jamieproctor.ca

The séance chamber was somber and tasteful.  The chandelier was of beautiful yet not over-ornate design; the table was clothed in a plain black that was workmanlike without being cheap; the curtains were drawn enough to permit spirits but not so tightly as to prohibit eyeballs. 

“Oh my, it’s so kind of you to go to all this trouble, for me, a poor old doddering widow with naught left to comfort her in the loneliness of old age but the cold and lifeless cash of her funds,” wept Mrs. Bagelsly, clutching her purse in tearful gratitude.

“I assure you, it is very little trouble,” said Ms. Cuthspoon with a firm and gracious handshake that turned (with gracefully-disguised awkwardness) into having to support the older woman’s weight on her forearms.  “I am but a simple student of the Lands Beyond and have very little to offer, but I am always moved to action by the plight of the forlorn and grieving.  If you and your man will both take a seat at the table and clasp your palms to mine, we can begin.”

So the circle was shaped with only a little fussing and fidgeting, hand-to-hand, widow-to-manservant-to-medium-to-widow-again, and after no more than a moment of ritual singing, chanting, and calling from Ms. Cuthspoon the darkness that filled the room seemed to grow deeper; the air more turbulent.  The chandelier shook for an instance under an alien weight; something dripped from above that glowed softly.  A faint glow appeared above the table, giving the vaguest impressions of a human face. 

“Charmaine,” spake a guttural voice from Ms. Cuthspoon’s throat.  The black cloth masking the table rippled with its breath.  “Charmaine.  Is that you?  It is very dark here.”

Mrs. Bagelsly quailed in awed delight at the sights and sounds enveloping her.  “Dear Albert,” she whispered.  “My little Alberto.  Is it really you?”
“Indeed,” roiled the voice, thick as pitch. 

Her trembling chin turned rock-solid under a quick and very nasty grin.  “That’s funny.  Because your name was Ezekiel, and you insisted on it in full.”  And with those words her hand shot up from her lap, cold steel in its grip, and swung wildly at arm’s-length over and above the séance table.  The tablecloth ceased its flapping; the chandelier stopped its clatter; there was a number of oddly musical snapping sounds.  

“AHA!” she shouted with the lungs of a much younger woman who was also an opera singer.  “Piano wires under the table, attached to strategic ‘rattle points!’ to simulate the actions of the invisible!”  The knife spun from her fingers with a deft flick, shooting past Ms. Cuthspoon’s ear and exploded in an expensive and fragmented crash.  “Mirrors and lightboxes to craft the illusion of a glimpse of those that have passed beyond the veil!  And ectoplasm crafted from-” here Mrs. Bagelsly dipped a finger in the substance oozing from the chandelier and sniffed it “- a flour base to simulate the material leavings of the immaterial!  Nothing new, nothing new at all.  You are most certainly a fraud preying on the vulnerable and grieving, young woman – and what is more pertinent and insulting, you are an UNORIGINAL fraud!  The nerve!  Book her, Potterridge.”

“The gall!” said Ms. Cuthspoon, drawing herself up in fury (and keeping her hands well away from the set of cuffs Potterridge had procured from his pocket, besides).  “I’ll have you know that I am the one and only true and real medium I know of, capable of calling the dead from their rest!”
“With flour paste and piano wire?” sneered Mrs. Bagelsly.

“That’s to pay the bills,” said Ms. Cuthspoon scornfully.  “They don’t want the real thing; they want what they expect.  Nobody wants the real thing.”
“Oh, and I suppose it’s because it’s too fearful and dreadful for our poor little hearts to take, so you must keep it secret ‘till your dying day and no you WON’T be showing me now no matter how I beg, thank-you-very-much?” said Mrs. Bagelsly in an ever-more-chilling torrent of sarcasm. 

“No, I can do that right now,” said Ms. Cuthspoon.  “It’s just that no-one likes it very much because it’s dull and a bit of a let-down.  Would you like to see it?”
Mrs. Bagelsly toyed with a second, equally-discreet knife as she met the medium’s challenge with narrowed eyes.  “Oh, and give you time to prepare a second fake?”

“We can do it wherever you please, right now.  And what, you don’t think you can see through me twice?”
She laughed at that.  “Outside then; the harsh light of day does treat flimflammery so very well.  And make it sharpish!  We don’t want the cuffs to get cold.”

***

It ended up being a little less than sharpish.  Mrs. Bagelsly insisted on holding the second ritual no closer to the estate than the ditch that bordered the property.  “It’s far enough away from the house and dull enough that you won’t have stashed any jiggery-pokery here,” she explained cheerfully.  “Who ever heard of a grand and exalted necromantic feat performed in a ditch?”
“Suits me fine,” said Ms. Cuthspoon dourly.  “And honestly, I expect it’ll make the thing feel right at home.”

“What, are you summoning up the ghosts of frog-hunters?”

“Hah!” said Ms. Cuthspoon – and it was said, not laughed: three letters and one syllable, sharp and derisive.  “I wish.  Now back up a little. Don’t fret; I’m not about to cut a run in a dress when your man there is in pants, but I DO need to focus a little and it’s hard to do that with you and that galoot breathing down my neck.”

“Mind your manners,” said Mrs. Bagelsly primly as she waved back Potterridge. 

“Mind your knife,” muttered Ms. Cuthpsoon.  And with that, she began.

There was no chant or song, and no call.  She did hum a little, in that tuneless sort of way some people do when they’re concentrating and need something to make the rest of the world shut up and go away.  And then she let out a big, long sigh, the sort that gets the air right out of the bottom of your lungs, and clapped her hands hard, and when she opened them something soft and runny and glowing was hanging in midair in the space where her palms had met.

Mrs. Bagelsly exclaimed something very unladylike.

“Quite,” said Ms. Cuthspoon.  She kept her arms open wide, fingers half-cupped like she was holding a set of invisible cymbals.  “If you have any questions to ask it, I suggest you do them now.  This is more effort than it looks.”

“Ask it questions?” whisper-shrieked Mrs. Bagelsly.  “It’s a d*mned insect, a, a, half-lobster!  Look at it!  Look at its legs!  Look at its bl**dy antennae!”

“Believe me, I am aware,” said Ms. Cuthspoon through gritted teeth.  “But ask and it WILL answer.  And hurry it up.”

Mrs. Bagelsly took only half a moment to compose herself, experienced in rewriting her attitude as she was, and the other half was spent on the practical matters of communication. 

“What are you?” she demanded.

The spectral thing twitched some of its many little legs at her fretfully.  The message, when it came, did so in the purest form imaginable: direct comprehension without the intermediary confounding of words, of language, of the meaning of meaning.  They were as follows:

ded

Mrs. Bagelsly fought the unladylike urge to stick her finger in her ear and swivel it.  “Is it being funny?”
“No, they just don’t have any imagination,” said Ms. Cuthspoon tersely. 

“Sensible of them; bet they didn’t have any mediums.  What killed you?”

at b fsh

Mrs. Bagelsly eyed the thing’s translucent flippery appendages with interest.  “Yes, I suppose you were.  No accounting for taste, especially among fish.  Can you tell us anything about what lies beyond?”

ded

“Or when you died?”
lng ag

“Or anything at all?”
n

“Well, I suppose that’s more than I expected I’d get,” said Mrs. Bagelsly.  “Just hold on a moment, I have pencil and paper on me somewhere – ah!  Yes, hold it still just a moment longer.”
“Please, there’s no rush,” said Ms Cuthspoon in the most sugary-sweet voice deliverable while biting your own tongue. 

“Hush, you owe me this much. An honest morning’s work won’t kill you – there!  Done.  You can throw it back now.”
Ms. Cuthspoon’s arms dropped, the air didn’t-quite-pop, and the thing went away.  “Satisfied?” she said, rubbing her wrists. 

“Scarcely,” said Mrs. Bagelsly, tapping her pencil against her sketchpad.  “This just raises further questions.  For instance, that all seemed very usual to you: is this what happens every time?”
“Sometimes they’re bigger or smaller.  Not by a lot, but a bit.”
“Well, that answers question two: is-it-just-the-same-one,” said Mrs. Bagelsly.  “Hmm.  Question three then: you’ve never found anything else?  Anyone else?”
“No.  Just these things.”
“Hmmmm.  Well now, it seems our business is concluded for the day.  You have provided me with evidence of supernatural powers beyond the ken of mankind, Ms. Cuthspoon, and in gratitude for this I shall look the other way in the matters of your practice of cruel japery for wanton profit by preying on the hopefulness of the bereaved.  But just this once.”
“Your charity and kindness is beyond all my hopes, Mrs. Bagelsly,” said Ms. Cuthspoon.  “Will you at least be paying me?”

No, I think not – the séance was fraudulent and you did this lobster-magic gratis.  Potterridge, go and get the carriage.  Poterridge?  Potterridge!  Oh, it seems he’s taken a turn; I forgot that he never could abide seafood.  Do you have any smelling salts?”

“Ten quid.”

“Three.”
“Done.”

“Poor haggling, young woman.”

“If it gets you out of here faster, it’s a bargain.”

“A fraud, a poor haggler, AND possessed of a rude mouth.  At least you’re sensible.”

***

The second time Mrs. Bagelsly came a-calling to Ms. Cuthspoon’s estate, she did so unannounced and early in the morning, and she left Potterridge in the carriage. 

“I’ve found out who you’re calling up,” she said triumphantly.  “I paid a visit to a naturalist acquaintance of mine, who mentioned an acquaintance of his, who referred me to a colleague of his at the natural history museum.  They all agreed my illustration was of a trilobite.  Look here – I’ve brought along copies.”
Ms. Cuthspoon stared bleary-eyed at her.  “Tea first.  Then trilobites.”
“Oh if you insist.  And toast too, while you’re at it.”

The toast was burned.  Mrs. Bagelsly wasn’t above constructive criticism. 

“So as you can see, they’re remarkably common,” she said through a mouthful of marmalade.  “Plenty of the nasty little things lying around underfoot wherever the rocks are right to hold their bodies.  How many times have you tried to summon the dead exactly?”
Ms. Cuthspoon shrugged.  “One doesn’t keep close track of inconsequentials, particularly when the outcome varies so seldomly.”
“Oh come now.”
“I told you, it’s so damned boring that I never really bothered.  I tried maybe a few dozen times when I started around age sixteen, then on and off a few times a year from then into my mid-twenties.  Doing the same exhausting thing over and over for the same disappointing results is simple madness!”
“And more than that,” corrected Mrs. Bagelsly, “it is statistics.  Now, we can make two possible conclusions from your memory here.  One is that you can only summon deceased trilobites.  This would be simple and William of Ockham would approve of that, but it would be imprudent to accept it without questioning. The other is that you can indeed summon any dead being, but trilobites are simply so common that they are always what you end up with SO FAR.”

“I do not appreciate your emphasis,” said Ms. Cuthspoon, glaring from behind the shelter of her saucer. 

“Well, then you will appreciate its explanation: you are going to summon the dead every day, all day, until we have acquired a better grasp of your abilities,” said Mrs. Bagelsly, briskly mopping her plate with the heel of her toast. 

“Oh surely not!”

“It will keep you too busy to scam, will advance the sum of human knowledge, and will provide us both with the precious chance to learn something new.”
“I shan’t and you can’t make me.”
“I have numerous letters penned and ready to be posted in my absence should I not give word, mused Mrs. Bagelsly aloud, daintily sucking a glob of breakfast from her thumb.  “And their contents are MOST scandalous.  Financially ruinous, I should say.”

Ms. Cuthspoon put her teacup down with bad grace.  “Fine,” she snapped.  “But I’m having a second helping first.  This isn’t a matter for an empty stomach.”

***

“Just a little longer,” said Mrs. Bagelsly.

“It’s sunset.”
“Almost there, hold on.  Just a little longer.”
“I can’t feel my arms.”
“Nearly there.  Nearly.  Just a little longer.”

“Going in three.”
“Just a little longer.”
“Two.”
“Just a little longer.”
“One.”
“Just a, ah that’s it.  All done.”
Ms. Cuthspoon dropped her arms to her sides and her body into an easy chair.  Her eyes, long-since shut, somehow sank deeper into their sockets.  Mrs. Bagelsly by contrast was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but her drawing  hand took a good six seconds of flexion to leave its cramped shape and she was blinking much less than a human ought to. 

“Well,” she said cheerfully.  “I think that’s a sound day’s work.  We have sketches of all varieties, tables listing them by population, age, and cause of death-”

“’At b fsh’,” said Ms. Cuthspoon with faint venom.  “’At b mllsk.’  ‘Sqshd b md.”

“-and we’re beginning to get a better grasp of the big picture.”
“Trilobites, isn’t it?  Nothing but trilobites.  All the way down.”

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Bagelsly.  “If it were nothing but trilobites all the way down, what would be eating them?  Keep it up and we’ll find something else.  Which is why I’ll be back bright and early tomorrow morning.  I hope you have more of that marmalade, it was really quite scrumptious.”

“Hate you,” said Ms. Cuthspoon.  And she fell asleep.

***

“Just a little longer.”
“Little longer ever day.”
“That means you’re getting better at this!”
“Three.”
“Just a little longer.”
“Two.”
“Done!”

***

“Just a little longer.”
“Ending early this time?”
“Well, my fingers are stuck.”
“Again?  I’ll get the balm.”
“Would you mind?  It’s just that if I try to walk like this, the whole arm goes numb.”

***

“Alright, we’re done.”
“Oh, just a little longer, surely.”
“You’re starting to nod off.”
“Nonsense!”
“What’ve you got written for our last cause of death?”
“I was going to put it down in a moment.”
“And the one before that?”
“Didn’t I get that one?  It says ‘at b rptl.’”

“That was the one BEFORE that.  We’re done.”

“Oh, really!”
“Besides, I already put the kettle on during your last break.”

“Mm.  Do you have marmalade?”
“You’re eating me out of house and home.”

***

“And how was today?”
“Fine?  No clouds, blue sky, a pleasant breeze-“

“Oh, don’t be like that.  The WORK.  How much did you get done?”
“A dozen more than yesterday.”

“Pish posh, still well below par!”
“’Par’ was set with two of us.  I’m not as fast a sketcher, even if I wasn’t having to stop and start all the time and remember things before I write them down.”

“Well, I’d better get back to it then.”
“Not before the doctor says you can.”
“It’s just a bit of scribbling!  Honestly, you fuss too much.  I could do it right here in bed.”
“You could and you won’t.  Get better first.”
“Oh, I will, you’ll see.  Just a bit longer and I’ll be back to it, show you how it’s done.  Just a little longer first.  Just a little longer.”

***

She expected the invitation to the funeral.  And the grey-faced old men in fine coats speaking to her of how she’d been mentioned in correspondence, such a pleasure to meet her, pity about the circumstances, would she care to ever donate her collection to the museum, oh the specimens looked so lovely in pictures, such a shame, may we all pass in such circumstances.

She didn’t expect the contents of the will.  Well, maybe the bit about demanding she hire on Potterridge because he was too damned stubborn to retire, but certainly not the rest of it. 

And she certainly didn’t expect the first thing she did when she got home to be tidying up the séance room, setting up her notebook and sketchpad, and settling in for the evening’s work.  She’d been paid for it, after all, and the remuneration was going to go farther now that she wasn’t purchasing ruinous amounts of marmalade. 

Six trilobites.  Sixteen trilobites.  Ghostly little arthropods, something far away from crab and spider and distant cousin to both.  She asked and nodded and released and wrote and drew from memory, recent memory, so the older bigger ones stayed away. 

Twenty-eight trilobites.  Twenty-nine trilobites.  Small and large and decorated and plain.  She took a moment to make sure her columns were straight and tidy, corrected a smudge. Things had to be kept tidy. 

Thirty-seven trilobites.  And one more afterwards, and as her palms parted her first thought was ‘that’s not enough legs.’

And it wasn’t enough legs, if you were a trilobite.  Four squat little pillars, jutted fiercely out to the side of a little round-barrel torso, like a cross between a lizard and a small and politely confused hog.  Its earless head looked at her, big eyes curious. 

“What are you?” she asked.  What else could you ask?

Ded.

“What killed you?”

Caght in clod of bad ar.

“When did you die?”
Long tim ago, durng the gret dyings.

“Can you tell me anything about what lies beyond?”

Ded. All ded.

Ms. Cuthspoon’s mouth and arms, so ably acting in her brain’s stead, ran out of muscle memory.  Her hindbrain took up the torch.  “If you see a rude, pushy old woman – human woman, like me – around the place, ask her to stop by.  Please.  Please?”
Oky.

Ms. Cuthspoon closed her arms, made her illustration, recorded her observations. 

Then she cried a bit afterwards.  That, she’d expected.

It wasn’t much.  But it was something new, and that was worth it.

The pickles were deliciously sour; her granddaughter knew her trade better than she’d ever had, at a quarter her age. She’d just popped the first of them in her mouth when the knocking came at her cottage’s door, and so she answered it with maybe a little more force than otherwise reasonable.

“Yes?” she said rudely to the anxious and trembling young man outside.

“O witch, I come on behalf of our town and all people in it, young and old, slight and strong, short and tall, to beg of your aid-”

“Whyfor witch?” she demanded.

“Because you are old and live in the woods and have a stern and cruel look to your mouth,” explained the young man.

“I’d like to see you have a different look if you’d eaten one of my granddaughter’s pickles,” she shot back. “And what aid could you want of me, witch or not?”

“We are suffering,” said he, “under three most terrible and inescapable maladies: a brave and valiant prince; a fair and languishing princess, and – may god save our souls – a wise and just and true king.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, then there’s nothing for it. I will do what I can.”

And so the witch took up her walking stick and her best hat and set out on the long, long road to the town.

With the rest of the pickles, of course.

***

The road through the woods was dark, but the witch was used to it.

The road through the woods was winding, but the witch was used to it.

The road through the woods was very, very, very long, and the witches legs were very, very, very old – and that, alas, she could only grow so used to. Instead she had long cultivated useful spots to stop and rest, such as soft mossy stones, stumps, and in this case a toppled log too lumpy and twisted to make good firewood, half-sunken on the rim of a lily-padded little pond.

The log was occupied when she found it, beseated by the slumping a shining man in shining armour with a shining blade at his side and a large and handsome (if not quite shining) horse at his other side. There was little doubt in her mind as to who this was.

“I apologize for my slothful idleness, good woman,” said the brave and valiant prince, “but you find me in a moment of weakness betwixt quests. Tell me, is there any deed that you need done? A villain vanquished? A beast felled?”

“None come to mind,” said the witch. “I live alone in the woods, and don’t hear tell of much.”
“A witch, maybe?” said the brave and valiant prince. “Or is there a howling beast that torments your goats?”
“I don’t have any goats.”
“Please, please, please, I beg of you,” said the prince, falling onto one knee with a clatter of fine plate and chain. “I’ve been questing dawn ‘til dusk for days uncounted. I delve into dens and caves to stir slumbering creatures to battle; I cross every bridge I encounter thrice until I am stopped by a passerby and may demand a duel; I have vexed every herb-knower and spell-writer for leagues around until they curse’d me and I could take means to lift the curse; I have hunted and harried giants ‘till there be not a living creature with two legs and two arms in these lands that stands taller than six foot two. A brave and valiant prince MUST quest, no matter the cost, no matter what. Please! There must be something I can do for you! Please!”

“Well,” said the witch, “you could find me a new walking stick. This one’s all worn out.” And so filled with desperate joy was the brave and valiant prince to do this that he leapt to his feet and drew his shining blade and hewed a limb from the fallen log he sat upon all at once and in less than a twinkling.

“Oh, no, no, no,” said the witch despairingly. “Not like that, hacking away all messily! You’ll split it. You’ll want a nice sound branch. Look, see mine?”

So saying, she handed the brave and valiant prince her walking stick – which though worn, was still very s turdy and of great size. And while he looked upon it, taking great care to document the precise nature of its craftsmanship, she took the shining sword and threw it into the pond behind them.

“Now,” she told the brave and valiant prince, “we’ll need to go find you an axe.”
“Whyfor, perchance?”
“Because you’ll need something to cut wood PROPERLY with. Come along, come along. Offer me a ride, will you?”

So the brave and valiant prince nobly offered a seat on his large and handsome (if not quite shining) horse as they went down the road, and as the woods became less dark the sun became quite strong and the heat bore down on his shining armour until he was prone to sweat.

“Best put that away for now,” said the witch. “Heatstroke doesn’t improve anyone.” And this was true, and so the brave and valiant prince heeded it and packed up his shining armour and walked in his plain linen until at last they came (at the witch’s direction) to the blacksmith at the edge of town, who she knew because he was her son-in-law’s cousin, and she bid the (still-warm, dog-tired) brave and valiant prince to rest a moment while she did business, which he did with his eyes shut.

“Here,” said the witch, proffering a wood-axe. “It’s yours.”

“A gift? But I have completed no quest.”

“Oh, it’s been paid for – and so has a little house on the edge of town,” said the witch, who knew what a suit of shining armour was worth. “And now you can take quests that don’t bother anyone and that never end. People will always need firewood, or water drawn for their wells, or crops tended. And,” she added, seeing his trepidation and hope at war, “they will never want their woods to become clear-cut, or their wells to run dry, or their fields to deplete and sour. So when you halt your questing, that too will be valuable.”

The brave and valiant prince would’ve had all sorts of fine and noble things to say to that, but he found – much to his excitement – that he wasn’t a brave and valiant prince at all and settled, in lieu of applied custom or experience – to give the witch a hug. Which he did, before he ran back into the woods, axe in hand.

The horse went with him. He’d never treated it poorly, and as it was not quite shining it felt like this new way of questing was not beneath it.

Also, it was sick of jousts and monsters.

***

The town was quieter than the witch remembered it; but then again, she was older and her ears were more stubborn. Perhaps it was as noisy as it had always been in her youth. Perhaps it was noisier.

Then again, the town of her youth hadn’t been buried in the long, long midday shadow of a briar-tangled tower that rose from what had once been a thriving town square, as this one was. Maybe things were just different and exact comparisons would do nothing but oversimplify the complexities of reality.

Those were the things that the witch stopped thinking about as she very, very, very slowly picked her way through a gnarled mass of rose-bedecked briars with needles long and sharp enough to knit a suit of chainmail for an elephant. Her attention was very very specifically focused on the movement of each limb, which thankfully was something she’d gotten used to. When falling down went from embarrassing to life-threatening, you either learned to think about what you were doing, or you learned to heal fast.

The downside of being so focused was that you missed out on other things. For instance, the moment when the witch finally extracted her foot from the last of the briars was when she finally looked up and found herself eye to eye with no fewer than sixteen (she counted twice, very fast) large, scaly, smouldering creatures with goat horns and lion claws and lashing tails. They were piled in a heap two-deep around the heavy door at the base of the tower and were watching her with genuine confusion and something else.

She thought she recognized that something else. It was the expression on her cat’s face whenever he realized she had milk.

Slowly and carefully, the witch put her hand in her bag and drew out the jar of pickles. Their eyes alit on it like flies to rotting meat.

Slowly and carefully, the witch opened the jar of pickles. Sixteen pairs of scaly ears fluttered like moths at lanterns.

Gently and gingerly, the witch tossed a single handful of pickles underarm. Sixteen long, lean, muscled bodies leapt into the air and tried to eat every pickle while yelling at every one of their comrades at once.

“Oh!” cried a voice from far above, floating down the long, long column of the tower’s spiral staircase and threading through the heavy bars of its door. “Oh no! You KNOW it’s not time for dinner! Are you all trying to eat Gustave again? Oh no! Bad! Bad children! Bad!”

At this the ruckus subsided, and soon the heavy and barred door of the tower was flung open, revealing a fair (if somewhat red-cheeked from hurry) and languishing princess, plus her perspiration.

“Naughty!” she scolded, and the dragons all laid their ears back and whined most piteously. “You KNOW you mustn’t eat Gustave, even if he’s smallest! Dinner is roast yams, and you will enjoy it!”

“Pardon me,” said the witch.

“Oh!” said the fair and languishing princess again. “A visitor! Pardon me, I’m so sorry. Are you a knight, or a prince, or a hero, or a youth, or a wayward long-lost royal?”
“None and neither of them all,” said the witch.

“Oh!” said the fair and languishing princess yet again. “You’re a witch. I see. What a relief that is; things are quite untidy right now and I’m not ready at all for any of my expected visitors. Would you like to come upstairs and have some tea?”

“Of course,” said the witch.

But her hip started to pain her halfway up the tower, so she took a rest on a little chair the fair and languishing princess kept there (‘in case one of the dragons gets sick and I need to be close for the night, poor thing’) and the princess brought the tea-tray down from above.

“It’s just so much work, to be properly imprisoned.” she groaned as she poured. “And not just imprisoned – to be really, truly languishing you’ve got to have all manner of curse’d fauna and flora imprisoning you, otherwise it’s not durance vile it’s just boring old jail. And durance vile takes WORK! I’d always thought the first few years were the worst – the briars were too thin and harmless, and by the time I’d gotten them so big and sharp they’d gotten vulnerable to aphids and that almost wiped them out until I managed to encourage our ladybug population to sprout up, and all of that made it so I had almost no time to tend to my vegetable patch which meant thin rations for the dragons – and they were just dragonets back then, and that means regular big meals to grow strong scales and horns! But now – now I think it’s even harder; there’s not as much to be done from scratch but the upkeep is a nightmare! There’s so much weeding to be done, and so much planting to be handled, and the briars keep trying to overgrow the vegetable patch and by now if I need to prune them it takes a gosh-darn halberd to do the job, and when the wretched little beasts aren’t digging up the briars and setting them on fire for fun they keep trying to eat Gustave! He isn’t even that much smaller than the rest of them anymore, it’s nothing but force of habit and sheer – sheer SPITE, that’s what it is! And every time I forget a packet of seeds or a hoe or some medicine it’s all the way up, up, up, UP there, in my bedroom. Which I have to keep neat at all times in case a prince should stop by to rescue me from my languishment, which means everything’s crammed into all the drawers and inside the closet higgledy-piggledy. I can’t help but feel there must be a better way to handle all of this.”

“Well,” said the witch, who’d had time to blow on her tea and listen politely and drink and listen some more and drink again and listen some more and think a little and finish her tea altogether. “What if you made some kennels, with a private space for the runt? And a fence, to keep them out of the briars. And a fence to keep the briars from overgrowing the vegetable patch.”

“Oh,” said the fair and languishing princess. “I’d thought of that before. But there’s nothing to make the fence with; all I’ve got are briar vines and dragon-scutes.”
“You have a whole tower of stone,” said the witch. “And strong arms from weeding and tilling. You can do this.”
“But I’ve never built a fence,” said the fair and languishing princess in a small voice to herself.

“I can show you how my old garden fence was built, when I was younger,” said the witch.

“Oh yes PLEASE.”

And so all day and all night for several days the witch harvested yams for dragons and weeded errant briars while the fair and languishing princess harvested her tower for stone. She began with the roof, then her chambers, then finally the long, long spire, and at last there was nothing left but a free-standing archway (with a barred door, oddly enough), some sturdy and weather-proof dragon kennels, and a set of ordered and divided gardens: vegetable and rose. And standing there amidst them was a sunburnt and vigorous young woman, pouring a bucket of water half over her head and half down her throat.

“Needed that,” she managed. “Not sure which I needed more, but I needed it.”
“All of it, I think,” said the witch.

“Yes,” she agreed, looking the witch dead in the eyes for the first time since they’d met. “I think I agree. You know, I don’t think I can be imprisoned without a tower anymore. Do you know anybody who might want to buy guard-dragons, or thorn-hedges, or roses, or highly nutritious yams?”

“I can give a few names as suggestions for where to start,” said the witch. “And I think you’ll do the rest yourself.”
“Your thinking’s pretty handy,” said the woman.

And she gave the witch a dragon-roasted yam for the road. It wasn’t as tasty as her granddaughter’s pickles, but it was warm from within.

***

The walk up from the town to the king’s castle was short. The drawbridge was down. The guards were well-outfitted and polite to all. The halls were clean and comfortably decorated. And on a well-worn and handsomely-crafted yet simple throne in the room, resplendent in fine (but not showy) robes and crowned in gold (but not extravagantly) sat the wise and just and true king, who was very nearly any ordinary person save for the sharp look in his eyes.

The witch waited while he finished attending court for the day, and his judgments were fair, and faultless, and even-handed, and she knew that this was by far the greatest challenge yet.

“You may now approach, witch” said the wise and just and true king, who had dismissed the rest of the chamber. “The court is now adjourned, and I have some time.”
“How much?” said the witch.

“Not enough,” said the wise and just and true king. “I must manage these lands. I must manage these people. They believe I have the right to do so by birth alone, and that my competence is proof of that belief’s truth. I strive every day to make them happy and safe and to prevent harm done to them and harm done by them, and to do so in a way that they understand and appreciate. I know that if I did not do this, another would, and that other would lack something of mine – being wise and true but not just, or just and wise but not true, or true and just but not wise, or (heaven forbid) lacking two qualities, or even all three! So I sit in court and I rule with a right I do not recognize that I do not dare give up and am loved and beloved and I wish that I could wish that I was dead, I really do, only I cannot because to wish that I were dead would be to wish harm and ruin to come to all who rely on me to do right by them. So instead I wish that I may one day wish for nothing at all.”

The witch acknowledged the truth of all this with a nod. “Your majesty,” she said, “please shut your eyes for one moment, and I promise that I will fix this.”

The wise and just and true king shut his eyes, and with a single sweep of her arm, the witch did so.

“Now you can open them,” she said, and when she did so there was no more king, just a sharp-eyed man in fine robes in an empty hall. Somewhere in a corner of the room, something gold rattled briefly (but not extravagantly) as it spun out of sight.

“Come on,” said the witch. “Change into something more sturdy and let’s go visit town. They elect a new mayor every fall harvest, and I think if you’re well-prepared you’ll stand a good chance, if you want it. If not, good advice is good advice whether it’s from the mayor or a friend, and people are always hungry for it.”

“What of the castle?” asked the sharp-eyed man.

“Let it lie. It’ll be there if someone needs it.”

He looked at her again. “Will they take me in? On the word of a witch alone?”

“Of course they will. What you do is what they love, not who they think you are. And my word walks those same paths. Close your eyes for one more moment.”
The sharp eyes closed.

The witch reached up to her head and for the second time in thirty seconds removed someone’s best hat.

(But more tidily this time; hers was a gift from her son).

“You can look now, mister,” said the old woman. “Now let’s get moving. Time’s wasting.”

***

They did not live happily ever after, of course. Time moves, wasted or not, and there were other kings, and other princes, and other princesses. Here and there and elsewhere.

But then and there they had what they needed, they understood what they wanted, and nobody was hurt. And that was happily enough for anyone.

The TROGG WARS!!!! BY, CORII

Once upon a time my great-grandpa and his friends had cool boats and they rode the cool boats here and they made houses and then they built a really big house but it turned out it was ontop of a trogg mine and it fell into the mine and this started….THE TROGG WARS!!!!

The trogg wars were really hard because troggs live underground and we don’t, so, we had to find them which was hard and they could find us, which was easy. Lots of people died and my great-grandpa said lots of his friends died too and it sucked. But then we found out you can plug up the holes and my great-grandpa’s friend made friends with the birds and my great-grandpa’s other friend made friends with the tree giants and the troggs all lost and we started to win and they tried to trick us by saying timeout but it didn’t work and we won and that is why we’re here and the troggs aren’t. That was the end of the trogg wars.

My great-grandpa said it’s important to never forget what happened to his leg so I don’t because it’s really, really, gross.

***

Improper formatting.

Inadequate wordcount.

Insufficient detail.

Terrible grasp of punctuation.

Extensive reliance on source outside of the textbook.

At least it isn’t plagiarized this time. 20/100.

***

Summary of A History of the First Trogg War

Harvest 17, 1238

Nennifer Grisbit

Since the dawn of time, the Fine Folk have yearned for sights beyond the horizon, and whether by foot, by cart, or by ship they have chased its ever-distant glow. Such wanderlust was eminently rewarded in the year QD (Queen’s Domain) 732, when an unseasonably late summer storm drove a sea-serpent-hunting expedition far off course and onto the shores of a hitherto undiscovered coast. Captain Melepron found refuge in a sheltered bay with plentiful fish and fresh water streams, and upon returning to the Homeland and spreading word of its existence, it was soon populated by a wave of explorers, adventurers, and settlers, who named it Safeharbour. This first foothold grew rapidly, and soon the sheer number of would-be-manses, burgeoning shipyards, and half-tamed parkgrounds necessitated (as it so often does!) the investigation and shaping of further territory. Luckily, the rest of the large isle – now named ‘Melepronnia’ – was equally sumptuously suited to the life of which the Fine Folk have long accustomed themselves to, with the local meadows being suited to unicorn pasturage; the native pines proving eminently susceptible to subordination and obedience under the transplanted boughs of gild-trees; and the beasts of the field being of the common sort and thus easily dissuaded or directed by both Word and deed. Indeed, things were going both marvellously and typically of any new (if exceptionally productive) colony, until the fateful moment when Lord Holbrom ordered the construction of a new hunting manse for himself and his immediate family and companions. Lord Holbrom was a roamer by the standards of nobility, and he desired wilderness in his surroundings – thus, the manse was laid out many leagues from Safeharbour and its constellation of expanding villages, about, atop, and within an appealingly striking rocky crag. It was to his great and unsuspecting misfortune that this peak was already occupied.

Troggs were unknown to the Fine Folk before this encounter, but it likely that the inverse is not the case: the work laid beneath the foundations of Holbrom’s Folly (a name meant in irony, soon proven in tragedy) was patient, slow, and devastatingly premeditated. Only when the final keystone of the manse’s grand hall was placed did the troggish undermining trigger its collapse, murdering in a single fell swoop Lord Holbrom, his entire family, and much of the assembled entourage and partygoers. The only survivor was a young and quick adventurer named Elmar, who had attended only by chance in his explorations of the hinterlands. This alone was the salvation of the colony: Elmar ran day and night without rest, sleeping in trees and eating nothing, and by his warning and counsel the outlying villages were recalled to Safeharbour before Holbrom’s Folly could be replicated in a hundred halls and more. Once scouts confirmed his words, Elmar would prove central to the war-councils of what would be later called the First Trogg War.

The war itself can be divided into three broad phases: a prolonged period of initial skirmishing, in which the troggs would seek to encroach into the colonized wester coastlands and be driven back; an intense period of open warfare conducted in the rugged interior; and the final siege at the Depths of Troggak.

The first phase of the war lasted several years and was broadly inconclusive; the troggs were functionally both undetectable and impervious to assault as long as they remained in their hidden tunnels, but this rendered their offensive capabilities practically nil except for very gradual and careful use of undermining to topple homes, redirect rivers, dry wells, and other such cruelty and general mischief. It was Elmar who tipped the scales of this delicate and terrifying balance; drawing on what little he’d seen as he fought free of Holbrom’s Folly, he discovered the means and ways by which the troggs hid the doors through which they crept about the surface realm at night. Once this was known, the trogg’s tunnels afield were useless: every bird in the sky was already allies of the Fine Folk, and once they were given warning of what a trogg-door looked like they patrolled day and night, dove and owl, until at last the troggs were driven far from the fields of Safeharbour and retreated unto their rocky homes in the far hills.

The second phase of the war was a painful necessity: Elmar knew that the troggs would never stay at bay for long, and pressed most passionately to defeat them today rather than let them attack tomorrow. Despite jealousy and cowardice from his detractors, his wisdom was too great to be ignored, and so the great punitive army was forged and sent into the highlands, where the trogg homes were and they made greater use of the surface to grow their vile crops and vent their reeking forges. Initial battles were in Elmar’s favour, but as days turned to weeks the tide began to turn: the troggs were thick as leaves in the forest and had riddled the ground with such holes as to let them flank from any place they wished any time they chose. The great punitive army, though undaunted, was in danger. It was in this darkest moment before the dawn that the wilderness itself arose to volunteer aid: so tragic was the plight of Elmar that the greatest and tallest of the trees rose from their needled beds and strode down the hillsides to bow before him and volunteer aid and service. The pinelords had also suffered as the Fine Folk did under troggish cruelty, and they proposed a joining of forces: if the great punitive army could protect them, they could provide both knowledge of where to direct its wrath and the means with which to ensure victory.

The series of audacious triumphs that followed led immediately into the third and final phase of the war: an entire grove of pinelords rooted themselves atop the valley that held the troggish capitol of Troggok, and for three days and three nights their roots sang to those of all that grew for leagues, and for three days and three nights the great punitive army saved them from poisonous vapours, from flaming arrows; from fierce axes. And at the dawn of the third day, with the rise of the sun and the sap alike, the pinelords threw up their hands and the roots of all that grew within leagues pulled with them and into the pits of the earths itself sank the Depths of Troggok, where it will never return from. No living thing will grow there now.

Our land is now Elmaroreen, in the name of the one who fought so dearly for its survival. Had he not perished in that final battle, I believe he would have been pleased. So, too, would he have been pleased with our continued vigilance: the Second Trogg War would have been much worse without memory of his warnings, and without the continued assistance of the allies he made so far from home. As long as that vigilance does not falter, and that friendship does not wane, his name and the people that live under it will never end.

***

More-than-adequattely studious, advanced formatting, correct (if smug) conclusions.

Composition is adequate if overwrought.

Heavily penalize for using ‘since the dawn of time.’ If we catch it early enough, she might not insist on using it in university. 70/100

***

Review of A History of the First Trogg War

By Fonrud Furlament, QD 1238

This book is very easy to read, but it doesn’t seem very accurate. I’m going to try and explain.

For one thing, it explains why we moved to Melepronnia, but it doesn’t mention that one of the reasons Safeharbour grew so fast is the Queen was exiling debtors. Lots of people came here because it was new and exciting, but the reason they wanted to go somewhere at all was because they were being sent away.

It also messes up when the troggs found us: they sent messages pretty soon after we started building houses outside of Safeharbour. I think Elmar met them too, but I’m not really sure. This matters a lot because this is one of the BIGGEST mistakes in the book: Lord Holbrom knew that hill was dangerous to build on because the troggs told him there was a ritual cyst-cavern beneath it. He built on it anyways, even when they told him he was putting too much weight on it and hollowing the stone out for cellars. The keystone was the heaviest part and that’s why it sank, and Elmar lived because the troggs pulled him out of the rocks and healed him. It was pretty lousy of him to go home and tell everyone to fight them after that, and it was even lousier when he told them to stuff up their ventilation shafts so they couldn’t breathe in their tunnels (why does the book say he blocked their doors? It says they were undermining us, they wouldn’t need doors for that!), and it was lousiest of all that we kept the birds so busy looking for new trogg airshafts day and night that they all died. My grandma says her favourite bird was the jay. I wish I could see a jay. I wish I had a favourite bird. I wish anyone in my class could have a favourite bird.

Finally, it gets the reasons behind the end of the war all wrong. The pinelords didn’t go to Elmar; he went to them. And nobody knows what he said to them, just that he made them a promise and only told a few friends what it was before he died. The pinelords don’t like the troggs, and they don’t like us, and they don’t like anything that isn’t made of plants, and I don’t know what Elmar promised them but I bet it wasn’t great because none of Elmar’s friends ever told anyone else what he promised either (I wonder if it was about the gild-trees? They all died before the Second Trogg War). I hope nobody else ever promises them anything because if they did that to Troggok I don’t know why they couldn’t do it to Safeharbour.

In the end I don’t think A History of the First Trogg War is a very good book. It doesn’t tell the truth in some very important places and it doesn’t say why it’s doing that. I don’t like it very much.

***

Adequate formatting.

Serviceable composition.

Absolutely intolerable levels of critical thought.

Find out what he’s been reading, where he got it, and who gave it to him, then purge immediately. Inform the local broadsheets that a trogg infiltrator did it. 0/100.

The bus was late. Engine trouble. That was okay, because I wasn’t due at work for a whole half hour after I’d planned to arrive – I like to be early. That wasn’t okay, because it meant I was spending longer in the bus stop with my nextdoor neighbour, making small talk.

“I like really little dogs,” he was telling me, making motions with his hands to show the really littleness of the dogs. “They’re convenient. You can keep ‘em in a bag or a satchel or a lunchbox and let ‘em out when you need ‘em. We need to make more dogs really little. I know what you’re thinking – if the dogs are little, what happens to the cats? Won’t they eat the dogs? And that’s where the brilliant solution comes in: we make the cats really little too. Like, kitten-sized. So then we have to make sure the mice get really little so they don’t eat the cats – you ever heard of the grasshopper mouse? – and I’ve got this plan for that, see, it’s oh there’s my ride see you later nice talking to you.”

I waited. His bus was not my bus, and had no trouble with its engine. And along with me waited my fellows in suffering; neighbours of our shared street if not the same building.

“It’s too cold out here,” one told me in a voice like chipped windchimes through her two mismatched gloves and two mismatched hats and two surprisingly well-coordinated coats and her fogged-over glasses and her tragically underinsulated boots. “You notice how it’s too cold out here this time of year? Something should be done about that. I keep telling them something should be done about that, and nothing’s ever done about that. Mark Twain said nobody ever does anything about the weather and that was well over a hundred years ago and STILL nobody’s done anything about it. Why hasn’t anyone done anything about it? I’m tired of being cold. Maybe I should set this bus stop on fire. Oh, there’s my ride. Goodbye.”

“I’m not in love with you,” begged the man sitting next to me into his cellphone. “No, wait – that’s a lie. I’m in love with someone else. Wait, no, that’s a lie too – I’m in love with nobody else, just myself. I love myself and that makes me jealous of being in love with you. I’m really upset about that and now I’m trying to cut myself off with you so I don’t cheat on myself with you, because I want me all to myself. Listen, you’ve got to listen to me: I don’t want this, it’s just that I want this. I can’t not stop myself from not stopping myself. I think you should write me off, forget me – maybe move in with yourself instead and feel better. Eat more fruit. Fruit is good. God I love fruit, not as much as you though, and not nearly as much as me. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to say that, I just said it because I wanted to drive you away from me. Baby, please, please, please, please never call back and call me again after work. Hello? Hello? Hello? Are you still there? I’ve got to go now, love you bunches but the size of the bunches is simultaneously very small and very large.”

There was a soft sound of worn rubber and metal and a cyclist pulled over next to our bus stop and made direct eye contact with me.

“You’re going in a bus soon,” he told me. I nodded.

“That’s a good decision. Buses are good for transit. Efficient, and the more they’re used the more efficient they become as total traffic on the road decreases. It’s an excellent form of transportation if you lack wings, which of course we all do, as we are all humans. Look at my human arms with opposable thumbs on their hands. Look at my human feet with their functional big toes and less functional other toes. Do you understand these relatable concepts I am expressing to you in this manner, through language, through a shared cultural context of communication?”

This was the first time since I’d woken up where I’d had to express myself to another human being, and I resented it. My nod was curt and joyless – not sharp, but robotic, like a dippy bird on the edge of a water glass.

“Joyous contact has been made,” said the cyclist. “I’ll be in touch shortly.” Then he folded up his bike, put it in his pocket, and flew away with a sound like a helicopter made of leather.

“I hate those guys,” said a seething mass of hair that looked like the guy who delivered the flyers to my mailbox. “They ride on bikes and act so cool just because they can transform matter into energy and use it to sustain their lives. They have epidermises and dermises! They contract muscles! I hate them! I hate them all! You know what I mean, right?”
I hated nodding again, but I knew not doing so would be a bigger risk.

“Right! Right! RIGHT! Right. I’m left now.”

He was left then.

“I don’t think that was right,” said the old guy who stood at the corner with a placard telling you where you could get a deal on pizza. “I think that was left. We used to have two lefts and two rights, back in my day, and in my grandpa’s day we have six each and five ups and two downs. I miss being young and have conflated that with my perception of reality, choosing to think of the universe as a story with my perspective featured as a starring role rather than one of trillions of products of it. I’m much better at this than the other two, aren’t I? You think I’m like you and I’m blending in flawlessly, aren’t I? It’s okay, you don’t want to nod three times before work. I’ll leave you to it.”

The bus should’ve been there. It wasn’t. Instead there was a woman in a big truck and a manic expression making totally inappropriate amounts of eye contact with me.

“I’m losing money,” she told me. Then she revved until her tires smoked and left.

I’m normal.

“Hey, get on,” said the bus driver.

I blinked for the first time in sixteen minutes. My face was numb. My hands were cold. I clawed loose my card, slapped it against the reader, and moved on.