Three Twisted Knots

From Lira:

Now, you may be wondering how I found my way back home. I know I would be.

Just wishing I could go home did not help at all. Instead, after a brief lecture from Morti (remember Morti? Morti the mare!) about when and where spaces in the narrative (I am not hyberbolising: that is exactly how she phrased it) appear so that, and I quote, “you can get some kind of control over those first adolescence emotions of yours.”

She was very clear that there are “spaces in the narrative” (that’s going into a sarcastic poem) where being emotional or having feelings at all really are inappropriate. Apparently, freaking out in the Fool Tower (that’s definitely its name in my head now) was inappropriate. She said we would just have to try again, perhaps tomorrow.

I was not in the mood to try again tomorrow. In fact, the only thing I was in the mood to do was scream loudly and break things, preferably things that would splinter into many sharp pieces and pierce the feet of whoever actually lived in this stupid Wednesday-adjacent room.

Two notes: First, I did not actually hate the Wednesday-adjacent room. I only hated that I could not seem to escape it. Second, I looked up “first adolescence” because I had never heard the term before. It’s how these people called “attachment parenting specialists” refer to toddlerhood. References were made to “the terrible twos.” By the time I read that, I was furious.

Luckily, there was the ever-present steaming pot of tea on the table by the settee. Queen Gwyneth used to swear by tea, but I hadn’t ever developed a taste for it until this dream. Now I think I will be drinking rather a lot of tea. I have stayed away from things like tea and coffee and fizzy drinks because many of them contain caffeine, and I’m already on edge enough, I think—oddly, just as Her Fae Majesty once told me, tea seems to have the interesting effect of calming me down rather than waking me up. I wonder if Chimerical Librarians are somehow wired differently, or maybe that’s one of the things HFM got wrong.

But I’m getting things out of order now. I’ll back up.

Once I was tea-calmed (see what I did there?), I grabbed a couple of likely-looking books from Probably-Not-Actually-Wednesday’s shelves (Pnaw might have kind of an interesting ring to it, I think? Fewer syllables, anyway).

I did not think I would find a spell or ritual specifically for escaping from a dream, and I was correct. However, there was a fairly straightforward energy spell to escape a trap that I thought I could manage, with only a few components I figured I could probably find around Pnaw’s room. (Oh, that is so much faster to type!) Salt, water, flame, feathers. I wrinkled my nose: I wasn’t taught to work with the four alchemical elements, but they seem to be what the majority of magic workers use, at least in most Realms. But this isn’t a cosmology treatise.

“Hey, Malaclypse?” The cat had taken up residence on my leg, nosing me every so often for scritches. “Does, um, the person who’s here when I am not have any magical equipment, hardware, that you think would be all right for me to use?”

Malaclypse mrrped in that way cats do when they want something, or when they seem to be carrying on a conversation with the furniture. “Standard school wiccae kit,” he said. “There’s a table she uses for an altar on the balcony. Wall cabinet, right side, every piece is in its own drawer.”

“Thoughtful of her,” I said. Ooh—if this worked, there was no way I was going to be able to cleanse the stuff, because I’d be long gone from here. “Better write her a little note.”

Hi, Person Who Is Usually Living In This Room—
I hope you got a good grade on your Tarot paper. I’m afraid I’ve felt rather trapped here, so I’ve borrowed some of your ritual equipment to cast an escape spell. If it works, I won’t be able to cleanse your things when I’m done, but I’m using only your water, your salt, the feathers from your air drawer, and a lit candle for fire (I’d never borrow someone else’s athame). I hope it does not leave too much of a mess. While I can’t say this has been the most pleasant experience ever, I am glad to have had it, and if you ever find yourself in my world in a dream, I would be happy to let you borrow my things, too.
Regards,
Lira

I went down the list of—”Oh, wait,” I said. “It says, Aye be thy brow and temples so adorned by a crescent and a veil….Are you serious?” I flipped to the front matter of the book. “This book is barely three years old: that language is helping nobody.”

“It’s how the wiccae here talk about things,” said Malaclypse, as if I had asked him. “And the crescent and veil is also part of the standard school wiccae kit. You’ll find hers on top of that very cabinet, wrapped in a velvet cloth—yes, just there.”

PS—

I continued

I hope you do not get in too much trouble about the crescent and veil: I do not think I will be able to take it off. If this works. I really hope this works.

Thanks again—L

I made my way through the spell instructions, made some notes, and set up the altar. Malaclypse wound around my ankles in that way cats do, making sure that whatever happened, all the cats would know I was one of his humans. That made me feel good.

So different from what I do in my own practice, from what I was taught, but I have to do it more often these days because my resources are limited. So I cast a circle, called quarters, infused elements, and started reading the spell text: it was in no version of Latin I was familiar with, so I hoped I was getting the pronunciation right. Everyone knows some apocryphal story of someone who got it wrong and ended up in exactly the wrong place—I did not want to become one of those stories. Although, I guess you could class me as, if not personally apocryphal, at least in the same general space occupied by apocrypha. Although I guess apocrypha isn’t really the correct word there, since it seems to refer exclusively to part of this one holy book that didn’t get all disseminated to all the people because apparently someone had already figured out that if you control the story, you control the world—ah, forget it: it’s not my holy book, and apocrypha is the Latin catch-all, although I could go to Greek with apokryphos, or I guess apokyryphon…. “Ouch!”

Malaclypse had poked a paw through my sock and right into my leg. “I think you need to focus now, Lira, not mull over whether not to refer to yourself in Latin or Greek. You’re not helping yourself here.”

Of course, he was right. I pushed Latin and Greek syntax out of my head and stood, veiled and crescented (not sure that’s a word, but I can’t afford the tangent), in my circle. Malaclypse wandered around as if checking the whole thing, which was OK: cats, of course, pass through magical boundaries as if they were air.

If this worked, according to the book my veil would change from light to dark with amassed energy until I let it go, hopefully to create a portal that would take me back home.

I felt my hair grow, right there on the spot, and the air became somehow full of glittering lights, which were probably not a blood sugar reaction. Probably. I repeated the spell cadence, over and over, as one is meant to do when doing an energy spell: energy loves repetitive motion, I could hear my magic professor saying in the (ha!) apocryphal college for magical librarians I apocraphylly (oh, yeah; adverb this, you late Latin synonym of obscurity!) attended. It was … heady.

Malaclypse started to wind around my ankles again, purring for all he was worth. I took a pinch of my sanctified salt in my mouth to remind me that even for energy work, grounding is an anchor to more than just what I would loosely refer to as reality here.

And then… something happened.

My right hand, non-dominant, thankfully, heated up as if it were about to become a very small supernova. I couldn’t even look at the light in my hands: I just looked up at the waxing moon as it made its faster-than-it-looks journey across the horizon, and I kept hoping I was pronouncing that spell cadence correctly.

The light in my right hand seemed to waver and scatter: it beamed out into blue dots that I observed only in my peripheral vision: I didn’t want to destroy my finely crafted retinas by accidentally staring to close to whatever was coming from my hand.

And then, everything went still. Not still as in a thing that has finished, but still like a thing that is waiting for something. My hands grew cooler, and I chanced a look directly at the blue lights. They had formed into the shape of a door. “It won’t stay long,” said Malaclypse, “if know these things. I’ll remember you, Lira. You don’t need the crescent focus anym—”

But I had already walked through the door before I understood that he was telling me I could take the crescent and veil off and leave it for Pnaw. I hoped she would not get in too much trouble.

As often recently, there was that feeling of vertigo, of being snatched in multiple directions at once.

And that’s how I got home. I found myself stripped of all glamour (I physically paint my own finger- and toe-nails), wearing, um, not very much. I was glad one of the hot tub pergola posts was behind me, because I was so tired. At first, all I could do was stand there, sort of unsteadily, and yawn.

Then, I was just grateful I’d landed so near to the hot tub, and in what could be construed as a swimming costume as well. And lo! my mobile phone was sitting there, on the edge of the tub, charged to 100%, as if it had been waiting for me for however long I’ve been, um, wherever I was. I pressed the bubble button on the hot tub and climbed in.

One Dragon Dash app order and about half an hour later I was delightfully full of pizza—if you have not had pizza, you must try it: it is as close to the perfect food as I’ve ever found—and since it was a free add-on, I had a glass of wine in my hand. The goblet was supplied by the Neon Sheep Winery, and I was meant to leave it outside my door when I was done. At least they didn’t want me to send it back with the delivery dragon; that would have been uncomfortable. I am not overly fond of wine, and under no circumstances should I drink it (or anything else, really) fast.

When I say I was stripped of all glamour, I mean it. No fabulous black hair dye—in fact, this is my natural hair, and it doesn’t grow unless I physically cut it, in which case it grows back exactly as it is. That’s what I meant, earlier, when I said I was getting ahead of myself and wondering if caffeine was one of the things Her Fae Majesty got wrong when she created me.

When I took my first tour of Awenia, there was this girl child tourist in the town square, with her mother. She pointed at me (I hadn’t thought to glamour up: it was just a tour of my new hometown, right?) and screamed, in that way I’ve learned since that only small children can, “Mummy! Mummy! It’s a Sneech!” The girl’s mother didn’t bother to hide her wry smile as she apologised to me for her daughter’s outburst.

I had no idea what a Sneech was, but it didn’t sound all that good, and when I looked it up, I saw the resemblance. I never leave off the hair glamour, no matter what else I’m doing. So appearing with my hair, well, like that, and actually ordering dinner and wine? It was a little mortifying.

I wonder what Morti the Mare will do when she doesn’t find me at her beck and call tomorrow, whenever that might be in her timeline. Maybe Pnaw will get an earful! I can imagine her now, if she is such a monster: she’ll say what I should have said— “I’ll space your narrative.” I met someone who makes that joke a lot some time ago. It always made me laugh. I hope he still makes that joke a lot.

I noticed, when I’d had a little time to collect my thoughts, that the trees’ glow had changed to an autumnal feel.

And, I won’t lie: I remembered the spell cadence, and I whispered it, twenty-seven times. “Please give me one more summer evening,” I said, to the trees, to the sky.

And bless them, they did.

Notes & Credits:

Because I’m finishing up a story I started with this past round of Enchantment, many of the things in the photos are from the event. Enchantment’s Nevermore closed yesterday, so items will be filtering back to the creators’ main stores. I’d say be patient with them because it’s a holiday weekend, but I know you (all two of you!) will do that because you are nice people and never impatient.

(As always, sponsored items from individual creators or events are marked with a “*”)

Lira:

• Skin (all photos): This is EnLight’s beautiful new Dia skin*, available right now at Uber!
• Makeup:
  • In the dream: Loa, Leila Eyeshadow, Lipstick, and Neck tattoo* (look for it at the Loa Main Store)
  • Back home & unglamoured: None
• Hair:
  • In the dream: Raven Bell & Mythril, Runa Hair (Available now at The Warehouse Sale!) Additional hairbase: All Divas, Pebblah
  • Back home & unglamoured: .Shi, Bamah
• Nails: Eventyra, Spiced Cider (at the Eventyra Main Store, and on sale!)
• Signature Ring: Kunglers, Phoebe
• Outfits:
  • In the dream:
    • Dress: The Muses, Haunted Dress*, in Teal (look for it at The Muses main store)
    • Ripped Fishnets: Violxnce, Lovett Fishnets
    • Earrings: FaeTal, Earrings 72
    • Crescent & Veil: Nefakalum, Ligeia (look for it at the Nefekalum main store)
    • Body Sparkles: Cole’s Corner, Glitterati
  • Back home & unglamoured: Meander/Me, Catalina (look for it at the Meander/Me Main Store!)
• Shoes:
  • In the dream: Friday: Arizona Boots
• Lira is styled on a Legacy Classic mesh body and a Lelutka EvoX Raven mesh head. Her ears are the Swallow Gauged Pixie Ears.

On the Set:

• Not Quite Nevermore Academy: Minimal, Wednesday Skybox. PBR retexturing by Gwen Enchanted.
• Treehouse Hot Tube: Death Row Designs, Jacuzzi, Boho

Not Quite Nevermore Academy shot at the Awenia Box Studio. Aftermath shot on location at Lira’s treehouse in Bellisseria.