Chapter Eight-- Things That Are True, Things That Are Ignoble


My mother sets out a plate of shortbread cookies and a ceramic pot of tea decorated with little yellow flowers. An almost syrupy fruit-like scent wafts from the pot. Her auburn hair is perfectly coiffed and pinned, her modestly-cut yellow dress crisply pressed, makeup carefully and subtley applied, a stark contrast to my own hurriedly restrained hair and utter lack of adornment. The house is, as always, spotless and decorated like a photo in a home décor magazine. My mother prides herself on being the perfect picture of domesticity and wifeliness, a carefully cultivated image meant to enhance my father’s standing in the religious communities he frequents and solicits business from.


Well. I say ‘father.’ It seems I may be mistaken about that assumption. That’s why I’m here.

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Chapter Seven-- Fluid Time

Looking at photographs on a laptop screen does not have the same impact as holding a book in one’s hands, feeling the texture of the paper, the leather, the coarseness of aged ink, the scent of age and hidden history. I find I can’t read the text now, but as I gaze at the graceful script, my mind starts clouding over with half-realized images, jumbled and cryptic. A great, shimmering city, domed and spired, partially translucent, white with deep cerulean depths, like arctic ice. Endless forests filled with ancient, sentient trees that branch and root in all directions, intertwining, a single entity. I stand before a group of old-young-old men in deep blue robes, their faces dour and hardened with cruel lines, their eyes cold and calculating, and I laugh in their faces and tell them I am free of you. They reach for me with clawing fingers, but I am gone like the North Wind, an icy gust in my wake. I see Trick again, and he is laughing with me. “Create your own name,” he says to me. “You are not Galatea. You are not their marble lady…”

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Chapter Six-- Trust

I arrive at her condo very early this morning because I didn’t want to do this at the store. I haven’t been here in years; it has changed little since I lived here, the furnishings still elegant and classic, the walls still paneled with delicately carved scrollwork. I look down at the book in my hands, running my fingers once across the dried, cracked leather, before glancing briefly at Alice. She is gazing at me expectantly, hands outstretched, waiting for me to place the book in them. I nibble on my lower lip.

 “Can I ask you something?” I murmur. She tilts her head slightly without lowering her hands, and I take it as an affirmative. I start to continue, but then falter, uncertain how to ask.

Read Chapter Six here.

I apologize, but Chapter Six will have to be delayed due to a family member being taken to the hospital.

Journal

An entry from Evelyn’s personal journal.



5/18

I didn’t get much sleep last night. Too much on my mind.

 I have to go to work at the shop today; I can’t stand the thought of seeing Alice right now, while her reaction to my taking the book is still fresh in my mind. For some reason, her lack of anger bothers me more than anything. I don’t know why. I suppose I just expected that icy rage of hers to be leveled at me, but she’s being… kind. Even gentle. And, now more than ever, I can’t shake the feeling that she knows more about me than she’s ever said. I don’t think her possession of a book with my image in it, an image of my projection-self, is a coincidence. And I don’t think she is ignorant of the truth behind that image.

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A Note from Amyla

Note from the author:

After some consideration, I've decided to move this blog to Wordpress.  I have a number of reasons for this, from crazy formatting, to awkward follow buttons, and just generally a preference for Wordpress as a whole.  I opened the blog here with the intent to use Google AdPlus, but I think that having a better platform is preferable.  I figured it was best to do this now, rather than later.

So, for a little while, I'm going to post a paragraph or two of each new chapter of narrative that then links to the new blog.

I'm hoping to have a new chapter available today.  I'm not certain if I'll be able to, because it's looking like I may have to take a family member to the hospital.  But I'm going to try to at least do a text post, if not an illustration.

If you would like to add the new Wordpress Memoirs of a Tourist blog to your follow list, please feel free, and spread the word about this project!

I appreciate each of you, and thank you for reading.

--Amyla

To Capture the Howling Wind

A storm hit this little Louisiana town tonight, lashing the willows and old oak trees, drowning the streets in murky water.  We’re close enough to the Gulf to be able to taste the salt on the wind that whips in from the water.

I sit at my dining room table beneath a small, aging chandelier fixture that is flickering in time to the repeated illumination of lightning, writing by hand in a battered leather journal with yellowing pages, a journal that reminds me of the book I took from the shop today.  So many words flow, images trapped for so long, let loose like the flooding outside.  I write because I have to— if I don’t, I think I might burst.  I write of the wind, captured and chained, drawn into mortal form, turned into a tool for power and dominance.  The wind outside the windows wails like the bean sidhe who mourns an imminent passing as I write these things, and I somehow feel as though she mourns for me.

Which makes no sense.

It should make no sense…

My head is hurting again.

Chapter Five-- Galatea

Tonight, I sit before the fire in my little two bedroom home, barely aware of the torrential rain falling outside. I am breathing hard, my head pounding, my heart racing. My joints ache and my veins throb fire. Images flare through my consciousness, unbidden and unwanted, and it feels as though some wall inside my mind is crumbling into dust.

I see myself-- feel myself-- pulled down, down, down into a dark place, cramped and constrained and bound, panicking, suffocating, my immaterial form slamming against invisible barriers again and again to no avail. Somewhere close to me, a voice speaks in a language that I should not recognize and understand, but do. Do not resist, it says. You will soon forget. I see a vessel, an elegant and ornate blue bottle that looks as though it was made to hold perfume. I know with a sudden certainty that it was, in fact, meant to hold me.

I am in my Traveling form, my form as Siabhra, then, but that is not the name I call myself. And it is not a hate them.

projected form, but my physical body. I thrash and struggle and scream wordlessly, furiously, my arms chained. I know no language, only fury and fear. Figures surround me, observing me silently and dispassionately, and I want to claw their eyes from their skulls. I

They own me. They own me, and I still hate them. They wield me like a weapon, like a tool, and call me Galatea, as if they have any right to Name me. They call themselves my Wardens, as though they have tasked themselves with my well being. I know words now, have learned, have studied the world I have been bound to, its customs and languages and traditions and religions.

I see a familiar face, then. The high cheekbones and dark hair and intense blue eyes, the sardonic smile. But I do more than see him-- I feel him, in my mind, in my essence. We work in tandem, and he... he does not wield me. We wield each other. But he is there, there in my mind, laughing and seductive, and I feel nothing but adoration for him. It terrifies me, for he has a greater power over me than any of them ever did.

“You are not Galatea,” he purrs in my ear, his hands sliding slowly up my body, stroking and teasing. “You are not their marble lady. You are not their creation. You are mine. Only mine.” He closes his mouth over mine, tongue probing deep, and I can no longer tell if these images are in my mind or if they are happening, now, here, on my sofa before the hissing and crackling fire. I can feel his touch as it ghosts over my skin in molten patterns, breathe in his scent of cloves and honey. He seeps into my mind like perfumed wind, tickling the furthest reaches of it, parts of my consciousness that I never knew existed.

I open my eyes, and for an instant, a fraction of an eternal second, I see him, gazing at me with those jewel-like eyes. Then he is gone, and it is as if I have woken from a dream. I sit up quickly; the aches in my body have gone, but another ache has taken their place. I take a deep, shuddering breath.

I stand on shaky legs and pad barefoot across the carpet to the elegantly carved wooden trunk that I keep the mementos of my Travels in. Carefully lifting the heavy lid, I gaze down into it. The perfume bottle Trick gave me the other day rests in one corner, wrapped in a blue silk scarf. I carefully unwind the scarf, letting it fall away, and gaze at the bottle. Of course, I knew this while I was in the midst of the-- vision? Dream? I knew it was the same bottle. I had just wanted to be sure. And yes, here it is.

I slowly, uneasily pull out the stopper, and a draft of whispering wind brushes past my hands. I lift the bottle and look inside; somehow a trick of the light causes it to look expansive, endless. A sound like wind through the trees echoes from within, and I feel, ever so slightly, a pull towards that wind. I hurriedly replace the stopper, re-wrap the bottle, and set it back into the trunk.

The phone rings, and I nearly fall over.

I jump to my feet and snatch the cordless receiver off the table beside the couch after glancing at the caller I.D.

“Hey, Alice.”

“Evelyn. How are you?” There is a note in her voice, some sense of worry, and I wonder at that.

“I'm... I'm fine,” I lie. “Just relaxing.”

“I thought perhaps you would like to watch some movies,” she says. “It's been a very long time since we've had a movie night. We're both always so busy...” There was a hint of wistfulness in her voice.

I sigh. I really don't feel like having company tonight. “It's a bit late, Alice. Maybe another time?”

She is silent for a moment, and then says very softly, “Evelyn...” She falls silent.

“Yes?” I prompt gently.

“Evie. Would... would you tell me if you... if something happened in your life? Something drastic? Would you confide in me?”

“Of course I would.”

She is silent for a moment. “Evelyn, I know you took the book.”

I swallow hard, and she quickly adds, “I... am not angry. I'm only concerned. I want to talk to you, Evelyn. Soon.”

“I'm sure you do,” I say, a bite in my voice. I sigh, and add, more gently, “What is it about that book that makes it so important to you, Alice?”

She takes a breath, and I can just about feel her mind working as she tries to figure out how to answer me. “It... is an heirloom. It's a very precious possession of my family.”

“Seems to tell a story. You know, given the illustrations.”

“It does.”

“What story?”

She sighs again. “Evelyn, this book is a very personal thing. It's not something we really share with people who aren't family.”

“I was under the impression that you and I were family.”

“We are. We are. But not blood family. Blood is different.”

I practically growl, “Yes, it is. Blood family thinks they can do anything they want to you and get away with it because they're blood. No bond is that strong. No bond should be.”

A tinge of ice creeps into her voice. “You have always been quite adept at making broad assumptions.”

“Alice, has it occurred to you that I had good reason to take the book?”

“And what reason was that?”

I shake my head. “Hey, you've got your secrets apparently, so let's just say I have mine. Sounds like a nice, healthy arrangement, dontcha think? Secrets, secrets everywhere.”

“Evelyn. You will give this book back to me. I will not permit you to keep it. It does not belong to you.”

“Fine. I'll bring it with me in the morning,” I snap, and push the “End Call” button on the phone.

A moment later, I'm standing over the book, lying open on my coffee table, snapping pictures of each page with my digital camera.

If you like what you see here, you can support this project by going to the Welcome page and click on the Paypal-linked perfume bottle.

Chapter Four-- A Study in Contradictions

It is starting to drizzle lightly as I pull my old, dented Chrysler into the narrow parking spot before the antique book store. I fumble around beneath the passenger seat, looking for an umbrella, more out of fear of rain damage to the fragile item in my bag than for my own use. I then slide out of the car and step through the door of the shop, inhaling the musty scent of old paper and ink.

“Anton?” I call, peering around the labyrinthine shelves, trying to see the checkout desk. There is only one other customer in the store, a tall, slender man in a blue velvet suit with an almost Victorian cut, and a matching bowler hat. I can't see his face, as his back is to me. He is pouring over a yellowed, dusty volume. As I walk towards the desk, I glance his way again; his face is still hidden in the shadow of his hat, but I see his head tilt slightly and his lips upturn in what I can only call a sardonic smirk.

“I believe Anton is in the back... imbibing,” the man says in a clipped, Irish-sounding accent. I glance his way without responding, striding over to the counter and ringing the bell. “Anton?” I call. “You back there?”

I hear a shuffling and a harrumph, and a hawk-faced old man with shoulder-length white hair steps out of the back room. He sees me, and raises one eyebrow in mock outrage before breaking into a broad grin. “Evelyn! And for what purpose do you grace me with your presence today?”

“How are ya, Anton?” I say while pulling the book out of my bag. Anton pulls a pair of spectacles out of his pocket and puts them on, staring at the book in instantaneous rapt attention. This man loves old books, loves everything about them. He is also a cunning linguist, and has been a tremendous help to me as an information source when I am doing research for my books.

“I got my hands on this earlier today,” I say, carefully opening the book. “I was wondering if you could tell me what language it's written in.” I glance down at the writing and give a haphazard and somewhat joking guess. “It looks a bit like Arabic meets Tolkien Elvish.”

He chuckles. “It's not Arabic, though I suppose I could see the aesthetic similarity. And it isn't one of Tolkien's languages.” He glances at me over his spectacles. “And you just carry it around in your bag? You realize this book could be priceless? I do hope you're being careful with it.”

“I am,” I assure him. “I just picked it up at work and haven't gotten it home yet. I just wanted to see what you thought.”

He nods. “Picked it up at work. I see.” He harrumphs, and I chew my lower lip, wondering if he suspects I stole it. He studies the writing for a moment, then says, “Evelyn, I can honestly say that I have no idea what language this is written in. Would you consider sending it to the university for analysis?” Anton teaches a couple of classes over there in addition to running his bookstore, more because he enjoys it than because he needs to do so for the money. He was once a full time, tenured linguistics professor over there, but retired to the more leisurely business of bookselling.

I shake my head. “No, I'd rather not. I don't know. We'll see.” I return the book back to my bag. “Thank you for looking at it, Anton. I was just wondering what it might be.”

“You're quite welcome, Evelyn. If you do change your mind, let me know. I would love to look at it further.”

“I'll let you know,” I say. “I really ought to be going, though, before it really starts coming down out there.” He nods and waves me off.

I step onto the front sidewalk under the overhang and wrestle with my old umbrella-- it has indeed started truly raining. Someone steps up beside me; I see a flash of red from the corner of my eye. I turn to see the tall, slender man in the velvet suit and bowler hat, but his suit is now red. He looks at me and grins, flashing white teeth and intensely blue eyes. I stare at him for a moment, convinced I've seen him before, before I recognize him.

“Trick?” I venture.

“Got it in one,” he says, moving subtly towards me, close but not touching. His suit color shifts with him and

the play of light and shadow, blending itself slowly back into blue. His entire being resonates with song, the colors pulsing in my head so intensely that I quickly pull back. He raises an eyebrow at me. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

“Such a thing as personal space,” I mumble. I've never actually met somebody who came to pay me a visit in my world before.

“Ah. Yes, of course.” He looks at me for a moment. “Evelyn Alvar. You should know that you won't find the language this book is written in. The language doesn't exist.”

“So, what, it's some sort of made up thing?”

“All languages are made up!” he laughs.

I shake my head. “No, I mean, it's a fictional language.

“It's not fictional.”

“But... you said it doesn't exist.”

“That is true.”

I'm getting tired of his cryptic responses. “Okay, then. It's a dead language? Something that was once spoken but no longer?”

“No. This language never existed.”

I sigh in exasperation. “You do like speaking in riddles.”

“Riddles are rather boring. One question, faceted descriptions all alluding to a single, lonely, overly simplistic answer. Carved in stone. So dreadfully dull. I speak in opposites. In contradictions.” He flicks a finger under the lapel of his suit. “You see? My suit is blue. It is also red. It is completely blue and completely red, both, at the same time.” He inclines his head slowly to one side, his eyes on my face. “You don't need a translator, Evelyn.”

And then he steps back and vanishes, but it isn't like a magic trick. It is like he was never there in the first place. My mind struggles to remember, to hold on to the encounter, but it fades until I am half convinced it was a dream I had once.

If you like what you see here, you can support this project by going to the Welcome Page and clicking the Paypal-linked perfume bottle at the bottom.

Weakness

Exhaustion.  The room spinning, head pounding.  Deep aches in my joints, in my muscles, sharp and intermittent pains in my internal organs.  It’s happening more and more frequently.  I’ve always been a bit prone to illness, but lately it seems worse, my body turning on me.

“Oh, that’s just God ans’rin’ our prayers, honey,” my mother tells me over a cup of coffee that I’d reluctantly agreed to meet her for.  Her voice is tinged with a deep Southern accent that I never picked up despite growing up in small-town Louisiana.  ”Not a day goes by that your daddy and me don’t pray up a storm for you, that God will throw obstacles in your path to lead you back to him.  I  know you don’t like it, an’ I know you don’t like me sayin’ it, but it’s the truth, sweetheart.  You will be miserable an’ sick an’ always runnin’ around in circles till you figure that out.”  She smiles at me, saccharine-sweet, as if her words had not cut me for the thousandth time.  ”We only do that ‘cause we love you.  You know that, don’t ya?”

I don’t answer her.  This is exactly why I’ve cultivated distance from my parents.  It took me years to realize that this is abuse, because it’s all I knew as a child.  Who the hell wishes harm on another in order to bully them into believing the “right” way?  I try not to hate her, because hate only eats me up inside.  It’s hard, though.  I hold back a simmering rage that only seems partially connected to my family’s treatment of me.  I’m never quite certain of the origins of that deep fury.

I’ve scheduled another doctor’s appointment, but I’m sure they’ll say the same thing they’ve always said.  They don’t know what’s wrong with me, why my body fails me.

The Song of Color

I often take long walks in my small-town Louisiana neighborhood, inhaling the scent of the wisteria, the oleander, the crepe myrtle that froth along the verdant lawns, melodic colors accented by the thrumming, subdued harmonies of the aging, peeling hues painted on the houses.  The warm spring wind caresses my cheeks, bringing with it the taste of rain, tiny droplets shimmering in the heavy air.  I turn my face to the overcast sky, my eyes picking out the subtleties of the swirls of violet and indigo, touches of warm green in the deepest shadows, a faint tinge of pink in the light, flecks of gold limning the edges of cloud where the sun peeks through.  Gray is not a word in my vocabulary— I see too many intricacies to use such a crude and overly simplistic descriptor.

I breathe in these colors, these refractions of light and music that dance in my mind.  They bring me a sort of peace, easing the ache in my head, my body, my soul.  I feel the life around me, and it makes me smile, a faint but slowly re-illuminated memory of joy and desperately earned freedom.

Chapter Three-- The Path of Language

It's nearly one in the afternoon before Alice finally gets back to the shop. She is carrying two large plastic bags, and the scent of fried chicken wafts in the air around them. “I brought lunch,” she announces in her subtly accented voice. I could never quite determine what that accent is. “I hope you weren't too particularly attached to your Lean Cuisines.”

She sets the bags on the counter and smooths a lock of long ebony hair behind one subtly pointed ear. Alice

is tall and statuesque, always dresses with a dark, understated elegance, and has some sort of genetic condition that left her with white fingernails and oddly shaped ears. She never really said what the condition is, but it makes her look exotic and elfin, a stark contrast to my petite curves and mousy brown, choppy-layered hair. “Have we had much store traffic this morning?” she asks as she starts digging through the bags and opening styrofoam containers before passing them out. “Vi, this one's yours. Evie, for you. And this one for me. I trust these meals are what you wanted?”

“You know me too well,” I say, though I am a bit annoyed that she didn't consult me about it first. Alice has a habit of making these sorts of decisions for me, probably because of the role she played in my life when I was a child. She was never really a mother to me, but definitely like an older sister who often had to play surrogate parent. I love her and chafe at her in equal measure. “Um, yeah. It's been dead here. We've had one customer, and she didn't buy anything.” This isn't very unusual; I often wonder how Alice can afford to even stay open, let alone give us our paychecks every week. We'd probably do better if we were in New Orleans proper, but we're hidden off in suburbia, and quite frankly, the word “hidden” is rather appropriate. Even I have difficulty seeing the store sometimes, have actually passed it up more than once while driving here, and I'm here every day.

Alice nods, looking unsurprised, then says, “Okay, I can take over the register for a little while if you two want to take lunch.”

Violet and I grab our respective food cartons-- I also sling my bag containing the mysterious book over my shoulder-- and head for the break room.

I close the door and look at Violet for a minute. She raises one pierced eyebrow at me and says, “Whaaaaat?”

“Can I trust you, Vi?”

“Um. Why?”

“Because I did something, and am continuing to do something, which I really don't want Alice to know about.”

Violet sighs. “Right. This wouldn't have anything to do with that package you klepto'd from her office, would it?”

“Um--”

“I saw you put it in your bag. Big, old-looking book that looks like it came from a museum? Not exactly your usual behind-the-register reading material. And seriously, I just hope the thing doesn't fall apart in your bag. The thing looks like it needs climate control or something just to stay together.”

I shake my head. “You win an Oscar.”

She takes a bow. “Why, thank you. So. Mind telling me why I'm lying to my boss for you?”

“I'm your boss too.”

“And she's your boss,” she enunciates slowly, exaggeratedly.

“Oh, she is not. She's not my boss! We're equal partners.”

“Try telling her that!”

I sigh. “Look. I just... I had a very good reason for taking it. I need to figure some stuff out, and I don't want her to know I've seen it.”

She crosses her fishnetted arms over her chest. “Why?”

“Because... because. Because! I can't tell you. But I need to do this.”

“Why? Whywhywhy? You want me to stick my neck out without so much as an explanation?”

I pull a chair out and slump down in it. “It's complicated, Vi. I just... somehow. For some reason that I don't understand, this book that she received somehow... pertains to me.”

Violet looks at me for a moment, then reaches for my bag. I quickly pull it out of her reach. “Let me see it,” she growls.

“No! No, I'm not gonna show you. You wouldn't really understand why it's got me worked up anyway. There are... things you don't know about me. And I thought Alice didn't know either, but now... Well. I'm not so sure now.”

Violet plops into another chair and rests her chin on both hands, elbows on the table, staring at me. “You are so incredibly cryptic. It's kinda sexy. And yet ridiculously annoying.”

“Are you gonna help me out or not?”

She sighs. “You're trying to split my loyalties, Eve. Got me in a tight spot here. It's not exactly fair to me.”

I nod. “I know. And I'm sorry. I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was absolutely necessary.”

She considers it for a moment, and is about to speak, but before she can utter a word, the door to the break room opens, and Alice steps through. I look at her for an instant, wondering if she had heard us talking.

“Violet,” she says, “Do you remember that package delivered by private messenger yesterday? The one I put in my office? Any idea where it got to? It seems to be missing.” She looks at me for an instant, before looking away again, and I suddenly get the overwhelming sense that she knows more about me than I know about myself. I shiver a little.

Violet shrugs. “Nope, haven't seen it since you took it back to your office, Boss. Evie, you seen it?”

“Nope,” I confirm, shooting Violet a look of gratitude.

Alice nods thoughtfully, glancing between us. “If either of you happen to see it, please let me know. It's a very important package.”

We nod, and she leaves.

“I feel like I'm fourteen years old and lying to my mother,” Violet says. “You owe me, Eve.”

“I do, I know,” I say. “Thank you, Violet.” I squeeze her in a one-armed hug. “You're good people.”

“Yeah, whatever you say,” she says, and digs her cigarette pack out of her pocket. “Smoke time. Touch my food and die.”

“It's gonna get cold!”

“And how will I ever warm it up, considering we don't have a big ol' Panasonic microwave in dire need of a cleaning sitting on the counter over there? I'm doomed to eat lukewarm chicken. Oh, fate, I curse thee.”

I shake my head and shoo her off with my hand, waiting for her to wrestle the door closed behind her before sliding the book out of my bag. I know I should probably wait until I get home to prevent Alice from walking in and seeing me with the book, but patience has never been one of my virtues. I need to know what's going on here.

Slowly and carefully, I turn the first brittle page, and look at the script. Instead of flipping through the book like I did before, I scrutinize the elegant black ink lines and flourishes on the aging paper, and once again I am filled with that bizarre sense of almost being able to understand the language, as if I saw it a very long time ago.

As I stare at the writing, words begin to shimmer into existence in my mind, not English. I won't write them here, not as they sounded to me (I don't know that I could do so if I tried), but I will attempt an approximate translation.

In the beginning, were the Twins. There was All That Is, and there was the Emptiness. They existed in the same space and in the same time, but never did touch, never once, for if they touched, a devastation like to which no one had ever seen would befall the Real.

In time, though, the equilibrium of the Real began to shift off balance, and the Emptiness began to seep into the All, and the All into the Emptiness, like water pouring out of a tilting vessel. And this happened slowly, subtly, and no one noticed at first. No one noticed until the first Unmakers were loosed...

The outside door scrapes as Violet pulls it open to come back into the break room, and I snap out of the trance, feeling as though I have been punched. I look down at the text in front of me with a shudder, and then close the book, sliding it back into my bag.

“That must be some riveting reading,” Violet says as she puts her lunch in the microwave. “Someday you're gonna tell me what this is about.”

I can't think of a single way to answer her.

If you like what you see here, you can support this project by clicking on the Paypal-linked perfume bottle at the bottom of the Welcome Post.

Chapter Two-- The Book

I step through the door of the curio shop that my friend Alice and I run together, and the little bell jangles. Shelves are full of strange, unique, and eccentric bits and baubles, herbs for the pagan practicioner, crystals and handmade wands, and other items that Alice found lord knows where. Some of my own prints hang on the walls. They don't sell very well.

“Alice's Wonderland” is painted in elegant, filigreed script on the glass door. I did the lettering and the illustration several years ago in glass paints, of a dark-haired, midnight-blue-and-black-frocked Lewis Carroll's Alice with dark and exotic makeup, black and blue striped armbands and tights, and black combat boots walking through a bizarre garden.

I look towards the checkout table that graces the center of the room and see that Violet is manning the station. Violet is eighteen years old, with spiky black hair tipped with vivid pink, pale with a light smattering of freckles over her face. She is pierced and tattooed, and her clothing makes her look like she stepped straight out of a goth club, all black corsetry, fingerless elbow-length gloves made of fishnet, and knee-high boots with what must be a dozen buckles. Violet is sarcastic, sassy, blunt, ridiculously compassionate and curiously wise for her age, and one of my favorite people in all the world, aside from maybe Alice, who is like a sister to me.

“Yo, Evie. What's up?” she says, as I approach the counter, sliding my bag across it and letting it drop down to the other side.

“Hey, Violet,” I say. “Not much. Where's Alice?”

“No clue. She said she had a meeting and ran off. You know how she is.”

I nod. “You want a break?”

“Sure.” She fishes a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of her pocket and slides off the stool. “Oh, hey, Alice got a new shipment in. She said you'd be able to catalog it and everything. Oh, and stuff fell off the shelves sometime in the night again.” She pauses. “I still think this place is haunted. You know, my mom sees all that shit. Says I do too, but I've never actually seen anything. I can feel the fuck out of it, though.” She blinks, suddenly aware of the double entendre of her words. “Um. That didn't come out quite right. Yeah, I need a smoke. Back in a few, Eve. Oh yeah, I made coffee.” I smile at her and nod my thanks. Violet doesn't like coffee. She puts a cigarette in her mouth and starts flicking her lighter as she walks towards the beaded curtain which hides the employee area and back door.

I follow her into the break room, making a beeline for the coffee. “Out the back door, Vi,” I remind her, as I search for my mug in the collection on the counter.

“I'm goin', I'm goin',” she mumbles around her cigarette, hefting open the door and struggling to scrape it open enough to squeeze through it. “Might help if we get this door fixed.”

“Working on it,” I call back, scooping sugar into my mug which has the words “Fuck Destiny” emblazoned across it in stark, black letters. “Got a call into a guy who can level it.”

She shoves the door closed, and I hear her holler back something which may have been “Awesome!”

I pour Coffeemate in my cup, fill it to the brim with the nectar of the gods, and go check the office for the shipment box. It takes a minute to find it; it's sort of hiding underneath Alice's desk. It's not very big, and only says “Alice's Wonderland” on a card taped to the top; I pick it up and carry it back to the register counter with me. I can enter it on the computer there.

Using a box cutter, I open the top of the box. It looks like only one thing is inside, wrapped in layers of bubble wrap. I tug it out, tearing away the tape and cushioning, revealing an old, leather-bound book. I open it, flipping through it carefully. Its pages are yellowed and brittle; I wonder how old it is.

There is a note in the box.

Alice,

Here is the manuscript detailing the events of the War. You will need this.

Strange. I peer at the lettering while slowly turning the pages. I can't read it, but I have the oddest sensation of being almost able to read it. There are elegant illustrations gracing the text, images of soaring, crystalline buildings, expansive forests, violet skies, and beautiful people with faces decorated by precious stones and elegant clothing that looks both medieval and strangely modern, that send the most curious shivers rolling up and down my spine. I turn the page, and see a beautifully rendered drawing...

Of me. Not the me that sits here right now behind the register, but the me that travels to fantastic worlds. The figure in the drawing has amethyst-colored eyes and a wild mop of silver hair threaded with gold, pale and petite and fierce like a jungle cat. She wears an almost sheer white dress that whips about her legs and bare feet, and is standing on a violet-grassed hilltop among frothy white flowers, her arms thrown out to either side, her head tilted back. It is like someone dipped into my subconscious and painted the dream I had a few nights ago.

This can't be me, my mind immediately tries to rationalize. For one thing, this book is old, obvious to even my untrained eye. I'm only twenty-five, definitely not old enough to be pictured in this book.

Something within me flares to life, and I compulsively slip the book, the note tucked away in the pages, in my bag, just as Violet comes back in. She sees the empty box, but doesn't seem to notice that I had just put the contents of the box in my bag.

“Oh,” she says. “That's not the shipment box.” She leans over the counter on tiptoe, grabbing it and looking at it. “Yeah, it was dropped off by messenger yesterday, though he was kinda a weird messenger. Must be privately employed. Oooh, Alice is gonna be pissed that you opened that; she acted like it was something really private.” She hands the box back to me. “The merchandise shipment is in the break room.”

“Why the hell did you put it in the break room?” I snap.

“Geeze, Evie. Calm the fuck down. I put it in there because Alice locked herself in her office for like three hours after that one came in.”

I look at the package; it hadn't been opened when I found it. I wonder if she had re-sealed it with the intent to pass it on to someone else, or maybe to keep it in a safe place.

“Sorry, Vi,” I say absently. “Hey, why don't you keep quiet about my opening this? I'll just seal it up again and stick it back in her office. That way we both avoid the Wrath of Alice.”

“Sounds good to me. I'd rather not get on her nasty side either. That gal is like ice when she gets pissed.” I nod; I've known Alice literally all my life, and she has been an absolute lifesaver, always being there for me when my family... did things. Giving me a place to live as soon as I was old enough to leave home, giving me a job. I've got my own little Victorian-style house now in this little Louisiana town, glad of my independence and liking my space, but Alice will always be the big sister I never had by blood. But Violet is right. Alice's temper is terrifying.

But then, so is mine.

I smile at Violet and say, “Tell me about it.”

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Chapter One: Trickster

I don't Travel every night, but I do it more often than I don't. I don't do it deliberately. I don't choose a destination or decide to step through layers of reality on a whim. I'm not sure why or how it happens, and I won't even attempt to give a scientific explanation for it. For a long time, I thought they were dreams, intensely vivid and draining dreams, but still just dreams. When I got a little older, I learned about astral projection, and thought perhaps that was a little bit closer to what I was doing, except for the fact that I often bring back mementos from my journeys. I have a fairly substantial collection of things from the places I've found myself in, from dried leaves or flowers, to small stones, to carvings and baubles that were given to me by the people I interacted with. I've never heard of an astral projector who brought things back to the waking world with them. So, no. I don't understand it. I just know it happens.

Tonight, I am being pulled, beckoned, drawn through prismatically bending color and song, cool liquid wafting around me, tugging at me. I open my eyes, see that I am underwater, and that a pulsing light draws me upward above the surface. I don't panic, for some reason. It is like I am in a dream.

I surface, my silver hair beaded with shimmering liquid diamonds, and turn towards the source of this subliminal call that brought me here. A man, slender and ethereal, disturbingly beautiful with long dark hair and cerulean eyes that glow, sits atop the water. From his shoulders twist and spiral streams of white light, like curling lightning-wings, almost too bright to look at. He shifts deftly on the surface of the lake, as though it were ice (though clearly it is not, as I see it ripple and roll around him), and smiles at me.

“You're here,” he says with a small smile.  He looks completely unsurprised.

I look around, coming more to myself, noticing that we are in the center of a small lake, surrounded by trees. A thick mist rises from the ground and hovers over the water near the shore. I look back at him. I am still floating in the water; it wafts gently around my chest, tugging at my hair. I feel like some sort of lake nymph. “Yes,” I say finally. “And who might you be?”

He seems to consider this for a moment. “Names are strange things,” he says. “I have many, though in the end there is just one. Perhaps you've heard of me when I was Coyote, or maybe Raven. Or-- then there's Loki, though I have to say that some of those stories were downright scandalous and not in the least bit true. Disclaimer and all that. Bad PR by Thor. I did not have relations with that bull.”

“You're... Loki.” I cough a little laugh, waving my arms through the water. “And Coyote, and Raven... well, which one?”

“I am all of them,” he replies. “And none of them.” He grins suddenly. “Perhaps you should call me the Trickster! A new name, though it is of course very old. That fits, I think.”

I shrug. “Trickster. Okay. Or maybe Trick. How's that? Since you're obviously not going to tell me your actual name.”

“Trick. I do think I like that. And that is my actual name.”

“But you just gave yourself that name, just now.”

“Ah, but you helped. You were like a mirror! How fascinating. Not surprising, though. The best names are the ones you give yourself, don't you think? You choose who you are that way.”

Trick proceeds then to stand up, still on top of the water, and walk towards me. I stare at him unabashedly. “How are you doing that?”

He looks at me half askance. “You still don't know how to walk on water? How old are you?” Reaching my side, he takes me by the arm and starts pulling me up to the surface. “It's quite simple. You walk on water by...” still holding my arm, he slowly lets me gain my feet, supported by the liquid surface beneath me. “By walking on water.” He gives me that flash-grin again and takes a step forward, guiding me by the arm. “You see?” I take a wobbly step forward, and the water holds me.

Then he lets me go. I hover for a split second, and then the water is closing around my head. I thrash and sputter, unable to find my footing (how deep was this lake?), struggling to seek the surface. I finally break through, coughing, my hair hanging in sodden ropes over my face. “Asshole!” I snap.

He looks shocked and amused. I think he is more amused, and perhaps even... pleased. “I am delightfully fiendish, I know. But you did it wrong! You stopped walking on water. When you stop, of course you'll fall in. It's a simple law of physics. You do have physics in your world, yes?”

“I never learned that stuff,” I mumble. “My education was lacking.”

“So educate yourself. Why should you rely on another to give you the knowledge you seek? ” He studies me for a moment. “Why do you think you sank, Evelyn-Siabhra?”

“I... I don't--” I blink. “Hey. How'd you know my name?”

He laughs. “Perhaps I stole the letters from your eyes. Yes, yes, that's it! Of course, they were all topsy-turvey. I had to re-arrange them, like a... what do you call them? An anagram! You humans do have strange words for things. (Though I'm not certain I would use the word 'human' in relation to you, dear.)  Your name could be so very many possibilities, were the letters arranged in a different fashion. Did you know you could be 'Abrasively-Hen?'” He begins snickering like a schoolboy. “Or... A Blarneys Hive! Or. Aha! Sibyl Nerve. I rather like that one, don't you? It would be a fine thing, to have one's first name be Aha! An exclamation by its very nature. Yes?”

I furrow my brow at him, and he shakes his head. “You are far too serious, Aha! You should laugh more.”

“You are... rather odd,” I answer, but I'm secretly enjoying his incredibly random discourse. Something about him fascinates and mesmerizes me, and tickles my mind with an unrelenting sense of deja vu.

He walks up to me and crouches before me, those eerie blue eyes of his still laughing. “All the best people are, don't you think?” He smiles at me. “I brought you here because I wanted to see if it was truly you. I'm still uncertain, however I have seen the hold she has on you, the strength with which she directs your otherworldly paths. I thought your kind were extinct, Evelyn-Siabhra. And if you are the one I suspect-- and

perhaps want-- you to be, you've once again lost your freedom.” He studies my face for a long moment, suddenly as serious as he accused me of being a moment ago, as though trying to read the letters in my eyes. “You have a story far longer than what you can remember.” He slips his hand in his pocket and pulls out a beautiful perfume bottle the color of his eyes, filigreed and encrusted with what looks like amethyst. It is banded by gold, and looks incredibly fragile.  I wonder how the bottle fit in his pocket, especially without breaking.  “Do you remember this?” he asks. I shake my head, and he presses the bottle into my hands.

Then he reaches out and touches me lightly on my temple, almost a caress, and with a tangible whoosh, I am back home, lying in bed.

They aren't dreams. I am holding the perfume bottle in my hand.

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Nightmare

Dreams, too many dreams that sear themselves across my consciousness, choking me, smothering me.  I gag at the stench of burning flesh as smoke blinds me.  A layered, maddened scream tears through my hearing, shattering into laughter that sounds like broken glass scraped over stone, and I turn my head, feeling a sticky wetness against my cheek, trying to see the source of that chilling scream, though my stomach coils in horror at the thought.  All I can think of is Run.  Run.  Run.  But I can’t— they won’t allow it, these youthful and ancient men with insanity in their eyes that stand around my prone form.  I just want to wake up.  I am drawn from my burned and broken body like a last breath. I see a stoppered bottle from blurred vision-- how can I see with no eyes?  It is an ornate thing, this bottle, gilded, filigreed  and encrusted with amethyst, something that might hold perfume.  It is so much larger within.  This will house you temporarily until an appropriate body is found, they say.  You will forget, they say.  But you will remember one day, and when you do, we will be waiting.  There is a liminal echo of command, of threat to their words.

I just want to wake up.

Alchemy

If one can unravel these delirious ramblings,
Illuminate the riddle,
Unearth the mystery of old—
These images, these trapped spirits of fleshless eternity
That linger just behind the eyes,
Just past bloodstained words,
A stumbling step into a half-forgotten dream:

Of fire and ash-choked wind,
Of tears falling into a blackened pool,
Of crystals that capture the eyes with stolen light.
The song that was carried on the wind.
The eternity-endless-black depths of a raven’s eye
As it looked upon the broken angel in the snow.
Flight and fury and prismatic dance.
Dauntless time, empty time. Meaningless time.
Whispers in the night, caresses of dreams alive, living, dreaming.

Do you know? Do you understand?
Has the song awakened once more,
Within shells battered and barren,
Ceaselessly stumbling,
But housing That which Came Before,
And That which is Yet to Be?

What is the Tide bringing?
Why does the path seem so dark?
Destiny is Choice
Honesty with Fortitude,
With Heart,
With purity of soul,
Alchemy.

Does Love weave this song?

Deeper

An excerpt from Evelyn Alvar’s first book in the Memoirs of a Tourist series, in which her heroine, Tara Midas, tries to describe her journeys:

“This world is so… three dimensional,” Tara said.  ”So flat.  You can only move along its surface, back to front, side to side.  The circumference of a clock.  But I’ve learned how to slip past that, through it.  I’ve learned how to fly.”  She considered these words in silence for a moment.  ”It’s not something that can be described.  Words are only symbols, after all, representational.  Powerful only because of what they describe, powerful because they bring a flimsy sort of tangibility to the intangible.  But the actuality is so much greater.”

Multitudes

We each of us contain multitudes, an infinity of being, of potential, of possibility.  Of what was, what is, and what could be.  We are all poured down countless paths all at once, here and everywhere.  In this infinity of self, this faceted eternity housed within a small outer shell, time is only a matter of perspective.

I am Moving, in my dream.  I am Flying, slipping through layers of infinity, and I can see so much that could be and could have been.  It isn’t memory, not exactly, not in the sense of a coherent, linear order of events, but it is the Past.  I am standing on a hill that ripples a deep amethyst under a sky that seems to reflect the color, waves of purple grass cascading across the ground like an an ocean, capped by frothy white flowers that surge and foam across the surface of that ocean.  I throw my arms out and tilt my head to the sky, as the wind whips through my silver-gold hair, my white dress.  I can feel the cold grass between my toes, and breathe deep of the fragrance of flower and grass, a hint of distant mountaintop snow on the wind.

I sing.  When I wake from this dream, I will not recognize the language, and it will rapidly fade from my memory, but for now the song is alive, breathing, reverberating through time and space and dimension.  Every molecule of my body quivers with it, resonates in harmony with everything around me.  The song expands outward, wave after wave rolling into the limitless expanse of All That Is, melody entwining seamlessly with harmony, shifting back and forth.  I am singing with the universe, as she too sings.  I could never sing solo.

When I wake, I am, for a moment, within my mind, still this silver-haired wild thing, feral heart pounding relentlessly.  I can still hear the song.  Musical language continues to reverberate in my mind, and I let it flow from my lips.

Then I am fully awake, and I realize with a feeling like tumbling into an abyss that such things are forever closed to me, except in dreams.