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Date Posted: 10:50:54 04/14/10 Wed
Author: celtgirl
Subject: Here's something I've been working on lately- well, a few weeks back anyway. This is one of those things that comes up out of the creative cauldron I keep in the back of my head, that makes me think I ought to screw that pot lid down a little more tightly. :) It actually does fit into the overall story, and is one of those stories dictated to me by Jamie>>>>
In reply to: celtgirl 's message, "" on 15:38:42 04/13/10 Tue

copyright 2010 Cindy Brandner


I am the Crooked Man and I come by crooked ways, along the phantom roads of a country that is no more. I walk by night, under the moon, both dark and full. I have seen all the foibles and furies of man, his tempests and his tragedies. I have known what it is to lose all and gain it back, only to lose it again. I remember a time when my country was still in the mists, before history, when the white stag roamed in the forests and the wolves called from hilltop to hilltop.

I am the Crooked Man and I carry within my bones the shells of the seas and the dust of the heavens. In my blood are the waters that covered the land long ago, the ice that gouged the canyons and hills, the valleys and streams, the lakes and rivers.

I am the flicker in the corner of your eye, there and then gone, seen only in passing and then dismissed by your eyes and your head, though your backbone will know better. I stand at the dark crossroads- you know, you have seen me there, deny it though your daylight self will. I am the chill that quivers your flesh and makes you look behind on dark nights.

There is a world beneath the one you know. You have felt it, occasionally thought you had glimpsed it. The real world such as it is called, lies over this other one lightly. The other can be sensed, known, entered even, but most are blind to it, for it is safer that way. But the world is a labyrinth and one turn down the wrong path, one fork too many and people lose their way, disappear and are never heard from again. Or are they? For in the labyrinth there are ones who watch, ones who wait. The human world will have its remedies for such, the coat turned inside out, the cross upon the chest, the chanting of familiar prayers, but those things are as dust in the world that lies beneath.

At night our worlds merge, the old pathways open, and other ones walk abroad, sometimes making mischief, sometimes doing things far worse. Maybe you have heard them, maybe you have heard me- your name said quiet on a slipstream of shadow, so low you thought you were mistaken and shook your head, chiding yourself for daft notions, but walking faster, nonetheless. Be assured, it was my voice that touched your ears. I am the cartwheel that creaks in the night, when no coach can be seen to pass.

There are always, however, some that can see, that have had the ashes washed from their eyes and know the night creatures, even when they walk the day. They can see the edge of things, how one world overlaps another, how there are cracks in between, through which many things come and go. This is more curse than gift, for if you can see me, let me assure you, I will come to you.

Write my name with ink upon paper and you will scent the smoke of my arrival, as I writhe my way up out of the page. For I am the Crooked Man, and I come by crooked ways.

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