and when you hear Kevan’s voice louder, his steps closer, you scream before diving into the færie ring.

“ÁED!”

He receives you in his arms. You fold against his chest, trembling and still unable to believe the man you thought could become your husband has gone as far as chasing you outside the village, to the færie ring all villagers avoid.

You do not even want to know how Kevan has reacted. You breathe in and out, slowly, letting Áed hold you and stroke your hair.

“Easy, little one,” he whispers to your ear. “Easy.”

“What are you doing?!” Kevan’s shout. He sounds afraid. “Get back here! It’s–”

“Hush, human.” You have never heard Áed speaking so coldly. Kevan falls silent – drunk or not, every villager knows to respect the Fæs. “This one is under my protection.”

There are no words exchanged for what seems to be a long, long time. You can hear Kevan’s ragged respiration behind you, just one meter away. The færie ring feels like a protection once again; yet you’re inside, this time, and that’s where you feel safe.

“Leave.” There is the hint of a threat in Áed’s voice. “Now.”

Kevan’s steps finally hurry away after a few seconds of hesitation, and you break. You cry. You cling on Áed’s tunic, and you shed your tears, resting your forehead on the crook of his neck.

“It’s okay, little one. He’s gone. You’re safe.”

You somewhat forget he has taken your mother, Nimia, Lettie, the old Mack, and all those other missing villagers from before you were born, during the centuries he has lived. You somehow forget of what you risk, being in a færie ring, in a Fæ’s embrace.

And Áed does not lie to you. You’re safe. He lets you cry in his arms, without asking anything of you, without taking you to Fæqelt, the holy land where his kind resides, without any tricks or malice.

“I do not want to go home,” you murmur.

“It is okay, little one. You can stay here. The færie ring is safe for you.”

You pull away to look at him. “Are you not going to trick me?”

“I won’t.” He is grinning. You believe him, even though you should not.

“Not even ask me for my name?” you try to joke, pathetically.

He raises a brow. “Would you give me your name?”

“No,” and this time you’re smiling, even just a little. “But you may call me Ainsel.”

He laughs and ruffles your hair, and keeps on calling you ‘little one’ – he’s a Fæ too old to be tricked back that way. You end up laying down side by side in the færie ring, and he talks with you until you fall asleep.

When morning comes, you’re in your bed. When you finally stop avoiding him, a few days later, Kevan apologizes to you, then never talks to you again.

You prefer it that way.

The fourth time he asks for your name is very soon after. You come to the færie ring at night, darkness being the only way to escape your grandmother’s watch to leave the village, though you do not enter it.

Last time seemed like an emergency situation. You are not sure you can be so lucky not to be tricked by the Fæ again.

You are not so sure why you have come here either. Maybe it is the fact that you have started appreciating Áed, despite all his evil deeds – that he yet does not see as evil, simply as a Fæ’s doings. Maybe it is because you are starting to understand that your parents’ wedding and your birth was, for your mother, more of a curse than a blessing; and that the same fate of having to bend yourself to what everyone is expecting you to do might be awaiting you as well.

But maybe, it is just the freedom of being able to run under the moon wherever you want, and feel the wind into your hair, away from a village you love but which has started to grow too small for you.

“Little one!” he calls when he appears. He seems surprised, but pleased. “I did not expect to see you so soon. Are you going to the well to wishes?”

You shrug. “No, I wanted to see you. Please do not ask me why.”

“Why?” he maliciously asks.

You shake your head, raise your eyes to the sky. That makes him laugh. He is infuriating, in a way; yet you cannot help but smile.

“How are things, with the ruffian?”

“He has apologized, but has stopped talking to me. He thought me going into the færie ring was a dream, though. I’m glad of it. Had he talked about it, it would have caused me troubles.” You grimace. “My grandmother would have locked me in the house, and married me off immediately.”

“And I could not see you again?” he exclaims. “Horrible. Why would she do such a thing?”

You look at him quietly, and his expression shifts to a less mischievous one.

“She has already lost her daughter to you,” you say, voice soft. “She does not want to lose her granddaughter.”

He opens his mouth to talk, closes it. You are convinced that years ago, he would not have reacted the same way. Would not have taken it so seriously.

“Do you miss her?” he asks.

“I was two, when you led her away. I did not know her well. But my grandmother and my father miss her, and I have always been able to feel there was something lacking in our home.”

He nods. You nod back. There is something strange, in the atmosphere, though you cannot say what. You are not sure he regrets what he has done – how could he? He remains a Fæ, after all -, but you know he has no intention to talk about it with any kind of pride anymore.

“Come here, little one,” he finally says. “And I promise, nothing will happen to you. I will not bring you any more harm.”

You step into the færie ring, standing proud in front of him. Your heart is strangely beating hard in your chest, and he smiles at you, eyes gleaming with a light which is not mischief, but something much softer.

“Will you give me your name, little one?”

It is not a bargain. He already knows your answer.

“You will let me refuse, won’t you?”

He winks. “I will.”

“Then, I can’t give you my name,” you decide, amused. “You are still welcome to call me Ainsel, however.”

“Oh, ‘little one’ suits you better.”

You laugh, and you two sit in the færie ring to talk again, and you tell him things you cannot tell anyone else – you tell him about your dreams of freedom, your wish to explore the world, even Fæqelt, the fact that the village has started to be a prison for you, instead of a home, that your family is your anchor but not your guide, about your need to leave.

He listens. He gives you some answers. Tells you about Fæqelt, about how færie rings can be used to travel within all Qelt and beyond, about himself, also.

And you start thinking it wouldn’t be so bad, traveling with him.

You start coming back to the færie ring more and more often. You are curious about him. A strange bond has started developing between you two, and the more you know about him, the more you notice the constellation of golden freckles on his cheeks, the way his eyes glint with a reflect of starlight, how his laugh sounds when he’s particularly happy, the softness of his smiles which are not tainted with mischief.

Soon, you find yourself craving for those interactions.

There is no one else in the village able to understand you, to support your desire to wander around the world. No one else to talk about travels and adventures with. Even your childhood friends, who have shared all your ups and downs, cannot get why you do not want to become a fine housewife, and live the rest of your life surrounded by what you have always known.

You know, now, why your mother has walked with her hand in Áed’s, while she was too clever to be taken away.

It was the craving for freedom.

She should have known better than abandoning her family; but you can understand how trapped she must have felt in this little village, especially if a marriage and a baby was not what she had wanted. She must have looked longingly to the forests and valleys beyond the village, as you now do, and must have thought it would be better to be led astray by a Fæ than to remain chained down and become a shadow of herself, needing freedom as one needs oxygen.

You understand.

You would have done the same, had you married Kevan as you planned to, all those months ago.

But one night, you stay too late, and your grandmother is waiting for you when you come home at dawn. She notices the grass on your dress, asks for explanations, does not believe any of your lies.

So you tell her the truth, for she has always been one of your pillars, but she screams the moment she hears you have bonded with the Fæ – and her screams wake your father who cries and despairs when learning what you have done.

For the first time in years, he says again you will never be a good daughter. He cries that you are too much like your mother, with the same craving for freedom, the same desire to leave the village, that if he does not keep an eye on you, you will run away to Fæqelt and never come back. He accuses you not to love him, for your mother surely did not love him and the idea of a family with him – or not enough to stay.

Your grandmother locks you into the house, does not allow you out again except under her watch. She promises to marry you soon, as she did for her daughter when she understood her daughter would one day leave her if she did not. The world is too wild for humans, she tell you. Binding you here is the only way to protect you.

This is for your own good, they say, but it does not do you any good.

The village learns about it. Kevan understands what he had seen that night was not a dream, reveals you have stepped into the færie ring, into the Fæ’s arms. And then the villagers, those people who have raised you, seen you grow, watched you live, whisper that you are lost, and that you are a Witch. They say you will bring bad luck to the village, that you are a channel through which curses and tricks from Fæqelt will pass; but they cannot get rid of you and risk the wrath of Áed.

You are not even sure they know what a Witch is. You do not, not really. Witches are wanderers who have strange powers, people say, obtained through a pact with a Fæ. It is like making vows with mischief itself: Witches might be human, but like Fæs, they cannot be trusted.

You cannot go anywhere without hearing the whispers, or feeling the heavy stares in your back. One day, at the market, you receive a stone from Lettie’s former husband, who did not know better. Your grandmother, ashamed, as she cannot even marry you off to a villager anymore, does not defend you.

After that, you stop leaving the house at all.

And you understand your mother’s decision even better.

The fifth time he asks for your name, it’s Early Summer Night, the beginning of the warmer days, celebrated by the entire village around a banquet. Your grandmother and your father have left the house. They are convinced you will not. No one would want to see you at the banquet, after all.

But your need for freedom is still there.

You escape your home which has become your prison, and you only feel like living again once the wind is in your hair, the grass under your feet, and you can breathe in fresh oxygen. You run. Your legs welcome the dearly missed sensation blissfully, take you to the færie ring.

You do not know where else to go.

“Áed,” you whisper when you step into the færie ring, and he’s there, and you’re in his arms, and he’s holding you so tight you realize he must have missed you like you have missed him.

“Do you know how scared I was, little one?” he asks in a strangled voice. “I thought– I thought you would never come again.”

You break in tears. Everything is too much, feels too much, has been too much ever since your grandmother has discovered you had approached the færie ring. You feel like shattering – and in a way, you do, pressed against his chest, pouring your heart out and wishing this night would not end.

“I thought they had killed you,” Áed murmurs, caressing your hair.

“They wouldn’t,” you sob. “They scorn me, now, but they’re not murderers. And I have done nothing evil.”

“What’s inside you, what you are capable of, it scares them. And scared people lose their minds far too easily.”

You shake your head like a child. “They would not harm me.”

“Not physically. But they could have harmed you in other ways. Your beautiful mind, for example. They could have killed this spark in you.” He pauses. “Forced you to give up on your freedom.”

You think of all those days spent the same way, cleaning, cooking, sewing, all nice tasks as long as they’re not the only ones in your life, looking by the window and desperately wishing to feel the warmth of the sun on your skin again, to walk around without fearing to be called names or to receive stones.

You think of how, had you not known him so well, you would have already escaped and given him your name, for getting lost forever in Fæqelt will always be better than the life you now have.

“They almost did.”

You realize, belatedly, how terrified you sound. Áed takes your face between his hands, looking so worried you think he might cry too.

“Little one, you do not have to remain here. You can leave. That is what you have always wanted.”

“But,” you weep, “they are my family.”

“Family should push you forward, and not hold you back. They might warn you, but they should not bind you. Leave, little one. Take your freedom. They do not own you. Come back to this village a fine traveler and a proper Witch, and show them they were wrong to outcast you.”

You manage to smile weakly. “You make it sound so easy.”

“Because it can be. Witches are travelers who venture into Fæqelt and explore it, little one. That, you can be easily. You have the wit and the courage for it.”

You take a breathe, in and out, the despair in your stomach slowly turning into a glint of hope.

“Aren’t humans supposed to lose themselves in Fæqelt?”

“Not with the blessing of a Fæ,” Áed replies softly, and your heartbeat fastens.

The future, all of a sudden, seems open with a thousand possibilities. You see the roads, the travels through færie rings, the foreign people in the inns, the new towns, the vast, vast world you have always dreamt of seeing, the holy land of the Fæ, mysterious and enthralling, only ever told in myths – and Áed by your side, being his usual self, smiling at you so brightly.

“Yes,” you say to this future, to this everything. “I would want that.”

There is relief on Áed’s face, relief and fondness – as if he had wanted you to say that, for your sake and because that was something he wished for, but was not sure you would bring yourself to do so.

“I will come for you during Midsummer Night, when Fæs can leave the færie rings, and blend in with humans. Be strong until then, little one. Do not let them bind you.”

“Thank you, Áed. Thank you.”

“Just give me your name in exchange,” he jokes to cheer you up.

It makes your chest so warm the tears pour out again. Áed smiles, kisses your humid cheeks gently.

“Next time”, you promise, crying. “Next time.”

You still want to give your village a chance.

Or at least a goodbye.

The last time he asks for your name, you are ready to leave. You are but the shadow of yourself, now. The days until Midsummer Night have been endless. Your grandmother has suspected you had gone out during Early Summer Night, but has not been able to prove it – she now barely talks to you at all. Your father has managed to marry you to a farmer in the next village, who hasn’t heard of you.

You have long wondered why their worry has turned into anger and resentment, why they have caged you, when they simply wanted to protect you. No matter your apologies, your explanations, they won’t listen to you at all.

Now, you suppose it is easier to hate than to forgive, especially when there is finally someone to blame for your mother’s disappearance – for all those disappearances. But they have not realized what they are doing is what drew your mother away from them, what is also drawing you away.

They cannot understand. And what they cannot understand, they fear; and what they fear, they try to keep it locked somewhere until it dies.

“Gather your belongings,” your father tells you when the night is falling. “Tonight, you will meet your future husband. We will celebrate the wedding when the dances end.”

They are taking you to celebrate Midsummer Night in the next village, and are getting rid of you the same day, so that no villager will have to bear your presence ever again. You tell them all goodbye in your head, sat in your father’s cart, the bag containing your few belongings on your lap as you watch the little houses and the streets where you have grown up fade away into the night.

Your future husband is introduced to you as soon as you arrive. He is nice, and his family welcomes you warmly; but you can see they are just like the people of your own village, thinking everyone should be content doing what they’re expected to do, and they would frighten of your need for freedom. You already suffocate when they say everything is ready for the wedding, insist on celebrating Midsummer Night first – and fortunately, they all agree.

You embrace your father and your grandmother before joining in the dances. They do not quite understand when you already bid them farewell.

You share a few dances with your future husband, a charming man who would never be able to understand you, and would fear you if he really knew you. He feels guilty leaving you to go dance with his sister, but you laugh and encourage him to do so.

You do not tell him you will dance again anyway.

That would be a lie.

You watch as he nods and hurries to his family, then change partners yourself, taking the hand of the first man who approaches you–

“Hello, little one.”

–and you nearly cry when your eyes meet his. He is so beautiful, in the light of the high flames lit in the middle of the village, you almost think he is a dream – but he is not, oh, he is not, and you have never been so happy.

“You are of exquisite, tonight,” Áed says.

You are wearing the wedding dress you have sewn yourself, all those days spent in your house, and your mother’s necklace resting on your chest, that necklace you longed for so much when you were just a child, which is the only thing from her your father has allowed you to keep.

“Thank you,” you tell Áed, for calling you exquisite, and for everything else.

He laughs and makes you twirl, and for the first time in what feels like centuries now, you laugh too. He does not let go of you. You do not want him to.

“Will you give me your name, little one?” he asks; but this time, you know what he will do with your name, with your life.

He will set you free.

So you stand on tiptoes, and you give him your name, finally, and he wraps his arms around your waist to whisper his own, real name into your ear – then, when the dance comes to an end, you run hand in hand to your father’s cart to pick up your bag, laughing like children, before disappearing into the night.

No one sees you leave.

It means you might come back one day.

I was back on deck. Sting of salt spray, burn of salt air in the lungs, frigid cold of the north seeping into my bones.

The deck rolled with the waves and above my head the neverending storm was still raging. The rain came down in thick sheets that iced the rigging and slicked the deck with a sheen of thick, green, glass. We’d prepared for this. Had known about it, expected it. In this part of the Sea, the eye never sleeps and the waters never still. The Maelstorm, the Vortex, the howling wind and neverending toss of a restless, never silent ocean… this was expected.

The fleet rapidly approaching was not.

The dangers unlooked for aren’t always the hardest to overcome. The wreckage that piled around us and the sea stacks scarred in the battle were proof positive of that little truism. I had watched the truly massive flagship bear down on us, ten decks, under full sail, her prow a spear through the blinding rain and quick, brilliant strobe of lighting strikes. Like a spider, with the lower three decks manned by thick, long oars that propelled her even faster through the water towards us.

Our forward vessel stood no chance against her. The screams of her crew through the wind, the wrenching, shrieking, gutted sound of her timber torn apart, that will haunt me.

I saw him through the spray and rain, towering, in oiled leather coat and hat, shirt open nearly to the waist, wrapped in a ruined silk waistcoat, with soaked skin. Guns were all but useless in the storm, but swords still held their purpose. And his, wrapped in twisted wire, was easier to grip than many; and the blood on his hands bespoke his rabid desire to hurt, even if he was hurt in the process by the barbs that pricked his palms.

I did not see the spar that knocked me overboard, only felt the heave of the deck and the rapidly approaching rail that knocked the breath from me before I went over the side. The water stung a hundred cuts or more, and burned in my lungs.

I sank.

The lights that flashed above me illumined the battle still running, two fleets in combat with each other and the elements. Shapes moved in the dark, drawn, inexorably, towards the surface. The slid by me in the blackness, bodies as slippery as oil and twice as repulsive. I floated there, suspended, until my air ran out.

Awake was nearly as bad as not, aware worse. Trapped in the swirling eddies that surrounded the wreckage like water in a bathtub drain swirling around a toddler’s abandoned toys. Even the massive trireme, with her extra decks stacked above the three of oars…. lay tilted on her side, listing. The sea was stained red, and in the distance the storm was still raging.

I dragged myself up the rocky, broken shoreline where wreckage lay piled, saw the multitude of streams that fed across the beachhead and into the ocean… watched fresh water become salt, and mix with the blood of a hundred thousand men or more-

Fainting, overcome, exhausted, I fell against one of the sea stacks, eyes burning and unable to see far beyond the first ship that lay, spine broken, in the shallows. It didn’t seem right, didn’t seem possible.

I have stood on the deck of that giant ship, and taken her wheel in hand. I have sailed these narrow seas and the Vortex for what feels like centuries. But the ark is not mine now, and her decks are not under my command. And though I know her mazelike interiors like the back of my hand, her labyrinthine secrets…. I wonder that I should have had to face her like this, in such desperation.

What creature propelled her through the water? What twist of the Wheel has pitted me against her crew….? Was is the last storm? Was it the last time I stood on those salt-scoured boards and looked out into the darkness? What had they said to me, the crew, the officers…? What words passed between us in the lamplight before the mast?

I cannot remember now, and every memory slips through my fingers like sand. It doesn’t matter now. Whatever is chasing me is chasing after me still, whatever lurks in the darkness below is still there beneath the surface. It feeds on the bones of dead men, and circles the wreckage for more.

Whatever this island is, I am trapped here, until or unless there are survivors… or I can craft a vessel from the hundred drifting in the tide.

Alone.

I got a really, really up close and personal look at the Book. Saw the cover with my own two eyes, watched the title take shape, and Witnessed its creation.

I held the boy in my arms and heard the song with my heart and my own two ears, listened to the tonal roar become the rise and fall.

I saw what it did. Saw the revival of what was dead and the recreation of everything lost in a space perverted and disused for its original purpose…

I saw the omens I was meant to see, felt them in my little robin-heart, hidden and sheltered at once in spaces overgrown and recognizable as what they are/were.

I saw the cords being forged of wire and metal and fire and pressure- the hiss and steam of the work being done.

I felt the rise and fall, in blood and bone and deeper things.

My answer is No.

back to the western dustbowl town, the long covered walkways beside bustling shops and large plate glass windows. back to hacking cough when the wind picked up and the painful lack of trees that bore any green upon their naked branches. back to streets of pale tan, sandy brown, and the eddies that swirl up with every breeze on every corner.

voices whisper in every little whirlpool if you have the ear to listen. no one does.

I watched her walk down the line of shops, the others just visible across the street. the town this time seemed like some large T shaped thing and across the way I could see the catti-corner saloon-turned-respectable-dining-establishment. she looked neither left nor right, pale blonde beauty that she was. her eyes snapped fire behind grey-tinted glasses, and i wondered what else they were hiding. it seemed a flock of younger men was following her, seeking approval or something else i have no idea nor concern.

but when she left, handed up into a covered carriage, the matched blacks snorting and stamping like fire, i followed. I ran behind tirelessly, i flew on aching wings, i glided just above the road-

the farm was a green and growing square in the middle of the dustbowl flats. its windbreak was of high, tall, strong trees with deep roots and wide branches covered in spring growth. i watched from high above while the carriage meandered through their two mile square property. Something was going to happen.

she found me, standing in one of the bedrooms as she entered, pressing the door closed silently behind her. the conversation is now so much static, as we were interrupted by a man in straight trousers and a tan shirt. his dark hair looked like hawk wings, speckled with blonde from the sun and red lights shining in the depths. she was angry to see him, tried and failed to hide me.
“Oh, it’s only Douglas,” she groused, and drew herself up to her full, admittedly rather short, height. “my husband’s brother.”

that pronouncement seemed like some arrow in my heart, and then i realized that i was Dreaming. that this was no nightly dream, no movie playing out… I was at once Witness and a player in this little melodrama. In the time it took to make those realizations, the husband was home as well. what followed is also jumbled and static-

the husband accused the wife of indecent behavior, which she denied and douglas upheld.

i seemed not to exist and to be a major player by turns, it was confusing and disorienting.

the world outside seemed to shift, the greens growing nearly black the browns turning grey and growing thick moss that strangled and snuffed the life from them- the crops withered the buildings fell to ruin-

while they stood there are argued in the middle of a bedroom that was, also, falling apart at the seams.

when i managed to get outside there was another woman in long wine dress and flowing black hair. she held a candle, lit at both ends, and was wailing some high-pitched dirge of a song that rose and fell with the wind. she paced the outer limits of their land, just within the break, and held the dripping candle aloft so the wax dripped from both ends as she walked. i watched the colors run, the flames dancing in the wind that would not die and did not blow out the flame-

when and where she passed, the trees roots were exposed, the dirt eroded away by the wind, crumbling from them dry and lacking all nutrients. the dust stung my eyes and i blinked-

when i opened them again, the farm looked nothing like it had.

the barns were in ruins, the animals gone or bones in the dust, all that remained of the plants were dried out husks broken like shattered spines where they’d grown- but there, standing in the wreckage, was the woman and her husband, and her brother in law, still arguing.

the woman in red was nowhere to be seen.

i left the Dream.