Questions

The following story is not finished. I've decided to split it up into multiple parts, due to me losing several days worth of work on it and me being simply brimming with ideas about how to continue it. I'd love to hear what you guys think about it!

I've started my search at a young age.

As Arthur Laveau, my father, did, and his mother before him. None of them ended up happy either.

Not that that mattered to them.

Before he passed, he would tell me stories. Stories about wondrous men in far-off lands, capable of teaching the most succulent knowledge to all who were willing to listen. Tales of emaciated beggars being approached at night by shadowy figures, and leaving with a full stomach, a pocket full of gold, and orders written in an unknown script. Captivating as they were, I could never shake the sensation of such things always seeming to happen elsewhere, somewhere beyond my home and beyond the possibility of ever reaching. I could never become part of them.

That bothered me. It had bothered my father as well, and his mother before him. Too many people would, when faced with stories such as these, brush them off as the ramblings of a confused old hag or the rich fantasy of a drunken tavern owner. Others would simply laugh, or bemoan that no matter what, the pursuit of knowledge beyond our world would inevitably result in death, or worse. My family was different. My grandmother spent years attempting to uncover the various secrets of the lands she traveled, leaving behind a massive library full of dusty tomes when she passed. Father browsed these extensively, making sure to take notes wherever he could, anytime he wasn't improving on it with his own research.

The shelves in my family's library got bolstered with countless tomes bought from shady vendors, found at yard sales or tracked down through auctions. Most would simply see them as the curios of forgotten madmen, but for reasons I can't quite explain I kept the tradition alive. Years went by as I scoured local flea markets for those telltale signs: worn, yellowed pages, permanent creases and folds in the cover from years of intense reading.

Now, what would our end goal be? Simple. What's the number one question that has bothered scientists, mathematicians and philosopher kings since the dawn of humanity?

Why are we here? Who put us here? And does any of it matter in the slightest?

So on a day when the weather was vile and all the usual spots were closed, I contacted a woman. Her name was Lydia, Lydia Waters, to be exact. She put up an ad in the paper asking for people interested in buying a whole load of antique garbage she had no use for, and I decided that was exactly the kind of garbage that I wanted. I called her up, arranged to meet her in a parking lot like some sort of shady opium fiend looking for a fix.

She appeared nervous. I asked her if she had the goods. She said yes. She asked if I had the money. I said maybe. She chuckled. I asked her for the goods. She gave me a bag. I gave her a wad of cash, amounting to about ten bucks. Not the biggest payment I have ever made for old crap by a large stretch, but still rather costly for what basically amounts to a bag full of refuse. She said our business was done. I agreed. She turned around and walked off towards her car. I turned around and walked off towards my car.

We drove away at the exact same point in time, 9:02 on a moist Monday evening in June.

As soon as I arrived home, I opened the bag and dumped the contents on the floor, kneeling and rummaging through it like some sort of demented animal. Half of it was just what I expected: garbage. Old toys, faded photographs, trinkets of dubious sentimental value. All of it kept for years, then thrown away at a moment's notice.

The rest was more interesting.

A leather-bound journal of sorts, written in an unknown script. A bone amulet with odd glyphs carved into it, attached to a string, clearly meant to be worn as necklace. Herbs and crystals, stuffed in a small cloth sack and remarkably well-preserved. A jar filled with clear liquid, which smelled rather alcoholic when opened.

Seems I’ve stumbled upon the treasures of a demented moonshiner of sorts.

After sampling the liquid and finding it shockingly palatable, I got to work attempting to decipher the journal, without any luck. None of my books contained any sort of glyph that resembled the ones I saw on the amulet or in the journal. This was the first time in my life that our family’s extensive library has failed me, and hopefully the last. My efforts were not completely for naught though, as I discovered among the notes written by my father in the Scholar’s Guide To Runes a scrap of paper containing an address, and more importantly, a name. Or more of a title, really. It’s hard to tell sometimes with my father’s old contacts.

The Lady of the Bog, they called her. Not that she lived in one. She just tells everyone that. She was an… interesting person, judging by the tales my father told me. She talked to ants, drinks only lukewarm tea, and at night would burn all manner of odd herbs and spices in a large fire pit in her garden, in what is either an arcane ritual or a really odd way of getting high.

I decided to pay the Lady a visit. I had never met her before, though my father often told about his dealings with her. For all the traits I admired in him, I always thought his penchant for gossip was one of his weak points. From what I’ve heard, she was a decent enough sort, and terrifically gifted in the occult sciences. If anyone can translate this script, it would be her.

She lived in a quiet part of a suburb, which is about the least magical place one can imagine. Her front lawn was overgrown, with weeds snaking up through the cracks in the stone making it unnecessarily difficult to ring the doorbell. A queer scent hung in the air, reminiscent of both the stench of gefilte fish and the subtle aroma of potpourri. I hesitated to knock on the door, afraid that the woman I would meet would be some sort of inscrutable archwizard capable of driving me mad with but a single conversation.

The door opened, and in it stood a woman. A young woman, by the looks of it, though the dark rings around her eyes betrayed many sleepless nights of study. Odd, considering that my father told me even his mother had regular contact with The Lady. Might it be the work of magic, or is the title of Lady of the Bog just hereditary? I felt like it would be rude to ask.

Her raven locks framed her sickly white skin, and flowed over her bright yellow robe with on it a symbol I did not recognize. No matter how much I looked at it, it was as if my mind simply wouldn’t let me remember it, almost as if I could not force myself to care about it. She coughed politely after I had been staring at her chest for a solid twenty seconds.

“Ah, Mark Laveau. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Found a journal with an unknown script in it. Can you help transcribe it?”

The Lady scoffed.

“Jeez, none of you Laveau would ever just stop by for a polite chat, would you? What happened to just coming in for a cup of tea?”

“Tea is for the weak.”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

“I’m not sure. Father often said that.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure, make yourself comfortable.”

I found myself seated on a rather comfortable, but worn black leather couch. On the armrest was a cup of boiling-hot tea, from which wafted a rather unappetizing scent. Opposite of me was The Lady, seated in a leather recliner. The decor in the room was… oddly regular, if a bit old-fashioned. Cozy enough, I suppose. The Lady tapped the journal I gave her with her fingers.

“Where on earth did you find a journal like this?”

“Newspaper ad.”

“Fair enough. Here’s the thing, though. It’ll take me some time to transcribe this. I can’t say the runes are entirely unknown to me, but when I try and read this it doesn’t make a lick of sense. The grammar is all off, you see. I’m thinking that it’s gotta be something else. The same goes for the pendant. I can tell you that it’s not made out of human bone, though, so that’s a relief. It’s actually walrus.”

“Okay. And the sachet?”

“You’re drinking it. It’s a bog-standard ward baggie, meant to be brewed into a tea to absorb its healing power. Or something. Oh, don’t look at me like that, I didn’t invent it. Some things are just done for ages for no real reason.”

I grimaced as I took a sip. The tea was extremely bitter and vaguely metallic tasting, and left a dry sensation in my mouth. The worst thing was that it wasn’t even hot anymore.

She took a big swig from it, seeing how the tea had cooled down to her standards by now.

“I should warn you,” she said, wiping her mouth with a bright yellow sleeve.

“The herbs included in this one have some fairly potent hallucinogenic properties. You might want to lie down for a bit.”

I almost choked on my last sip of tea.

“Wait, you’re telling me that NOW?”

“Would you have drank it otherwise?”

“No!”

“Exactly. What, you think I stayed alive this long by not doing certain rituals simply because they were gross?”

“It’s not that it’s gross, it’s that you drugged me!”

She wagged her finger.

“AM DRUGGING you. Not drugged. You’re not feeling the effects yet, yes? Drink up.”

I reluctantly swallowed the last vile drops of the elixir. This entire plan was going downhill, fast.

“Now, if you start panicking, just remind yourself that it’s all natural. You’re not dying, you’re not stuck in your trip, none of that stuff.”

“That’s easy for you to say! Wouldn’t it have been better to just tell me that before we did this, so I wouldn’t panic at all?”

“No.”

“Fair enough.”

A sly grin crept over her face, as I felt my grip on reality soften and the world around me becoming less and less clear. 

“Don’t worry. I’m an excellent tripsitter.”