The Tarot Cards Were Right Again, I See

Tentatively, his name is Smudge. If I’m being honest, it may end up being Alastair Smudge. He’s the current piece I’m working on. Jury’s still out on whether or not he’s going to get some color, as well, or if I’ll keep him straight graphite and charcoal. We’ll see how it goes.

So, looks like WP here made some changes to how the site plans go and failed to notify folks about it, and thus I have to start making some changes, as well. I am *deeply* unhappy about this. The short version is that last year they went from having multiple tiers of site plans to just two….basically free and Pro, and that was supposed to be the end of it. Yeah, not sure when, but they apparently decided that they didn’t really mean it, and got rid of the Pro and separated everything back out again. But hey! Pro will be grandfathered and users don’t have to upgrade to keep their ENTIRE SITE FUNCTIONALITY.

Now I’m in a position where I have three options:

1.) choose to believe them about that and keep on as I am, risking logging in one day to find that my entire UI is broken and my store is gone,

2.) choose not to believe them and upgrade to the tier where I’ll definitely get to keep my store, and go from paying $180/yr to $540/yr,

3.) assume that they’re full of shit, ditch the store entirely, and just use ko-fi’s store option in conjunction with reminding people that email is a thing that exists and they can actually, I don’t know, talk to the artist if they see something that they want.

Not gonna lie, I’m leaning heavily toward Door #3. I’m already looking at offline sales options, especially since my local area has started doing Interesting Things regarding working with local artists, and seriously looking into how the hell to get hold of a small camper that I can travel in for further afield options.

The fact that social media is currently a shitshow across the board and the AI crap is causing a million problems is also a factor.

So, this week’s plan is to finish up Mr. Alastair Smudge and get him into his frame, print out copies of all of the stories I have on Google Drive, back up everything, overhaul the site, and rearrange everything again. If I’m lucky, I might even get to start a second piece of art this week, in between redoing the same technical work I’ve already redone a dozen times in the last 3 years because hosting sites can’t stop fucking shit up every few months.

This was not, by the way, the original plan for the week. That was going to be working on Alastair and his friends, designing a physical newsletter for Auntie Yaga’s Home For Wayward Monsters, and possibly even set up a dedicated site for that project. That last bit is how I found out about WPs plan changes, as I was looking at the best way to handle the logistics of running it separately.

Hilariously, back when I was dealing with shingles, I did a tarot reading about business stuff and the cards that showed up were the 7 of Potions and Death. Basically, a foundational shift is coming, time to dream big or go home. An earlier reading had more or less said “Your dreams are still possible, you just have to believe in them again”.

Once upon a time, I dreamed of Newford. It got way off track and I got lost for a long time, but I guess it’s time to start walking toward that dream again.

Sponsor-A-Monster?

Auntie Yaga’s Home For Wayward Monsters

Sponsor-A-Monster?

Yaga turned on the tv and flopped backwards onto the reclining chair with a groan.  She’d been staring at bank and budget spreadsheets for hours, and desperately needed to turn her brain off for a bit.

She’d bought the old farmhouse at auction for practically pennies.  It had been empty for a couple of years after the previous owner passed away, and had needed a fair amount of repairs to make it livable again.  It had taken months to fix all of the things that had fallen to entropy and reclaim it from the spiders, even with Glatis and a couple of other Lurks helping, but eventually it had been turned into a habitable place again.  Unfortunately she’d spent the majority of her savings doing so, and recouping from it was taking longer than she’d hoped, no matter how frugal she was. Due to her rather unique circumstances it was almost impossible to hold down a “normal” job (monsters were not very good at understanding that they couldn’t just show up whenever they wanted), and after the Broom Closet Incident, it had become clear that she had to figure out a non-traditional path of acquiring a paycheck.  Sadly, freelance gigs for a folklorist who specialized in childhood monster lore and whose availability was erratic at best were hard to come by and didn’t pay as well as one might wish, which brought her to her nearly empty bank account.  She had to find a way to bring in more money on a reliable basis, or else she and the crew would be living in a camper.  Again.

A commercial, overflowing with images of tragic puppies and kittens came onto the tv screen, accompanied by a woman singing mournfully about salvation and angels, begging for people to rescue these poor, pitiful animals.

“Hah!  Easy for you.  Your strays are cute and cuddly and unlikely to give someone screaming nightmares or attempt to eat your houseguests!” she grumbled at the television.

“To be fair, that only happened the one time, and it was an honest mistake,” said a soft, hollow-sounding voice from the dark hallway.

“It was twice, and last I heard, great-aunt Cecilia is still in therapy for it,” she replied.

Glatis chuckled, a low, guttural sound that would have been deeply unnerving if it wasn’t so familiar, as he came into the room.  His shadow-black form made no sound as he crossed the ancient floorboards, despite being more than 6 feet tall, with claws that would intimidate a bear.  Glatis was a Lurk and had been her dearest friend since elementary school, following a rather unorthodox deal she had offered him regarding her status as a menu option.  He was also the reason she lived amicably with a houseful of Humanity’s childhood nightmares.

“Why are you snarking at the television?” he asked as he settled himself on the couch nearby.

Yaga groaned and dropped her head against the back of the chair.

“I need to figure out how to reliably come up with several hundred more dollars a month, and fast,” she replied.  “It’s a lot more expensive to run a house and several acres of land then the camper was.  At this rate, I’m going to have to hold a bake sale to keep the electricity on.”

“What is a bake sale, and would it help?” came a soft whisper from the shadows behind her.  One of the other Lurks, who called herself Marsalette, was tucked in the corner.  She’d joined them only a few months before, and was still learning about the human world.

“It’s where humans bake cookies and things and sell them for far less than the amount of work they put in, to fund charity things.  Sadly, it wouldn’t really, amusing as it would be to watch you lot try to be tragically adorable at the humans to convince them to buy lemon squares”, Yaga replied.  “You can come out and sit with us, you know.  It’s okay.”

“I know.  I’m comfortable here, though.  This house has nice shadows.”

Yaga shrugged amiably.  The three sat in comfortable silence for a while, watching the tv.  The pet adoption commercial played again in the rotation.  Glatis tapped a claw slowly on the wooden end table his arm rested on, thinking.

“There might be something to that idea,” he said, after a moment.

Yaga burst out laughing.  “You can’t be serious!  Leaving aside the fact that you lot aren’t exactly cute and fluffy by human standards, a number of you are legitimately some of our main predators!  There’s no way that I could talk people into giving me money to let you around their children.”

Glatis grinned broadly, the blue light from tv glittering on wickedly sharp teeth.  “I didn’t eat you when you were small.”
“Only because you couldn’t catch me,” she replied, sticking her tongue at him.  “So, what is this idea of yours?”

“While actual adoption wouldn’t work, aren’t there human organizations that offer symbolic adoptions and sponsorship programs in exchange for things like certificates, tote bags, and that sort of thing for wild animals?”

Yaga chewed on her thumbnail, thinking.  There were some major differences and practical concerns she could think of right off the bat. 

“There are, but doing something like that would require exposing the fact that you lot are, in fact, real and not just figments of overactive juvenile imaginations.  I don’t know that any of us are really up for that, do you?”

“Humans have a remarkable ability to ignore anything that doesn’t fit with their assumptions of how the world really is.  Most would assume you were simply creating some kind of interactive artwork and look no further. “

“Good point.”

She looked back at the tv, but wasn’t really paying attention to it anymore, still considering the idea.  Oddly enough, it did have merit, and Glatis was right that humans don’t like to acknowledge that the world is vastly weirder than they insist it should be.  A number of crowdsourcing and support options had sprung up online in recent years, and if she started small she could probably manage to come up with a cute design to put on tote bags and maybe stickers.  Maybe a monthly newsletter with stories about the general goings-on around the farmhouse?  She wondered if she could convince them to make little ornaments or something that could be periodically auctioned off?  She should get a notebook and start making a list of ideas….

She paused in her musing and looked over to see Glatis watching her curiously.
“It might not be a bake sale, but if we can pull this off,  we may be able to save the house  and not have to crowd back into the camper again, after all.  What do you all think about the name ‘Auntie Yaga’s Home for Wayward Monsters’…?”

(If you liked what you just read, please feel free to toss a few coins at your mostly friendly resident word-witch!)

The Thing In The Attic

Auntie Yaga’s Home For Wayward Monsters

The Thing In The Attic

There was a polite tapping on the office door frame and a small, violently yellow and mauve colored form oozed into the room.  Auntie Yaga looked up from the paperwork she’d been avoiding dealing with, glad for the interruption.

“Susan!  Your timing is excellent,” she said, smiling.  “What can I help you with?”

Susan was the self-appointed receptionist at Auntie Yaga’s Home for Wayward Monsters.  Visitors weren’t allowed without appointments, and Auntie Yaga hated talking on the phone, so Susan had taken on the job of screening and handling the majority of incoming calls.

“We just received a phone call from a couple who have run into a problem with their home renovation.  The woman, Jeannie Harrigan, said that Marika told them to contact us, as it’s likely more up our alley then hers” Susan said, her voice a warm, honeyed alto, entirely at odds with the fact that her appearance was an amorphous, jelly-like blob with a large number of eyes and pseudo-tentacles.  (Some of her relatives had once terrorized Lovecraft himself, a fact which she was rightly proud of.)

Marika was a friend of Yaga’s.  She was a professional spiritworker who specialized in poltergeist haunts, which explained why she’d been called for issues with a renovation.  Poltergeists are very territorial and extremely averse to changes in their homes, and often react aggressively to major upheavals.  The nature of both of their career paths led them to periodically send prospective clients to one another.

“Did she say what the issue was, by any chance?”  

“There’s something in the attic that’s been throwing things and stomping around all night, and it’s making it next to impossible for the family to get any rest.  They’ve ruled out raccoons or other wildlife, and Marika ruled out poltergeist or demons, but said that it was possibly some kind of lurk and to contact you.”

“Alright. Please call her back and set up an appointment.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Late the following morning, Auntie Yaga arrived at the Harrigan home.  It was an old Victorian that had clearly seen better days.  It wasn’t unlivable, but it had obviously not been well-cared for over the years and had probably been sitting unoccupied for quite some time.  Just as clear, though, were the telltale signs of restoration work being done to return it to its former glory.  The age and structure explained why they’d called a spiritworker when wildlife had been ruled out.  Yaga was pleased that they’d not automatically assumed ghosts first, which was less common than one would think.  She knocked on the door, which was answered by a younger man in his early 30s.

“You must be Tom,” she said, nodding her head, “I’m Auntie Yaga.  My assistant spoke with you yesterday.”

“I am,” he confirmed, nodding back.  “Please come in. Jeannie’s in the back.”

Tom led her through several rooms in various stages of repair to the back of the house where a woman of similar age was rolling painter’s tape around a window.  Introductions and general niceties were exchanged, and they got down to business.

They’d bought the house a few months earlier for a ridiculously low price, both due to its state of disrepair and the local rumors that it was haunted.  Eager to begin the restoration, they’d moved in and got started almost immediately after signing the paperwork.  

The first few weeks had been quiet, but then they had started hearing noises, like someone banging on the walls or dragging heavy furniture across the floors, but investigation turned up nothing.  First they called in a plumber, thinking that maybe there were problems with pipes, but everything was in order.  They tested for things like carbon monoxide, black mold, and other hallucinogenic elements, all of which had come up negative.  Next, they thought maybe a family of raccoons had taken up residence in the attic and contacted the local wildlife control, but turned up nothing.  The house was surprisingly free of rodents, which was odd given how long it had sat empty, but they’d just been glad to not have to call an exterminator on top of everything else.

Nothing explained the ongoing banging and dragging noises.  So, at their wits’ end, they thought maybe the rumors about a haunting had something to them after all, and contacted Marika, who came out to check for ghosts or poltergeists, but even that turned up nothing.  That was when she told them that they might have a monster on their hands, and had instructed them to call Auntie Yaga at the Home.  They admitted being highly skeptical of the entire idea of monsters, but nothing else had turned up answers.  They were desperate and willing to explore all possibilities.

Yaga listened to them, asking a few questions here and there as they told their story and when they were done asked to be shown to the attic.  Jeannie led her upstairs, while Tom took over taping the window frames.  When they got to the door, she asked that she be allowed to go up alone, to see what she could find out.  Jeannie consented, visibly relieved, and so she continued up the stairs.

 *  *   *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The attic was in better shape than she’d expected, given the general disrepair of the rest of the house.  It had a high ceiling with the original beams still strong and solid, and most of the floorboards were still intact.  There were a number of storage trunks, boxes, and pieces of old furniture scattered around left by former residents, but surprisingly little dust and cobwebs.  Auntie Yaga closed her eyes and listened carefully.  After a moment or two, she smiled, opened her eyes, and said “I know you’re in the corner behind that fainting couch, my friend.  You can come out.  It’s alright. “

There was no response, but she could hear the soft sound of something roughly human sized breathing in the shadow.  There was a faint rattling rasp to it that concerned her a little, but she’d be able to deal with that soon enough.  For now, she sat down on top of an old steam trunk and started talking about the Home for Wayward Monsters that she ran, along with her childhood friend and former Monster-Under-The-Bed, Glatis (named for the Bête Glatisant, or Questing Beast, of Arthurian Legend), and how they helped humans and monsters learn to live with one another.  After a little while, she heard the sound of something moving and a shaking, slightly-hollow voice whispered “They’re destroying my house.  Can you make them stop and go away?”

She turned to look at the speaker.  He was roughly 6 feet tall, but quite hunched over and painfully thin, even for a shadow-lurk.  He was also very, very old and frail.  It was entirely possible that he’d been living in the house for several generations.  She sighed, and mentally swore at the world for the thousandth time.

“Sadly, I can’t.  It’s their house now, and they don’t want to leave”, she replied, gently.

The elderly shadow-lurk bowed his head, and sat down on the fainting couch, his slight form barely moving the dust.

“They aren’t destroying the house, you know.  They’re trying to fix it.  Other than you, it’s been empty for a very long time.”

He huffed.  “I’ve been here since this house was built in 1842.  It’s my house more than it is theirs.”

“I know, but you and I both know that human laws don’t recognize that.”

He huffed again, but nodded in agreement.  She sighed regretfully.  He was so old, and had been here so long.  She had to find a way to either convince him and the homeowners to co-exist, or to convince him to move to the Home with her and the others. He was just too old to do anything about the humans in his territory anymore, and they both knew it.

He was silent for several moments.  She waited, patiently.  After a time, he spoke again.

“I don’t want to leave.  This is my home, but I’ve been around long enough to know how the human world works, and I’m too old to fight it.  If you think you can convince them to let me stay, I will stop trying to drive them out.  I’ll even make sure that they never have any problems with wildlife or trespassers, to the best of my ability” he said, then added in a conspiratorial whisper “I’m too old to be a threat to anyone, anymore, but don’t tell them I said that.”

She smiled.  “I won’t.  Let me go talk to them and see what I can work out.  I’ll be back in a little bit.”

With that, she went back downstairs to tell the Harrigans what she had found and see what they would decide to do.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

About an hour later, she made her way back up the stairs to the attic, this time with Jeannie and Tom following somewhat nervously behind.  They’d agreed to meet the elderly shadow-lurk and were willing to let him continue to live in the house for the rest of his days, with some stipulations.  In short order, an arrangement that was amenable to both the Harrigans and Eliphalet was settled on, and Auntie Yaga promised that she would check up on them all regularly as they got settled in their new lives together.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Later that night, back at the Home For Wayward Monsters, as she wrote up her report and documentation for the day’s newest adopted family, she smiled in satisfaction.  In addition to adopting Eliphalet as a member of their own family, the Harrigans had offered to have him help with the restoration plans to include more shadowed areas for him to live comfortably in. She had a feeling they were going to get along well.  

Hers was an odd life, to be sure, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Making Friends With Monsters: An Afternoon With Auntie Yaga

(At long last, the first installment of “Auntie Yaga’s Home For Wayward Monsters” is completed and ready to be shared.  I think I even tracked down all of the typoes, which of course means there are egregious ones hiding in plain site.  I hope you like it!)

A magazine page. At the top, a photo of a middle-aged woman with greying dark hair, sitting on a mildly worn clawfoot couch. She is somewhat heavy-set, dressed in a long batik-printed skirt and lightweight sage colored sweater, and is looking down at the floor toward her left boot.  The room is a typical old New England farmhouse; exposed beams and scuffed wooden floor covered with a large, multi-colored braided rug, modern pellet stove set into the old brick fireplace, floral print curtains that offset the faded blue-grey painted walls.  It’s a comfortable looking room, at first glance.

The lighting is somewhat dim, and the longer you look, the more you begin to notice that things aren’t quite what you initially thought.  The far corner beside the built-in bookcase has oddly distorted shadows, and something in the back of your mind nervously whispers that it is occupied, though you can see nothing definable.  The points of light on the evening-darkened window panes that you had dismissed as lamplight reflections look unnervingly like eyes looking back at you the more you look at them.  Your gaze is drawn back to the woman on the couch, or rather, to the shadows beneath it.

They are too thick for the amount of light in the room and as you try to see into them the darkness begins to resolve into something that sends a chill down your spine.  Deep in the shadow, you can just make out a pair of eyes shining a deep red and, worse, the faint glitter of too many barely concealed needle-sharp teeth.  An unnaturally long-fingered hand the color of lampblack and ending in stiletto-like claws is reaching out from underneath that couch and rests lightly on the woman’s foot and ankle, at which she is smiling fondly.  The scene is, overall, a blend of homey tranquility and deeply unsettling shadows in perfect balance with one another.  Something about it makes you sure that there are no camera or clever editing tricks involved.

Below the photo, in bold, black font, the headline reads:

Making Friends With Monsters: An Afternoon With Auntie Yaga, The Woman Behind The World’s Only Monster Outreach Program.written by R. Morganson

{Disclaimer: I’ll be straight; when I first set out to do this interview, I honestly thought that the whole thing was some kind of immersive performance art or something along those lines.  I was not expecting to find it to be exactly what it was presented as being. ~RM}

It was late in the September afternoon when I arrived at the entrance to Auntie Yaga’s Home For Wayward Monsters.  I had more than half expected it would be a grand and spooky Victorian mansion, perhaps with an ominous wrought iron gate covered in a bat motif, so it was  pleasant surprise to find a perfectly ordinary New England farmhouse, complete with a picturesque old horse pond in the large front yard and fenced around with neatly maintained fieldstone walls.  There was no gate at all, in fact, just a modest sign proclaiming the name of the organization, beneath which were hung two smaller signs.  The first stated that visitors are welcome by appointment only, the second that one should “Beware of Graswolves”.  The house itself was set back roughly an acre from the road, behind which the land slopes down toward the neighboring conservation forest.

There was a middle-aged woman sitting on a wooden patio chair on the wrap-around porch as I pulled up in front of the white and black-trimmed house.  Like the house, she looked nothing like my expectations. I was beginning to get the feeling that this was something I should get used to.  As I got out of my car, she came down the wide porch steps to meet me, and I got my first full look at the woman known as Auntie Yaga.

She’s about average height and looks to be in her mid-40s, with grey-green eyes and long grey-streaked dark hair that she was wearing pulled back into a simple braid.  She was dressed simply in an ankle length batik-printed skirt, lightweight sage green sweater, and laced-up brown boots.  What little jewelry she wore was equally simple.

“Not what you were picturing, huh” she said by way of greeting.  Sheepishly, I acknowledged that this was true.  She laughed, a warm, friendly sound.  “Don’t worry.  Almost everyone has the same thought the first time they come here.  It’s partly intentional” she explained.  “Since the majority of our residents tend to be a bit…intimidating…Glatis and I decided that it was best to make the rest of surroundings as comfortable and calming as we could.”

“Glatis is the co-founder, right?”  I asked as we walked up the stairs.

“He is.  He’s what we refer to as a Lurk.  He was originally the not-so-proverbial monster under the bed when I was young, but I got tired of being on the menu one day and decided to try and make friends with him.  It surprised him so much that it actually worked.  A couple of decades later, here we are, running a business together!” she laughed.

We were now at the front door, but instead of opening it, she stopped and her demeanor became very serious.

“Before I open this door, I need to ask you to be sure that you are okay with this interview being done the way you requested when we spoke on the phone.  If you aren’t, that’s fine, and we can stay out here on the porch, or we can reschedule and meet someplace that you feel more comfortable.  There’s no shame or judgment if you’ve changed your mind and would prefer not to.”

I told her that I was fine. (I was sure this was performance art, and I live for haunted houses at Halloween and all that, and so was eager to see what would happen when we got inside.  I was wildly incorrect in my assumptions.)  She looked at me appraisingly, with a hint of amusement, for a moment, then shrugged, opened the door, and went in.

How to describe that first moment inside the house?  Visually it is pure, cozy, New England charm; all wood accenting and warm, comfortable looking furnishings, the faint smell of freshly baked bread and dried lavender scenting the air.  It is the epitome of welcoming tranquility, and I was completely unprepared for the oppressive and almost overwhelming sense that something very, very dangerous was watching me from far too close by as soon as the door closed behind me.  Something was breathing, a soft, rasping sound that I hadn’t heard since childhood and had long-since forgotten, and I froze in panic.  I could feel my chest tightening as I instinctively started to hold my breath so as not to let the thing know I was there.  As I did so, I saw the large, misshapen figures in the too-solid shadows of the hallway and behind the doors.  A flicker of motion in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and as my eyes darted to look at it, an all-too-real tail of black fog slithered past the doorway of a room to my right. I felt my hands and feet flash cold with fear and go numb.  Every instinct was telling me to run screaming, and I started to wonder if I had made a terrible mistake in coming to this house alone.  I felt like I was a little kid again, afraid of the shadows in the closet and begging my parents to leave the light on because Something Was In There.

Just when I thought I couldn’t control the urge to run, I heard Auntie Yaga say to no one that I could see “That’s enough, I think. I don’t think he’s quite as ready to see you all fully as he thought he was, and we do want him to actually like us, after all.  Thank you.”

Immediately, the shadowed figures receded, the feeling of being watched faded to almost, but not quite, nothing, and I was left feeling more than a little shaky.  It had only been seconds, but I felt like I had just run a marathon, and was exhausted.

“Looks like you’re a bit less prepared than you thought you’d be,” she said, handing me a warm mug of tea.  “Chamomile and mint, with a little bit of meadowfoam honey.  It tastes like marshmallows, a bit, and it’ll help your nerves.”  I’m not ashamed to admit that I was deeply grateful for that tea and swallowed almost half of it in one go.  She was right, it tasted like apples and marshmallows, and I felt better for its sweetness.

“What was that?” I asked, my voice only shaking a little as I shoved the voice that was still gibbering about the shapes in the shadows into the back of my mind.  It could freak out later. Right now, I had an interview to conduct.

“That, my dear, was a couple of million years of evolution informing you that several large predators that you couldn’t see or hear were standing near you, staring, reminding you that you are not the apex predator civilization has told you you are.  Congratulations!  You have a healthy survival instinct!  Surprising, given your decision to go into journalism”, she replied, her tone light and teasing on that last part.

Despite myself I laughed at that and, in doing so, felt almost normal again.

“Now, if you’re feeling better, shall we move out of the entryway and into the living room where the chairs are much more comfortable, and get to this interview you came here after?”

I followed her through a doorway into the next room, and sat in the chair she indicated.  I glanced around nervously, expecting more too-solid shadows, but it was a perfectly pleasant, unoccupied room, as far as I could tell.  I took out my recorder, took a deep breath and another sip of tea, and started recording.

So, the monsters under the bed are, in fact, real and your business partner is actually one of them.  Isn’t this dangerous?”

That’s not really the question you wanted to ask, is it?  No, now that you’ve discovered that this isn’t the Halloween Haunted House attraction that you assumed it was, nor am I just some crazy lady in the woods making up wild stories for attention, what you really want to know is if this is all a set-up for some horror movie-esque deal where I turn out to be a villain who unleashes a horde of mindless, ravenous beasts on the world.

The answer is yes, it is dangerous, but no more so than it is for folks who work with, say, wolves or sharks.  They’re monsters, true, but no, they are not mindless, and we have no plans to terrorize small towns in the night.  Our goal is simply to facilitate a better understanding between our various species for those who wish to learn other ways to coexist.

“My apologies.  I made assumptions I shouldn’t have, and that was rude.  So, how does this work? How did you decide to start a boarding house and outreach program for the monsters of childhood?”

In order to answer that, you need to know a few things;  First, the world really is much larger and a whole lot weirder than our “civilized” society has conditioned us to believe it is.  Yes, monsters are real, and yes, they do hunt us and eat us, if they can catch us.  Second, they are just as intelligent as you or I.  They are not the mindless beasts that horror movies have led us to believe them to be.  Third, that most of the types of monsters who come here don’t typically eat humans.  It’s not unheard of, mind you, but it’s not as common as people think.  What they do eat, is fear.  This is important to know because I was one of those kids who was afraid of pretty much everything in existence.  Don’t laugh!  I’m not kidding.  Scooby-do cartoons were too scary and gave me nightmares.  It was ridiculous.

As a result, I had the dubious honor of attracting more than one monster to the feast, as it were.  Glatis, who took up residence under my bed, and another Lurk who generally hung out in the closet or behind the doors, primarily, but I’d also regularly encounter others outside of our house.  It was exhausting.  Eventually, though, I got mad about it, and informed Glatis that I wanted to make a deal with him.  I’d done the math, and decided that he lived closer, thus the biggest threat, and so the one that I needed to win over to my cause.  He agreed to my offer.  I think he was so caught off guard that he agreed out of confusion, but he’ll never admit it.  After a while, he decided I was sort of adorable and ended up becoming my guardian monster.  Usually they move on once we start believing the adults that there’s nothing in the dark to be afraid of, since we’re no longer good food sources, but by that point we’d gotten attached to one another and he decided to stay around.

“You said that his kind of monster eats fear.  If you weren’t afraid of him, dare I ask what he was doing about meals?”

Who was he feeding off of, you mean?  Children can be cruel by nature, and a strange, solitary girl who claims to be friends with monsters has no shortage of bullies, nor does she see a problem with having those bullies learn to be afraid to torment her.  It’s a bit brutal, but let’s face it, kids are feral little creatures before we get civilization trained into us and child culture is a fascinating study in human development. Now? There’s still no shortage of terrible people who like to harm others, and fear is fear.

Before you ask, no, they were not feeding on you a few minutes ago.  The ones you encountered are all long-term residents of the Home, and the rules of hospitality are that friends are not food, after all.

“I have nieces and nephews.  I can see your point about little kids and the casual cruelty. Also, I appreciate not being on the lunch menu!  You had originally started the outreach program during college.  How did that happen?”

By accident, really.  It turns out that college campuses have an astonishing number of scared people on them, and so Lurks and other types of monsters are attracted to them.  It also turns out that folklore majors are less likely to freak out than most when they stumble across you outside in your bunny slippers, in the middle of the night, explaining to a monster why it needs to leave your roommate alone, regardless of how her anxiety disorder made her the equivalent of a walking plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.  The Lurk was curious about the human who was under the protection of one of her kind and not afraid, and the other student was desperate to know more about the monsters, and somehow I found myself explaining each of them to the other, and me, and Glatis (who was also standing there, rolling his eyes), at 3 in the morning on the lawn.  It ended up not being the last time.

“Why folklore majors?”

Most already want folklore and fairy tales to be true, so it’s exciting when reality obliges and presents you with an honest-to-Grimm monster straight out of childhood nightmares.  Instinct makes you react like, well, much like you did, but they’re more likely to have their innate curiosity override it significantly faster than other people.

“What does a typical day look like here? I’m guessing it looks quite a bit different than it does elsewhere.”

To an extent, it’s not as different from a normal house as you would think. It starts a bit later than most, due to the majority of the residents being nocturnal, but that’s about it.  Get up, have coffee, take the Runalongs out for their daily run (there’s an old highway nearby that doesn’t get used much since the new one was put in a few decades back that’s good to take them down without causing accidents).  Come back, deal with any paperwork that needs attention, and the rest is mostly spent being available for the residents or host families, and dealing with any issues that may come up.

“Host families?”

Humans who wish to sponsor a resident who is interested in staying with other human families in a guardianship capacity.  Glatis and I accidentally became a kind of ambassadorial template for human/monster interactions spanning both communities.  There have always been a small percentage of monsters who are more inclined to view humans as something other than a mere food source, as well as humans whose fear of monsters is tempered by their curiosity about them.  We provide a way for both groups to interact with one another in a way that’s safe for each of them.  Most of the time, it’s a temporary arrangement, and our residents return here before going to stay with other families or exploring other options on engaging with humans.  It’s also not unheard of for a monster and a family to adopt one another, and the monster takes on the role of generational guardianship.  There are issues with integration, from time to time, but we have a fairly rigorous vetting process to minimize the chances of these occurring.

“One last question before we finish.   On the way in, the sign says “Beware of Graswolves”.  What is a “graswolf”?”

Graswolves are a subspecies of feldgeister.  They originated in central Europe, and live and hunt in fields with tall grass. Their cousins, kornwolves, are the real reason why people are afraid of cornfields, despite what a number of people on the Internet think.  There’s a small pack that lives on the property that ensures we don’t get trespassers. They’re smart enough to differentiate between guests, curiosity seekers, and actual threats, so they make an excellent security system.

                                                                               * * * * * * * * * *

After we wrapped up the formal part of the interview, Auntie Yaga allowed me to investigate the entry hall for theatrical tricks to try and explain what had happened when I had first arrived, and I found nothing.  I’d been too shaken up to remember to do it, initially, but as I could see the hall from where I’d sat, it was clear that no one could have tampered with the room during the interview without being seen.  Once I completed my search, I had the amazing opportunity to actually meet the co-founder, Glatis, and take photos with the residents that I had encountered on my arrival.  This second encounter was much easier on the second introduction, as I was more prepared and also allowed the introduction to follow the standard protocols, which I had originally, in my hubris, insisted be waived.

I could write entire novels about the rest of my experiences at Auntie Yaga’s Home For Wayward Monsters, but those are tales for another day.  If you have the opportunity to do so, however, I highly recommend taking the chance to meet them, and perhaps even sponsor a resident.

A Charmingly Monstrous New Year

Happy 2021!  Welcome to Not Last Fucking Year at last!  Go us, we made it!  I’d meant to write yesterday, but I got lost in a book that one of my wonderful friends bought for me on writing monsters, and the contemplation of the different flavors of fear (and yes, I do mean flavors and not in a poetic way) because I’ve been noodling at “Auntie Yaga’s Home For Wayward Monsters” a lot lately, and have childhood monsters on the brain and I maybe lost track of time a little bit….

What is “Auntie Yaga’s”?  I know I’ve mentioned it before, and it’s something I’ve been playing with in various formats over the years to try and figure out just what the answer to that *is*.  It seems to be resolving itself into a story form at last, so we’re running with that to see where it goes.  

What’s the general concept of this story?  In short, it’s the story of a woman and her companion, originally the “Monster Under The Bed” from her childhood, running a sort of boarding/halfway house/outreach program for other “childhood monsters” who are trying to distance themselves from the stereotypes associated with their assorted species.

What do I mean by childhood monsters? I mean things like the monster under the bed, the monster in the closet, the thing that lives under the basement stairs, that sort of thing.  (IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I VERY MUCH ABSOLUTELY DO NOT mean the horrible humans that do terrible things to children in the real world.  Like, seriously, at all.  I highlight this because I’ve had way too many people think that’s what I mean, and just…no.  I don’t deal with writing trauma. I write dark whimsy, and it genuinely pisses me off when people decide that’s what I mean and start to unload their childhood trauma on me because what the fuck. Anyway.  /rant.)  More Pixar, less Stephen King.

That’s not to say that my monsters are cute and fluffy and harmless.  They really are based on that shadowy thing that lies in wait in the blackness under the bed at night, with it’s long, sharp claws and needle-like teeth, drooling wetly on the floor, waiting for you to slide a foot out from under the blanket and over the edge of the bed, so that it can grab your ankle and pull you under to devour you.  Just smarter and with personalities and ya know, look, sometimes a monster decides it’s would-be dinner is actually kind of cute and gets attached and starts to reconsider its menu planning and that’s where Auntie Yaga’s Home For Wayward Monsters comes in.

Look, I was a weird child and I turned into a weird adult and in a way, I’ve been trying to write this story for most of my life, so here I finally am.

Still not 100% sure exactly what specific form this is going to be (could be epistolary installments! could be a full novel!  could end up being some sort of unfiction thing! could be all of the above!), but the bits are being written down and fleshed out and I expect to have something concrete to share shortly.

So that’s how my New Year is starting.  How are you all doing?