After a month of hard travel you finally make it home, having followed the emerging snowdrops and crocuses like lights on a dark path. Inside, you throw open the windows and peel the moss from your skin before firing the stove. The kettle is an old friend in your hands; the promise of tea, bliss.

After a month of hard travel you finally make it home, having followed the emerging snowdrops and crocuses like lights on a dark path. Inside, you throw open the windows and peel the moss from your skin before firing the stove. The kettle is an old friend in your hands; the promise of tea, bliss.

As I have a book to finish writing, I’ll see you folks in a month. Stay well 💚🦊

You bolt the shutters and tuck sheets around the furniture, humming softly, and reassure the cottage you’ll return as you always do, when the crocuses have bloomed. You’ll spend the next month visiting and treating the ancient dryads in the deep woods, too old and rootbound to travel anymore.

You sit with readied pencil at the base of the travelling birch that's wintered in your back yard and catch the curls of bark as they fall. Each is scratched with a word or two; travelling trees always shed the most stories right before they leave for the season.

You sit with readied pencil at the base of the travelling birch that's wintered in your back yard and catch the curls of bark as they fall. Each is scratched with a word or two; travelling trees always shed the most stories right before they leave for the season.

You don’t see it at first, amid the dogs leaping and playing, but then you catch a glimmer of something like dark starlight. Your eyes slide past it, so you have to look sidelong to see the rounded shoulders and coarse fur moving in and out of a black, glittering void. Sirius, no longer just a story

You walk alone into the deep woods, leaving fresh footprints in the snow, and breathe in the dark silence until you hear the way your heart echoes the rhythm of the iced over creek. You find a melted spot and dip your fingers in; the water forms a hand and gently grips you back.

You walk alone into the deep woods, leaving fresh footprints in the snow, and breathe in the dark silence until you hear the way your heart echoes the rhythm of the iced over creek. You find a melted spot and dip your fingers in; the water forms a hand and gently grips you back.

The shadows are drifting today, piling up in the corners and against the windowpanes. They swallow each other, growing larger, always hungry, until all you can hear is their low murmur throughout the cottage, darkness creeping like an eroding tide.

The shadows are drifting today, piling up in the corners and against the windowpanes. They swallow each other, growing larger, always hungry, until all you can hear is their low murmur throughout the cottage, darkness creeping like an eroding tide.

rain towards midnight filling up the flower pots a cup of cold tea

Fox-Bride of Hookland offers hope.

She finds a frayed story fragment in the morning, dropped from some errant dream that got caught in the brambles as it fled with the sunrise. She catches it gently in the pages of a thin notebook and tucks it safely into her pocket, warm and dark, so it can rest and heal.

You’ve got an enormous pot of bean soup simmering over your fire and a stockpile of scarves and sweaters in all sizes. You tie a bundle of rosemary to a wooden spoon and set it on your front step, an open invitation to anyone (or anything) in need. The first knock is from a faun, who brings her son.

You’ve got an enormous pot of bean soup simmering over your fire and a stockpile of scarves and sweaters in all sizes. You tie a bundle of rosemary to a wooden spoon and set it on your front step, an open invitation to anyone (or anything) in need. The first knock is from a faun, who brings her son.

The first time Charlie Chaplin spoke onscreen, he implored the people of the world to resist the rising tide of fascism. Nearly 90 years later, it remains a timely message.

You prick your fingers and walk the border of your property, squeezing out drops of blood to feed the veil trees, their feathered tops visible only in the half light. As your blood seeps into their roots, their branches wave gently like barnacle fans, filtering out untethered bad dreams and fear.

Her hidden gait, a song half-sung in footsteps as she walks the line of twilight, scouring bramble and branch for her spindle while her silent half lifts slivers of shadows and starlight and lost voices. It's only as she crosses her threshold that she coalesces, that her halves become a whole.

For the longest time it lingered, like the remnants of fog after sunrise, unseen but felt. And then a pen scratched the first words of its story onto a scrap of paper, and it felt the ink strokes like claws down its skin, and it knew the pain of being seen, and the sweet release that follows.

You feel the weight of ghosts today, and so you gather long, slim twigs snapped from the sapling grove and twist them into skeletons, adding old man’s beard lichen for hair, pine cone scales for fingernails, to give them something to stretch with, to dance with, if only for a few hours.

You feel the weight of ghosts today, and so you gather long, slim twigs snapped from the sapling grove and twist them into skeletons, adding old man’s beard lichen for hair, pine cone scales for fingernails, to give them something to stretch with, to dance with, if only for a few hours.

Treat people with kindness. If that doesn't work, grab them with your talons, devour them with your toothy maw, and digest them slowly over the next thousand years, and see if that helps.

She writes by the light of twin crescents, sending a faint prayer to the Moon-Eyed Fox that her questions will be answered as she completes the letter, as she waits for the ink to dry, as she waits for the words to migrate and rearrange themselves into revelations beneath the moonlight.

She writes by the light of twin crescents, sending a faint prayer to the Moon-Eyed Fox that her questions will be answered as she completes the letter, as she waits for the ink to dry, as she waits for the words to migrate and rearrange themselves into revelations beneath the moonlight.

The girl steps across broken barnacles, nicking a dozen small cuts into her soles that bleed gently as she makes her way to the centre of the island, feeding the land with a dozen others. The blood seeps in and vanishes, and the island shudders lightly, sated and still for another day.

The girl steps across broken barnacles, nicking a dozen small cuts into her soles that bleed gently as she makes her way to the centre of the island, feeding the land with a dozen others. The blood seeps in and vanishes, and the island shudders lightly, sated and still for another day.

After days of mist and fog, sunlight pierces through a mottled cloud cover, illuminating the sharp black points of gasping weed poking up through a tangle of last year’s growth. You grab your feather-lined gloves and breathe shallowly to clear the space, listening as its gasps turn to sighs.

frost spreads in fractals the shape of the old cedar on the ageless moon

It’s on cold, wintry nights that the windows especially rattle—quiet and constant, like a great cat’s glass purring—as the house dreams of when its bones sunk deep roots into the earth, and lay stone-slumbering deep underground.

After days of mist and fog, sunlight pierces through a mottled cloud cover, illuminating the sharp black points of gasping weed poking up through a tangle of last year’s growth. You grab your feather-lined gloves and breathe shallowly to clear the space, listening as its gasps turn to sighs.

Ghosts gather like cobwebs at the windows, waiting impatiently for the old man to snip the last threads holding him here. The moment he breaks free, every single gathered soul flares brilliant as a diamond sea in the summer sun, and they gather him into their midst, and leave in blinding joy.

❤️

On the last day of the calendar, you sweep out the cottage from top to bottom, catching cobwebs and lost dreams in the straw of your old hand-tied broom. And when the clock chimes midnight, you throw open your front door and welcome the new year as it swirls in, shimmering like stardust.

The first time you stumble, you assume it was a ridge in the old wooden floor. But the next time, you also feel the weight of a small, furry body against your shin, and you realize what’s happening. You lay a thick blanket by the wood stove, stoke the fire hot, and soon you hear a ghostly purring.

The first time you stumble, you assume it was a ridge in the old wooden floor. But the next time, you also feel the weight of a small, furry body against your shin, and you realize what’s happening. You lay a thick blanket by the wood stove, stoke the fire hot, and soon you hear a ghostly purring.

While putting away your Yule decorations, you find an old box of hats in the attic, and spend a pleasant few hours trying them on and reliving the holiday memories of their previous owners. Your favourite is a boxy red wool cap that fills you with the red-cheeked exhilaration of a snowball fight.

It echoes like a heartbeat from beneath a floorboard—clack-clack, clack-clack—the keys hitting a paperless ribbon, exhaling ink dust with every unfulfilled sentence. You don’t know what story it keeps trying to tell, but you’ve begun to dream of ice and old bones, and wake with twitching fingers.

You leave at dusk, clutching silver shears and a birch spindle, and follow the river’s edge to a gaping cave. Deep within is a nest of hibernating midnight spiders, whose black, shimmering silk will bind any spectral wound. You tie a scarf around your mouth to hide your breath, and creep inside.

You leave at dusk, clutching silver shears and a birch spindle, and follow the river’s edge to a gaping cave. Deep within is a nest of hibernating midnight spiders, whose black, shimmering silk will bind any spectral wound. You tie a scarf around your mouth to hide your breath, and creep inside.

It echoes like a heartbeat from beneath a floorboard—clack-clack, clack-clack—the keys hitting a paperless ribbon, exhaling ink dust with every unfulfilled sentence. You don’t know what story it keeps trying to tell, but you’ve begun to dream of ice and old bones, and wake with twitching fingers.

Feathers fall like snow this morning—some drifting like seed pods, some arrowing deeply into the ground—as birds of every kind shed the year’s moments they’ve held close to their bodies. Escaped prey, strong nests, stolen fledglings, glorious sunrise flights. You gather a handful, pay your respects.

Of all the gifts you received, the best and most inexplicable is the two-shelf bookcase that appeared in the snow out back after sundown. Rough-grained and heavy, it somehow keeps making room for your many (many) books, and twice now you’ve found a volume you’re certain you never owned.

Of all the gifts you received, the best and most inexplicable is the two-shelf bookcase that appeared in the snow out back after sundown. Rough-grained and heavy, it somehow keeps making room for your many (many) books, and twice now you’ve found a volume you’re certain you never owned.

The sizzle of a slow-fire-roasted goose fills your home with a smell so intoxicating it nearly makes you dizzy. Friends arrive with a song, bringing covered dishes of sage stuffing, brown sugar carrots, crusty bread. You pour glass after glass of fizzing honey mead, surrounded by laughter and thanks

Christmas day Chickadee. 🎄✨

The sizzle of a slow-fire-roasted goose fills your home with a smell so intoxicating it nearly makes you dizzy. Friends arrive with a song, bringing covered dishes of sage stuffing, brown sugar carrots, crusty bread. You pour glass after glass of fizzing honey mead, surrounded by laughter and thanks

sharper in the cold the green scent under the firs the horns of the moon

Things to celebrate this holiday season: - festive cheeses - time traveling ghosts - weird relatives - potatoes - weird relatives who like potatoes - your normal feeling of dark dread is now illuminated by twinkling lights

Father Christmas rarely braves this part of the woods, but you leave out honeyed cream and squares of homemade brownies for the troupe of acorn-booted small folk who often come in his stead. Last year they broke your gate, but filled your pantry with cheeses. A worthwhile trade, in your opinion.