#Lake Lewisia

[lakelewisia]

“I’m sorry,” he told the princess as she lay in her crystal coffin, “I won’t be able to kiss you.” The prince explained, as best he could without actually understanding a bit of it, how her coffin had become a real tourist attraction, how the whole kingdom’s economy relied on her miraculous and tragic unwaking like a machine relies on a battery. “You’re just too important,” he informed her, as she went on dreaming of stretching her legs down to touch the forest’s mossy floor just once.

[valhikes]

Russian Wilderness

Klamath National Forest, California

My second day backpacking the Russian Wilderness started as a short plan, but couldn't stay that way. I added on a cross country hike to a little peak to see a hidden lake before starting. I added on a cross country hike to the biggest peak in the Wilderness after the hike.

[lakelewisia]

They called it dissociation, how she would find herself mindlessly scrolling, sitting still and unremarkable, while in her head she was a whirlwind of noise and destruction, screaming and smashing furniture. A trauma response, they said, born out of her inability to express her negative emotions appropriately, and in saying so, they implied even her outbursts were defective. Meanwhile, in the parallel dimension she had inadvertently been bleeding into for years, rooms burst into sprays of shattered china in response to her slipstream emotions, not so much lost as forwarded to a new address.

[lakelewisia]

She had been trapped in the tower for a long time, surrounded by silk and lace that held her as firmly as chains (though the unclimbable tower walls certainly did their part as well), but at last the one tiny blessing at her birth sparked and took hold. They had laid curses on her infant self--of wealth beyond use and luxury beyond pleasure and safety beyond comfort--that led her to this bower prison. But her godmother had been fae and strange and had understood that guards and barred doors tear as easily as silk and lace in the face of a two-hundred-pound teenage wolf wearing the tattered remains of a princess’s gown.

[lakelewisia]

He had seen a lot of odd things, detailing cars at the car wash, and gotten a lot of reactions from the drivers when they realized he had seen some evidence of their peculiarities. The smiling driver of the hatchback didn’t seem to mind him seeing the assortment of wood and hinges and cloth, and she didn’t hesitate to start assembling all of it with brisk efficiency. He watched as a mast and sails emerged from the sunroof and a rudder folded out from the spare tire mount, and he only noticed the tip she had given him was a piece of pirate gold after the car had sailed off the nearest overpass and into the sky.

[lakelewisia]

She wasn’t allowed to go next door, given her parents’ feud with the neighbor, but love can’t be stopped so easily. Constructing a gangplank that would clip to each of the balconies took all of her nine-year-old’s ingenuity and disregard for safe engineering practices, and slitting the window screen was comparatively easy after shimmying across that divide. The neighbor’s cat sprang out to meet her, purring and once again whispering to the child about the adventures they could have together, at it had been for months from across the yards.

[lakelewisia]

For those wishing to learn a language this year, we recommend the new class offered by the library in collaboration with the Buried Gardens: the language of flowers. Not to be confused with the Victorian symbolic system of the same name, this class will introduce you to the basics of communication with spring ephemerals, hardy annuals, and soft perennials, from seasonally appropriate greetings to warnings about lawnmowers and burrowing rodents. For those with greater patience and more time to dedicate, we are developing a course on communication with trees to come later this year.

[lakelewisia]

With the understanding that alcohol lowers inhibitions, they thought a few drinks might help their shy new friend open up a bit, and she had been willing enough to try something that might make socializing less distressing. She turned out to be a very driven, very organized drunk, and was found an hour into the party reorganizing the host’s socks according to “vibrational frequencies.” This served as quite the conversation starter, if nothing else, and the host invited her back over to explain the concept again after he found he no longer lost socks in the dryer thanks to her.

[lakelewisia]

For those who use wood for heating their homes or cooking this winter, we remind you to obtain firewood locally and avoid transporting wood across regions. Invasive insects, parasites, and evil spirits can hitch rides in firewood, allowing them to spread to previously healthy and unhaunted woodlands. And in the event that you mistakenly obtained wood from sentient trees and are about to be subject to their wrath, it is actually easier to cope with attack by a walking tree spirit in the open woods than it is in your living room.

[lakelewisia]

To those not yet come to Lewisia: we are here, and we will find each other somehow. There will be signposts, and fliers calling together the like-minded, and meaningful glances from peculiar strangers, all pointing you toward a safe haven. There will be no iron fences or razor wire moats around us when you get here; no gatekeeper will ask for papers, approvals, or proofs of purchase.

[lakelewisia]

We have received some complaints that figures in dark hoodies, pulled-down baseball caps, and comically oversized coats have been congregating on park benches or in the doorways of businesses after hours. These are just our local conspirators, who discuss sinister plots and exchange Byzantine secrets to generate a certain mood of menace and mystery. While they might sometimes pose an inconvenience, these figures represent a vital part of our town’s cultural system and they are largely harmless to uninvolved observers, however much they may glare and posture.

[lakelewisia]

This is a final reminder to those who craft poppets that we are fast approaching the end of the season for magically imbuing them with life and purpose. If you find, as crafters often do, that your project is nowhere near completion when you need it, there are a number of crafty sorts around town selling or trading for completed poppets--remember, if you can’t make your own, locally bought is fine. When all else fails, you would be amazed at what you can accomplish with some twine-bound corn husks and dried acorns for your humanoid-based rituals, emergency soul vessels, and scrappy supernatural offspring.

[lakelewisia]

As a child, he didn't understand the concept of sundowner winds or even entirely understand that his mother picked him up so late from school because she had to get off work first. He simply said, "Look, mommy, the wind is carrying us home," each evening when gusts would buffet the car and whistle through the one window that didn't seal quite right. One day, he would go in search of his father, after he learned about gods and mortal women and heroic bloodlines, only for his long search to lead him right back home, to the highway where each night the local god of the winds escorted his beloved and his son home safely.

[lakelewisia]

The health clinic is offering a new service as part of their mental health program: guided nightmares. Recently returned with degrees in psychology and intraplanar studies, a Lewisia-native dream folk can serve as a calm and reassuring companion to explore the landscapes of patients’ nightmares as part of treatment for depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other traumas. Note that these services are strictly therapeutic and should not be used as part of any quest involving more literal battling of inner demons.

[lakelewisia]

Flocks of tiny, long-beaked plague doctors roosted in the trees every autumn, when the onset of winter colds drew them back to town. Greatly diminished in number since the heights of illness, they had seen a resurgence in recent years and happily claimed territory abandoned by birds of sunnier disposition. Though generally inclined to encourage wildlife around town, most residents found themselves putting up deterrents of face masks soaked in hand sanitizer for their peace of mind.

[lakelewisia]

The clinic served as a base of operations and fit well in the town, but most of the clientele were outsiders--one town usually can’t produce enough cursed individuals to make the clinic a going proposition. In the wider world, though, there was always a steady trickle of people who had been cursed to be animals or blind or only able to communicate via song-and-dance routines. For some, breaking the curse broke them as well, and the recursing clinic was there to help them through what came after the fairy tale ending.