As he lit the cigarette, he stared off to the small cotton field in the clearing just beyond where he sat. Cotton was in his blood. His family had picked the cotton fields clean for decades, and now he owned the cotton himself, free from the greed of men. His great-grandfather had moved his family far away from Georgia after the Civil War, unbounded from the tyranny of slavery and but burdened with the lingering prejudice. With only the clothes on their backs, and a meager sack of savings, they retreated to a sparsely populated area of Virginia to be happy, healthy and free.
When his father, Armand, left his own father’s home, he built the cabin on a small plot of land far away from the rest of the world, determined to raise his son without the influence of a cruel world. Virgil’s mother had died during childbirth, leaving the two to themselves; his father his only teacher, and the best one he could ever have. As the moon rose high above the trees, casting its cool light on the pima cotton in the field, he could almost see his father, tending the land as he had his entire life.
“If you love the land, it will give to you what you need, son,” he remembered his father talking to him one afternoon as they worked clearing a portion of flat ground on their property. “If you sow a field, you are creating life, just as I created you. What you create is always your responsibility. You should never rely on someone else to tend to what you create.”
Those words resonated with him the older he became, especially now that he was awakened to the truth of reality. He often wondered if his father too had been awakened.
After he was finished with his cigarette, he carefully snuffed out the remaining butt and put the remains into the packet of tobacco that he kept in his coat pocket. The hour of harvest was upon him, and a long night yawned before him. As the moon climbed to its apogee, he grabbed a burlap sack from the ground and headed into the field of cotton. The bolls seemed to glow in the light of the full moon, like a thousand tiny lanterns of white light floating in the darkness, bobbing slightly as the wind whistled through the glade. The cotton Virgil grew was for a very special purpose, not to be sold or bartered. He used it to create his dolls.
He learned the magic to create the dolls from a wanderer who had come unexpectedly one dark October evening, two years before that particular night. He never gave his name, but had a kindness to him, an inherent goodness, that surrounded him with the familiar glow of the Weird. Virgil knew that the wander also had attained Immortality, because the strength of his Weirdness was almost nauseating. He was unforgettable; his entire body was covered in Egyptian Hieroglyphs, golden against his sun tanned skin and dark Arabic eyes that seem to catch the firelight.
For three days, he relentlessly recited the unwritten ritual to Virgil, and forced him to memorize ever word and pronunciation exactly as he spoke them, the ritual of creating the living dolls, the Blood dolls. When the lesson was sufficiently learned, they created the first doll together, under the same harvest moon. Just before he left, satisfied that Virgil was ready to create, he revealed the true nature of his visit high in the mountains. Virgil’s father had unwittingly built that small cabin not far from a small, dark cave that descended deep into the mountain.
“Great suffering will cause an outcry across the land,” the wanderer explained. “Deep within that cavern is the last hope for all of mankind. It has been kept secret since before there was ever a human on this continent, and now that the end is coming, others will come. You must not allow anyone to enter the cave. The ritual, the dolls, will help you to guard it, and lead would be seekers astray.”
“What’s in the cave?” Virgil asked, having never noticed it before.
“The well of the Weird,” he replied succinctly. “And you should never enter the cave, but you’re creations can.”
“Well of the Weird?” Virgil asked with a perplexed expression on his face.
“It is where all of the of the released weirdness pools when a sleeper dies,” the stranger replied. “It is the source of great power, and in the wrong hands, especially certain nefarious immortals, it can be used to destroy everything. All life would perish.”
“That’s a great deal of responsibility to put on a person, sir,” Virgil replied with sadness in his voice.
“Immortality,” the wanderer replied, “is a great responsibility. You will understand this the longer you exist. The answers are never revealed all at the same time. The mind must process all of its experiences before it can understand the truth, the true nature of reality.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” replied Virgil with a nod. “But it don’t make it any easier to accept the burden of Atlas, my friend.”
“Yes,” replied the stranger. “But you are here because it is your will. You knew that this place required protecting.” He paused considering his words. “As did your father.”
“My father?” Virgil asked as the stranger confirmed his belief. “Did he know?”
“Yes,” the stranger replied, gathering his items into his satchel. “And in time, you will see him again. It is his place to explain these things to you.”
Virgil nodded silently. Some things did not require explaining. Now that he knew his father was involved, he would continue to wait until his return.
“And now,” the stranger said, slinging the satchel over his shoulder. “I must continue my travels. There are others I must prepare.” He regarded Virgil silently before bowing slightly at the waist. “We will meet again, my friend.”
Without another word, the stranger disappeared into the forest, leaving Virgil alone once more, alone with the first doll they had created together during a violent thunderstorm. The doll sat at the edge of the magic circle they had cast, staring off in the direction the stranger retreated then stood and walked over to Virgil.
“It’s just you and me,” Virgil said to the doll. “But I need to give you a name, don’t I?”
The doll nodded. It was made of burlap sacks with mesh for eyes and a mouth, though it never spoke aloud – it spoke directly to Virgil’s mind, but only in simple words and phrases.
“Meresin,” Virgil whispered, as he leaned down to pat the doll on the head. “I think it suits you.” He did not know why he chose that particular name, but it came to him from a voice beyond, the word whispered from the darkness between worlds.
He always found it helpful to replay the events of the evening with the wanderer as he prepared to create a new doll. After collecting the cotton, under the harvest moon as the stranger taught him, Virgil went back to the circle inscribed on the ground to the right of his cabin. He had already constructed the new doll’s body from burlap and screen mesh, preparing it for life. Meresin and Armand, his second doll whom he’d named after his father, were sitting silently by the magic circle watching Virgil as he sat down and began to stuff the empty shell, the third of many to come.
Other than the ritual itself, the dolls required several other ingredients to give it life. The Weird gives life to lifelessness, but for his dolls to be sentient, he would have to infuse the life of another creature into the cotton. Meresin had already fetched a small vial of cobalt blue liquid from the well of the Weird which shown almost as brightly as the moon itself. The life essence would come from a small hare, which Virgil had trapped the day before. The Weird would give his creation sentience through the iridescent liquid.
The choice of the hare was important, because the dolls took on the traits of their sacrifice. He needed a doll with cunning and speed so that he could send as a scout. A hare was perfect because they are especially skilled in hiding and sensing danger. The dolls must never be seen. As the end was nearing, Virgil needed eyes beyond his own eyes. He needed to know the people who lived in the town of Devlin not far from his cabin, a town full of Dreamers, hidden away from the rest of the world, much like him.
Once the doll was stuffed, he laid it in the center of the magick circle. In a low voice, he began to recite the ritual, a language he did not understand and had never heard before the wanderer had arr
ived. Meresin and Armand dragged the small cage with the hare to their creator’s feet.
The magic circle began to glow with the same cobalt blue as the vial of Weird and opened a portal to the Spaces Between. It communicated his wish for life, to the governor of all life and death, the Charnel One.
He reached down and quickly pulled the hare from its cage. Terrified it struggled against his grip. Virgil hated taking life for any reason, but he knew that the hare would live much longer in his doll than it would on its own amongst the dangers of the surrounding forest.
“Accept this sacrifice, and bring life to my creation,” he spoke. “Allow this innocent to live beyond its shell and serve the will of the Weird.”
He pulled a sharp knife from the sheath at his belt and quickly sliced the hare open from throat to groin, holding it over the cotton-filled cavity of the lifeless doll. Blood flowed into the doll, soaking the burlap and cotton until the hare stopped moving, and the torrent was reduced to a trickle.
He shook the remaining blood from the hare, then plucked the still warm heart from its chest and gingerly placed it inside the blood soaked cavity of the dolls chest.
Meresin stepped into the boundary of the circle, unsafe for Virgil to enter lest he fall into the Spaces Between, and poured the contents of the vial over the heart of the hare. Almost instantly, the heart began to beat, and a vermillion light sparked in the large mesh eyes of his newest creation.
Even before Meresin could leave the circle, the cavity of his newest creation began to close, binding the magick deep within, sewn by unseen hands. As Virgil gingerly laid the hare aside, which would be supper for the evening, the small doll sat up and gazed blankly at its creator, its vermillion eyes pulsing dimly as the hare’s soul became accustomed to its new body.
Virgil raised his arms over his head, speaking the ancient words, and concluded by giving thanks to the Charnel One for his gracious gift.
The newest doll stood, shakily at first, then moved out of the circle as the light faded from the circle, allowing it to pass beyond the portal to stand before its creator. It was constructed in the same fashion as its brethren, standing about eighteen inches in height, and resembling an articulated teddy bear without ears.
Virgil smiled down, and then picked up his new creation. “Welcome, my friend,” he said happily. “I will call you…Hazel,” from his favorite book, Watership Down.
He set his newest creation down with its awaiting counterparts. The ritual was completed, and he was weary from the exertion of his Weirdness and the unseen presence of the Charnel One.
“It sure do take a lot of energy,” he said to the three dolls staring at him as he sat back in his canvas chair rolling a cigarette as a small celebration. “Halloween will be here, my friends. So we have much to prepare for.”
He looked at Hazel, “Tomorrow, you will go to the town beyond the hill and learn everything you can about the people who live there.” He smiled. “Do you understand?”
Hazel nodded without speaking, and then motioned to the east.
“You’ve been there before?” Virgil asked with a bit of surprise.
“Very good,” he patted the doll on the head. “But you mustn’t let them see you. Not until I know if they are good people. We need to be sure we can trust them, before we help them.”
Virgil cooked the remains of the hare over a small fire, before retiring to the solitude of his cabin. Like all the immortals, he knew that things were going to change, and that they would change before the end of the year. Hazel was his only attempt to connect with the Dreamers of Devlin, and if they were good, he would help them survive. If they were not, he would remain hidden in his cabin in the woods until the dust settled, and the truth of reality was revealed to the world.
Before settling into a deep sleep, he remembered something his father had told him. “Son, you can’t ever make someone think something they don’t want, and you can’t make them see the forest through the trees. All you can ever do is show them the path, and they’ll follow or they won’t. But, you should always try and never give up the righteous path.”
Virgil knew the path well, but he was dubious as to whether the people of Devlin would follow. Despite his reclusive nature, he hoped they would, because he was tired of being alone.
Afterword
I hope that you have enjoyed these tales -- I have many more to share. These stories are full of concepts that will help the reader understand The Waking Dream Universe. As you can tell, I have tried to appeal to a wide range of readers.
I am a firm believer in the Weird and the Weirdness within us all. Each of us is living a dream, but some of us are more actively involved than others. Our world is our dream; we have built it to our desires. I believe that it can be much more beautiful than it is today. We are plagued with war, disease, poverty, famine and the pursuit of material things. At the end of it all, the only thing one can truly own are your thoughts, memories and experiences. These are the most precious of things – the things no one can take away from you. If we believe together in a better dream, we can make it happen.
Thank you for entering my world for this short time and I hope you will continue to follow the story with the next book in the Waking Dream Series: The Unkindness Book II of the Transformation Trilogy.
Michael Hibbard
October 2013
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