The Western Gate

Foreword

It were that I attended a workshop in London Treadwell’s Bookshop ;- “Winter Darkness & Creative Writing” hosted by Bernadette Russell.
As one averse to being told what to do, not because I think I’m right, in fact I know for the most part I’m wrong, but because, ermmm, if one were to perfect their art, then what point the purpose except for profit? The flaws in my system are the haphazard and wayward workings of one content to dabble. The fiddler over the virtuoso, the tinker over the inventor, the traveller over the settled.
So, why then be a hypocrite and seek guidance. Well, the premise of the advert enticed me, being that it was drawn along the nature of winter deities and their part in literature.
As much as I can, one method Bernadette used was to offer a single line prompt, “Where are you”, “What are you thinking” etc and we create in a couple of minutes our answer, the full story being the amalgamation of our input minus the prompts. It is such a good way of working, I tend to write a story by rambling, sometimes I don’t even know where the story’s going. Bernadette’s method is so simple, yet perfect. So in my stubbornness to adopt any method from anyone anywhere, this first bit of blatantly obvious writing skill achieved the forehead slap and “Doh!”, yes I will adopt… what I’ve learnt ! and been taught !!! though also, I would miss the anarchy of just writing, rambling, digressing and letting the pen (or laptop) tap-dance away, but in a free will, I can choose,…
I might do some more of this being taught lark,….
….. though not guitar lessons,
………… three was enough,
…………and the thought of balladeering away to a metronome, correct posture, perfect hand shape etc
…it’s not music,
it’s forced marching.

Back to the seminar, discussions and history’s were had of winter/dark deities, The Cailleach, Inanna, Hecate, Jack frost. It was at the prompts for a story about Jack Frost where I wandered off in my usual rambling style, ferociously scribbling in doctors prescription handwriting my ideas, it has taken a while to decipher and a bit longer if I may to amend some what, and tinker somehow and altogether perhaps add a few more ingredients fair and foul. Probably spoiling the brew.
It’s not a story I’d write in my Journal/Book of Shadows/Grimoire, so here it is.

The Day The Trickster Came, and Went, Out of Town. With me in Tow.

It doesn’t matter how I met Jack Frost the Trickster, nor who ‘he’ was, and all the background malarkey behind the story can be left as gaps for any reader to fill in by themselves.
I never listened to my mum, nor my wife , about ‘him’. He’s bad news and will steer you off the path, lead you into uncompromising situations and ‘get you into trouble’. Who can resist ?
It was the lows of winter when he came knocking on the door, to come out to play as a child with a withered stick eager to play soldiers, cowboys and injuns, goodies and baddies.
The cold winter snap made the face glow, innocent, all the sagginess in the cheeks and below the winter insomnia eyes would constrict taut, and the skin became a halo of innocence. It were, that Jack looked the embodiment of purity as his eyes looked up at me almost pleading to come out for a wander, to explore. In point of fact, he offered to show me something magnificent, “Amazing !” And all the temptations of a fatty food advert with bright colours and happy content smiling families ensnared me, against my better judgement, or any judgement..
I knew it’d be a merry dance, a folly, and what’s more it was probably those very forbearing’s and intuition that caused me to agree to this little ‘exploration.’

It doesn’t matter what year this was, let’s say a time that’s not a time, nor place, because it wouldn’t be on a map anyway, suffice to say it were late afternoon as we wandered away from the village.

“What are we going to see? ” I asked Jack.
” Well why would I tell? It’s the surprise that is just as gooder as the actual object.”
It would be pointless trying to extract clues, and the thought of turning back hadn’t crossed my mind, yet.

The path outwards became less constructed and more rough footed having been trod and cast by various feet over and over again like the worry lines on the face.
We wandered past the farm fields, ominously downhill, the trek outwards being easy, we forget the trek back is going to be a slog.
Ahead I saw, surely, Jack’s magnificent, amazing destination. A beautiful wooded area, named Darkmere as I recall, full of gnarled Oaks and being winter the mistletoe creeped all over them, Old and twisting holly trees with red berries and the great Blackthorn tree of the haunted Gallowpole. Where they once hanged anyone they didn’t like.
“ah, I see the prize !” I commented.
Jack looked over at me, “no no, ’tis a far more sumptuous present I have to offer…”

Jack knew I loved to explore the deep dark woods, the denser the better, the more dangerous even more, and the more the past had haunted tales of the macabre even perfect. Gooder.
So, we strolled past the woods, and I longed to leave Jack and his promise at the trekside. But curiosity won the day.

It wasn’t long before I saw in the near distance, The dilapidated house on Withering Grove. A doom laden spectacle, abandoned, its imposing exterior seemed to arch over the wary travellers who would be unfortunate to herald its arising.
” Ah ! Jack”, I said, “Even better perhaps than the Darkmere !”
“No,” replied Jack, ” ’tis better than that old crumbling hovel…”

I felt aggrieved. I would love to explore the double height rooms of Withering Grove, reclaimed by nature, old books discarded throughout and toys abandoned cruelly by cursed children, those grotesque toys left to mourn the passing of being once adored by those hands that would craft them into dreams and scenes. Now dust and mites, rust and mice, were their only companions.
The creaking doors, the ghastly weathered paintings on the wall,
the wind blowing threats through the cracks,
the attic !
Filled with misery and decay, the rocking chair that swayed of its own accord, assisted by the draught perhaps.
And the echoes… not just of my voice that would bounce across the rooms to parody and mock me, but those inherent memories of its past, as tangible as the smell of neglect and decay.
Lost laughter, hopes and dreams, now …not ever stilled… but resonating as ripples upon a still lake.
Children giggling, adults jollying, time encircling, children crying, adults squabbling, time imposing, adults murdering, children screaming, dying. ….
And Jack is leading me away from this?

” This had better be good Jack,” at last I protested, ” and not one of your wild goose chases?”
” Have I ever be wrong? ”
He felt insulted.
“Well yes,” I offered but… then… relented, ” well, no, but your ideas are often not as we imagine, in fact they’re often as not more riddle than reason, more tangled than thread…”

He merely huffed a little and sighed somewhat marching onwards, upwards now but I knew what was upon this ridge we climbed, ah ! Joy of joys, the Myriadian Pool, A lake of old enchantment, so it is said, home to nefarious lotus like flowers whose scent alone imbues the mind with a strange and intoxicating reverie. … and many’s the tale of discarded lovers strangled by their exploiters, dumped here, so it is said, they look up at you as you gaze deep down into the mirror pool. To drawn you downwards to appease their loneliness, for eternity.
Roots from the Earth from unknown trees spring up all around the pool creating a natural border, and the bones of trapped creatures, knotted into the tendrils and clawing fingers that hold these carcasses like prized hunted trophies. It would be a fun day indeed, me an Jack cleaning off horned skulls and beasts with water of the damned lake.
” Well done,” I said to Jack, ” yes, we’ll have a great day there and…”
“we’re not going poolside,” he declared at once, ” I have something to show, that is better than that !”

“Better?, than the woods, and the haunted house and the cursed pool?”
” Of course..” he hissed, ” Trust me.”

I didn’t trust him. But if he led me to a single little solitary stone not big enough to fill the palm of my hand because there was an inkling that the streak of black vein upon it might be a fossil, then as far as I could throw him, trust me, I will throw him.

The Afternoon was relenting, the Sun was making its excuses and ready to leave the party, we had a few hours before nature would stop her song and dusk would befall us, at least the moon was full and the way retreat would be clear-ish.

We seemed to staring downwards at an expanse and ahead was the Wearisome forest, Jack knew I wasn’t particularly fond of this forest, being water sapping fir trees, the soil dry and what little fauna bothered to venture in didn’t stay for long. It was desolate, no hidden eyes to wonder, no voices of distant past to listen for, no creatures, insects or anything of importance, even the birds would rather peck in the fallowed fields than venture into that barren womb.
I then noticed near the edge of the forest a quaint small cobb cottage, “What’s that?” I asked Jack, wondering if the trek this far had been but for this morsel in spit, mud and straw.
” Ah, That!” he dismissed, ” the Old Witches cottage.”
I stopped dead in my tacks, “the witches cottage?”
I demanded more.
And more I demanded to know why this indeed wasn’t, as Jack relayed, the object of our quest, for quest indeed was the byword of this escapade.
A witches cottage! Imagine what scrutiny to be had, the examining of the cauldron to decipher its concoction, the discovering of her own sacred book, the spells we could deliver and practice ! What tools of the craft may be hidden by secret floorboards, what else may be under those floorboards?
It were too good a nosey opportunity to miss, but Jack was insistent, he were, he said, ” To show me something wonderful !”

We seemed now to be veering away, thank she who cannot be named in vain, from The Wearisome -dry as a camels throat- forest, and heading towards the sun beginning its final descent into the horizon, we were also heading, as far as I could remember towards the Graveyard-by-the-causeway, one of the oldest graveyards in the country, and certainly one of the only graveyards inhabited by the escapees of life’s cruel joke who were deemed -Pagan. The slant of the hill showed each grave overlooking the cause way -out to sea, where perhaps a ferryman would take them away.
“I admit it,” I conceded to Jack, ” yes, this is a wonderful place to visit, the names we can uncover, the crypts we can creep into, the mausoleums we spy….”
“No,” said Jack again, ” ’tis not that that we have walked to wonder…”
and on he walked, on, up, up, up until, at last we reached the summit where, we saw the causeway and the ocean.

My first thought were indeed that Jack would push me off that cliffhead, and my own futile scream would be the last sense I felt before illumination or oblivion married me. And, that oblivion or illumination would indeed be the most wonderful thing to visit.
Jack fluttered two raised eyebrows, a universal language to acknowledge , the answer’s coming. I frowned, the universal language to indicate frustration.
Jack, as carefree as he would have anyone believe also liked to be the hoarder of secrets, and he would covet that box of trinkets until the power it gave him was relinquished. when the grovelling peasants got bored with outstretched hands, then and only then would he give out the alms.
I knew this trait in Jack, and he knew I knew. And I knew he’s submit first, because that power was removed from him.

Jack stepped forward a little into my personal space and whispered, “ shall I show you the wonderful ?”
Of course I wanted to know, poker face me trying to dismiss whether I care or not, the knots of my wanting mind twisting without respite, “ well Jack,” at last I submitted, “what ?”
Indeed all that was left to view as far as I could see were the sun dipping into the horizon, the sea, was it the sunset? perhaps on cue a school of dolphins or some other wise phenomenon?
Jack turned me about face, the way we had walked, and then spreading out his arms, ” There !” he said beholding the scenery of our long and winding path that we had walked.
In silence yet acutely aware my mind was juggling with koan complexes, poetic sutras, wisdom in nonsense, the riddle of the…… trickster.
I looked him in the eye, I cannot say eyes as he didn’t shift his stance, staring straight ahead, his arms still parading as if welcoming the visitation of perfection, and more annoyingly, that smile, fixed, and bowing upwards as an archers taut bow, and he didn’t turn to face me, so all I saw was his gleaming, smug, joyous twinkling eye. One eye.
With his outstretched arms he emphasised the scenery again, flexing them before snapping them into rigidity to frame the picture…, “There”, he spoke again.
“There what?” the resigned words dribbling from my mouth.
“There!” he said, “All that we have passed, all those sites, those palaces for the emotions… there !”
In slow precise and monotone words, holding back anger, frustration and tiredness I staccato fed my conclusion, “But. We. Didn’t. Go and explore them ?”
“No !” said Jack, “Isn’t it wonderful, what we have to look forward to from the things we passed by? We haven’t created memories from our wanderings, but certainties of the future, we have created the opposite of memories, enduring, potential. Isn’t that wonderful? Amazing, even “
He continued jabbering away though my mind was far off reaching, I caught his quips about memories being lost and gone, whereas hopes and dreams were as a tantalising quest, the urge to continual, the drive to live and wonder, and for a moment I wondered whether it was I who should be pushing him off that rugged clifftop. But I knew, in his merry dance and wayward innocent soul, he were true to the art of laughter.

The worst things about tricksters, are they dance with folly, and folly itself is the teacher and mocker of all our futile dreams.

Header illustration;- adapted from A Christmas Party ~George Henry Durrie : 1852