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The Magic Circle.

September 1, 2018 by Exangel

by Tim J. Myers.

 

Once a poor family lived in a cottage near a forest. One day their landlady came and said, “There are too many people here!”

“But we pay our rent!” the father protested.

“Yes,” said the landlady, “but your new baby makes five of you. Either pay more money or leave!”

But they had no more money.

Late that night after everyone went to bed, the father sneaked off. “People say there’s a magic circle of stones in the forest,” he told himself. “Maybe I’ll find help there.”

Soon he was cold to the bone and lost besides. Suddenly a great shaggy bear stood before him, roaring till the trees shook. The father fell and covered his face.

Then he felt a wet nose against his hand. “I heard about your landlady,” said the bear quietly, “and I too am worried about my children. They’ve wandered off. Have you seen them?”

The father shook his head.

“Well, God bless us both,” said the bear.   “Perhaps you should go to the Circle of Truth. It’s in that grove.” She pointed with a huge paw.

“What is the Circle, Bear? Who made it? How does it work?”

The bear shrugged. “No one knows. It’s always been here. When you’re inside it, you see things that are true—even if they haven’t happened yet.”

So they parted and the father went to the circle. When he stepped into it, he was suddenly back in the cottage, with a fire on the hearth and his smiling family around him. When he stepped back out, he found himself in the cold woods again. “The Circle is saying we must stay together!” he cried. So he returned to the cottage and slipped back into bed.

Sometime later the mother woke and crept out too, thinking, “I’ll look for the Magic Circle.”

After a time, the path she was following came to the top of a cliff. Beside her was a big nest of sticks, with two eagle chicks in it.

Just then she heard flapping and an eagle’s cry, and she cowered in fear. When she looked up, a huge eagle stood in the nest. “Poor dear,” said the eagle. “I heard about your trouble, and I know what it is to make a nest for my chicks. Go to the Circle of Truth—this is the path. But please tell no one where my nest is.”

“You are so kind, Eagle,” said the mother.

When she stepped inside the stones, she and her family were suddenly in a new house, its pine-boards still smelling sweet. When she stepped back she was in the freezing woods again. “Could a new home be waiting for us?” she wondered. The thought gave her hope, so she hurried back to the cottage and into bed.

The brother and sister couldn’t sleep either. So they too got up and tiptoed away, saying, “We can work on some farm, and Mama and Papa can stay with our baby.”

After hours in the moonlit forest, they came to a meadow. Suddenly five wolves bounded from the shadows. The sister and brother held each other. “Goodbye,” the brother whispered.

But the wolves sat on their haunches. “Don’t worry,” said a black one. “We know what it’s like to be forced from our home—the duke’s hunters chased us from our den in the valley a year ago. You won’t tell anyone you’ve seen us, will you? Good. You should go to the Circle of Truth—we’ll show you the way.”

When the children stepped into the circle they were suddenly in warm beds, with their mother and father smiling down at them. When they stepped out, they were alone again, cold winds sweeping through the trees. “We belong with Mama and Papa!” they told each other. They slipped back into bed just before dawn.

In the middle of the night the baby woke up crying, but no one was there. So she climbed from her cradle and went out to play. Digging with an old spoon, she struck a half-rotten chest. She reached in the hole and pulled something out. It shone in the moonlight. Then she felt cold and went back to bed.

In the morning the landlady came banging on the door, the sheriff beside her. They walked right in.

“Pay me!” the woman shouted.

But suddenly, at a window where the others couldn’t see, a huge bear reared up, showing its claws and great teeth. The landlady gasped.

“Do you order them to leave?” the sheriff demanded. Before she could say anything, she glanced at another window. An eagle hovered there, its great wings beating furiously as its yellow eyes flashed with anger.

“Do you order these people to leave?” the sheriff insisted. But then the landlady saw, through a third window, five wolves baring their fangs.

“They can stay,” the landlady whimpered. Then she hurried away, the sheriff with her.

Just then the baby came smiling and said, “Bluh bluh bluh!” In her hand she held a golden coin.

“Where did you find this?” the father asked. The baby laughed and toddled to the woodpile. When they dug they found an old wooden cask packed tight with gleaming florins. “Now we can buy land and build our own house!” the mother said.

“And sleep in our own beds!” said the sister.

“And sit by the fire together!” said the father.

“Bluh bluh bluh!” said the baby.

So they all joined hands and danced in a circle.

 

END

 

 

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Fall 2018: Things That Go Bump.

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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