2022-04-20 - What's In a Name

It's a spring day that isn't raining. Imagine that. And in the Disney wonderland that is 5 Oak's yard, it's as if a perfect beam of sun breaks through the scattered clouds to warm the air even further.

There's even a frikkin' bunny hopping around, afraid of nothing.

With such enchanted weather, the outdoors beckons. Perhaps this is what brings Jules knocking on the neighbors' door, dropping by instead of reaching out via text. Her backpack is slung from one shoulder, half-full, and she's already dragged one chair out from the porch that protects it from rain. Now she's looking for company.

Ravn lives on his boat now, sure. But his shower doesn't, Aidan Kinney's cooking doesn't, his books don't, and his whiskey collection doesn't. He's home at Oak Three more than he really wants to admit; it's absolutely also got nothing to do with having neighbours he actually likes talking to. Sure, he's got buddies on the marina too, but it's not quite so -- personal? Probably because while some boats lie in permanent residence, such as his own, there is also a constant coming and going of other boats, there for just a night or three. And most of the permanent residence boats people don't live on. Few people are as crazy as he is, to want to live on a small, cold boat in April.

He opens the door and quirks an eyebrow. Jules is not the person most prone to turning up just like that. Then the Dane can't resist poking a sleeping bear, because who can, indeed, resist poking a sleeping bear. "Please tell me you haven't murdered any lobster fighting champions in their sleep and need help disposing of the body."

"Is that a challenge?" Jules answers with her own question, grinning at Ravn as he turns up at the door. "Because if it is, challenge accepted." Continuing right along, she wonders, "But if I was, then where would you dispose of said body? Hypothetically. Also, are we talking about the owners or the lobsters? Because if it's the latter, then they're going in my belly, duh."

This is not why she's here. This is why, as unexpected as Ravn may find it: "Anyway, glad you're here. You wanna hang out with me outside? I got root beer, but I can probably scrounge up a beer or tea or something if you want. Also I wanted to ask you something."

"I'll go if you promise me I don't have to drink root beer." Ravn grins quietly. "That's one American custom I will never, ever adopt. It tastes like toothpaste."

He's happy to join Jules outside and plonk himself into a chair, though. "So, bodies -- the easiest way is probably dumping them in Gray Pond, and the crayfish will take care of the rest. Unless they are lobster bodies in which case I will help you hide the evidence, with plenty of butter and a little lemon."

A lopsided grin. "The bloke's name was Bayin, I have no idea where he lives or how to get in touch. Was that the question, or is it in fact not related to ghost lobsters?"

Jules adopts an expression of pure horror. "I don't know what you're saying. It's the elixir of life." Nevertheless, when she drags out a second chair to sit opposite Ravn, she only produces one can from her backpack, not two.

"Actually nothing to do with them. I sent an email to Fish and Wildlife though, and I'm waiting for a response. Are they a weird Gray Harbor thing?" Now that they're on the subject, she pursues it further--even if, as she claims, it wasn't the point of pulling Ravn outdoors into the fairy wonderland. "I mean, if they're local they're local, and just because I've never heard of them doesn't mean that's not true. Or maybe it makes even more sense for me not to know about them, if that's the case. If they're a weird GH thing, then would that mean that they won't spread? Stick to the pond? Happily nibble the toes of the monsters that come out of the forest? That could make sense too. That one that Bayin tried to run off with," tried, operative word here, "could do some crazy shit."

"They're a local thing. I think. They turned up last summer. They're definitely Veil touched -- kind of sort of intelligent, but they're also crayfish. Like, they're pretty smart but what they want to do is live in a pond and eat dead things and stuff they find in the mud. As crayfish do. We tried to start a rumour that they taste awful, to prevent people from trapping them and getting hurt. And then there's Miss Pinkett who apparently kept turning up on Susan Trejo's porch until Mrs Trejo agreed to be her trainer." Ravn shrugs helplessly. This town, man. "I think they're some kind of mutation, probably caused by the Veil. Let me know what Fish & Wildlife actually says about them -- I mean, people aren't going to stop training them, but at least I'll know to tell them it's illegal."

Then he quirks an eyebrow. "But this is not about them. So what is it about? You look like you packed for a picnic."

"Huh." Jules looks thoughtful -- and amused -- as she absorbs the story. "I mean, it makes sense to me. Why wouldn't we find intelligent animals who have some of the same powers as show up in some of us humans? Animals are people too, according to my grandmother."

She looks down at her backpack, then, recalled to her reasons for seeking Ravn out. "Oh. This? No food, except the root beer. But here, let me show you." She pulls the backpack to her lap to bring its contents to light: a couple books of hiking trails of the Olympic Peninsula, the mountains and the coast, published by different groups; a couple maps and pamphlets; a yellow legal pad. "I've been thinking about what my grandmother was talking about. Not the possession part, but the going out alone into the wilderness. I wanted to ask you about that."

"Let's agree right away that I'd make the worst Wilderness Girl in the history of American cookie sales." Ravn cracks a lopsided grin; he's as far from a natural born trekker as you can possibly be, without needing mobility aids. He leans back on his chair and steeples those gloved fingers. "I'm guessing you mean what do I think about it as a folklorist?"

A glance skywards; this is a complicated question. "I feel like there are a lot of cultures that have traditions of this nature. Spirit walks, vision quests. It's a prevalent thing in cultures that still rely very much on co-existing with undomesticated nature for survival; some grow crops but they're not city and temple builders. You find spirituality in the wilderness. Most of these rituals involve being alone, and achieving a state of mind where visions happen -- through starvation, dehydration, music or song, substance use, or a combination. I'm going to venture a guess that you have instructions from your grandparents or similar, about what to take, what you're supposed to do."

A small smile. "That said? I do not think this is a bad idea at all. You, if anyone, have a cultural heritage that gives you a stake in this. I'd want to know, too. If my culture had retained its ways of doing similar things, I'd consider it, but religious hysteria is not quite my thing and I don't know how to talk in tongues."

Jules laughs at that, eyes crinkling with merriment. Then she settles in to listen, still smiling but more thoughtful and serious, until the last remark. That draws a deeper quirk of her lips.

"They said it's about purification," she says then. "You wash yourself first in a place considered sacred, usually with the help of others. Then they leave you somewhere to be alone, and you fast. I didn't bring out the maps because I expect you to be my hiking buddy. I was more thinking, have you heard anything about those kinds of places? I think what my people would consider sacred are places where the worlds meet. What I've heard you call thin places. I'm not sure where I want to go, yet, but I thought maybe you could help me locate places like that. My grandparents mentioned a couple, like the seastack up by Port Townsend, but I kinda want to make a list, see where all those places might be."

"The two places in town that are known to be -- not even thin, there's practically no Veil, really. It's Gray Pond, and it's the old, abandoned lumber mill. The latter I'd be very careful about. There are a lot of ghosts and a lot of bad history, and a lot of things that have no reason at all to be friendly. Gray Pond is a little better because not everything otherworldly in it is hostile. The ghost lobsters aren't -- they just want to live there. Some of the ghosts are pretty friendly -- Irving bakes cookies for one of them, a little girl named Cecilia who drowned there, did you know?" Ravn can't resist a small smile. Cecilia is certainly not a hostile, terrifying entity -- just a creepy little girl.

He looks at the map. "I think maybe you want to avoid them both. One is too dangerous, one is too close to town -- literally in town. There has to be other places out in the woods. And your grandparents are the ones who'd know them -- your parents, and possibly old folks who work in the woods. For Christmas I want a friend who's been a Fish & Wildlife Officer around here for fifty years."

"Are those the only two you know about?" Jules can't keep the disappointment from her voice. Folklorist, don't let her down! "I'm planning to ask Garrett too, but I know he's fairly new around here too. And definitely not fifty years old. Or if he is, he hides it well and probably uses a little magic to boot." Her mouth purses in thought. It's not so much about the park ranger as it is about efforts to locate the thinnest of thin spots. "I know there's places in the Hoh Rainforest, though I don't know where. Quinault Lake used to be a good place, but it's too busy now with tourists and hikers. My grandma wasn't very specific. She never actually did this herself, she said, and neither did my grandfather. When they were younger, it was just starting to come back as a thing people did, but it still wasn't that many people. Isn't now, either. A lot of what she knows, she knows about from her grandfather." Oral history.

"I know of a place near Portland, which is no use whatsoever to you." Ravn nods. "And I know there are other places -- but what I don't know is where. I'm sure you've noticed -- people here don't share information a whole lot. They know better. They don't want to feel guilty. They don't want to be the reason someone goes missing -- and let me be honest with you there, Jules, you can get Lost. The creatures in this town are more often unkind than not. I think that in your place, I would look for somewhere not here."

He cants his head to look at the map. "Most cultures believe that there are gateways, special places, They are almost always visible, in rock formations, in mountains, in islands. Isolated, away from men, and often, they resemble something that tells their nature. There is a place in Northern Sweden -- it is believed to be an open doorway to the Sami underworld. They call it Lapporten, the Lapp Gate. It is a river bed between mountains, forming a spectacular view." Tappety-tap on his phone. Google, a modern scientist's best friend. He finds what he is looking for, and offers the photo over. "In times ancient, the Sami would bring their old and infirm to the top of the gate, and they would jump off to die. I have been there, and I -- kind of don't want to talk a whole lot about it because I tend to see the dead, and there are a lot of stories of cold, and starvation, and fear there."

The Dane shifts in his chair. "But the point I want to make is, your people, and the Yakama, and the Salish, and any other people who have lived here in the past, will have named places for what they believed to be there. This is what you should look for. Places named for death and gates are easy. Look for names, too, that reference animals associated with crossing over. In Norse mythology, ravens and wolves."

Getting Lost -- this makes Jules raise her eyebrows, questioning, but she doesn't interrupt. She nods, too; Ravn's advice is sensible. She might want a spiritual quest, but she's not suicidal.

Her gaze lingers on the photo when Ravn pulls it up on screen, like she's looking for some clue in the shape of the place, the saddle curve between the two peaks. "I know there's a Tamanous Trail, but it's down in Oregon on the Columbia, near Mount Hood. And-- I think it's important to me that it be on the Peninsula." She opens one of her hiking books, a small, pocket-sized thing with a colorful cover of rushing blue water and the lush green mossy trees of the Pacific Northwest. "Owls are a sign of death, traditionally," Jules notes as she starts scanning the table of contents. "Enchanted Valley? Lost Pass? Maybe Wolf Lake. They're not associated with death, but they are linked to the supernatural. And knowledge."

"I think that sounds better. You're not looking for death. You are looking for knowledge. If you can find a site that is named for an animal associated with wisdom and learning, then I think you may have found the right kind of place." Ravn nods his agreement. "Names are powerful. They persist down through time. Even when we no longer remember the story, we know that this place has always been named that, that the spirit lives in that mountain, that the Lapp Gate is a symbol of the year -- when winter is harsh and food is scarce it is a gate to the land of the dead, but in spring, it is the riverbed through which the great reindeer herds travel, and life begins anew. My interpretation, of course -- I am not Sami, as you know."

He smiles. "I wish we had maps of this land, from before the English and French names. I want to look at a map and see the names that the indigenous people used. That would tell us a lot."

"Right?" Jules looks up to smile back. "The closest I know about are what the traders and settlers recorded. There were Chinook phrase books -- Chinook being the kind of pidgin jargon people used to communicate. Other than that, there are rocks with pictograms on the coast. Those are definitely along the lines of something sacred." She starts flipping pages, bending corners down to mark the places she's mentioned thus far for further research. "There were some unearthed recently on the Elwha River too, about ten years ago. They've been doing river restoration. The dams had created a reservoir that covered up the creation site for the Lower Elwha Klallam people. But that's their sacred place." Is Ravn taking notes yet? There's that yellow notepad sitting there untouched.

"There's Wolf Creek too, up at Hurricane Ridge." One of the major mountains in the Olympics range -- though Ravn, who has admitted to being about as outdoorsy as a housecat, may not immediately recognize the name in the same way a local would. "I think I need to go to the Enchanted Valley," she decides. "It's on the Quinault River, in the rainforest. You can go all the way up to Anderson Glacier, if you want. I bet I could find stories about this area, if I went looking for them."

"Petroglyphs invariably reference something sacred," the folklorist agrees. He is in fact not taking notes -- and maybe this explains why he did not insist on bringing note-taking or recording equipment to Taholah, either: A substantial part of his work is the ability to listen and remember. "We have a fair number of those preserved in Norway and Sweden in particular. They existed in Denmark too, no doubt, but we're old seabed -- not a lot of cliff available. Creating petroglyphs is not something you in half an hour while you wait for the communal canoe. It takes a hell of a lot of work and time. At their least sacred, they're memorials for people who were a very big deal in their community."

"That is so cool," Jules murmurs as she continues to flip, browsing through the trails. She puts the book down on her lap, then, to look across and give Ravn a grin. "See? You might not be a hiker, and you might be a local, but you're still really helpful. You can..." The word she wants is parse, but she's struggling to find it. "...put stuff together. See stuff from different angles. Thank you."

"Last time I suggested something like that you thought I was trying to defend Asshole Irving," Ravn notes with a small laugh. "But, yes. That's what I do -- I record and observe stories, and try to determine their function. Stories are more than a way to pass time. They are a way to preserve and pass on your whole cultural identity. Some day thousands of years ago, one of your ancestors came home and told his wife, or his son, or his dog, "So, I was up at the creek, the one with the wolves," and it stuck. But there are wolves all over this place, so there is something special about either the wolf or the creek for the name to stick."

"Did I?" Surprise surprise, this is not how Jules remembers things. "I think I was mad because I thought you were excusing some of the whitewashing of history and saying assholes like our ghost have a point too." Which they don't. Obviously. "Stories are important," she agrees, with a smile of her own for the little one Ravn crafts right then and there. "I always thought that. Before I ever thought there might be kernels of truth to them."

She sits back then, looking across. She's such a busy person, moving from here to there, from job to class, coffee shop to home, subject to subject. It's not often that she truly stills herself and looks. She gazes across now like Ravn appears to her in a new light, like he's something to be considered and held up at new angles, himself. "Have you ever tried anything like this? Back in Denmark, or elsewhere? Actually looked for a way to cross over?"

The folklorist shakes his head. "I haven't, because I didn't know that it was possible. I grew up in a place that's a bit like this -- but it's not Dreams. It's just that my family's dead tend to, well, stick around. I grew up living around ghosts. And being the only living member of my family who saw them and talked to them. It was not until I came here that I learned I'm not the only person with this kind of ability, that I'm honestly nothing special by local standards. It's been a vast relief."

Then he grins at the memory. "I mean, whitewashing is a thing. I have had that argument many times -- there's a lot of advocating for changing older literature, make it less bloody racist. I argue against that, usually -- because no, it's not great to refer to someone as a negro king in a beloved children's book, but it's even worse to pretend that slavery and colonisation never happened and we were all happy best friends from the time the first European set foot in Africa. It's just another form of racism -- taking away the history of the oppressed. I always advocate putting in an extra chapter, discussing what changed, how to explain this to your kids. Outrageous idea, I know -- actually talking to your kids."

"The extra chapter is good," Jules readily agrees. "Though I still wish Disney had never made Pocahontas. Too many stereotypes, not enough truth. It just reinforces the idea of the noble savage and the good self-sacrificing Indian princess, you know?" There's something slightly ironic about her saying this, given how they're sitting in a Disney-esque garden. The rabbit roaming about does, in fact, come up to investigate Jules' chair. She just looks at it, bemused.

"It sounds like it was difficult for you as a kid." It earns Ravn a look of sympathy. "I can see how you like being here, where there's people who get it. I'm kind of glad I couldn't do anything as a kid. It was hard enough as it was."

Ravn sits quite still as to not startle the rabbit; it's done nothing to him and if the local rabbits get a little fatter from having plenty food available in summerland gardens in April, he doesn't mind. At least somebody is benefiting -- which is a better than average track record for weird Veil stuff.

He shakes his head a bit. "Pocahontas should not have been made. Or at least it should not have been made in the form that it was made. It's far too recent for anyone to claim the 'it was another time' defence. The real Pocahontas was, what, ten? And she ended up dying from syphilis, if memory serves, after being paraded around London as an 'Indian Princess'. Her life must have been miserable."

The folklorist stretches his legs. "I like the aesthetics of the movie. Cute animals, pretty art. Nature is our friends, Grandmother Willowtree and whatnot. But it's an insult to the indigenous people in it, and it's an insult to any historian. I suppose that Jamestown settlers eating each other a few years later didn't sound like a good premise for a Disney movie. It would have been more interesting, if you ask me."

Jules doesn't move, either. She does tell the rabbit in a low voice, like it can understand her, "Just don't eat all of Una's vegetables. She just put in that garden, and she'll be sad if she doesn't get a chance to enjoy it." The rabbit looks up, ears cocked to the voice, and then hops off unconcerned.

"Fearless," Jules says in a normal tone, smiling in amusement. "It's probably like, oh, garden? Time to go eat all the lettuce."

The smile remains, though it's dimmed somewhat as she considers Ravn's opinion, turned more wry. "But the romance, Ravn," she says sarcastically. "None of that's romantic."

Ravn shrugs lightly. "Hi. It's me, Abildgaard. Least romantic bloke presently in the Pacific Northwest. Possibly slightly more romantic than your average wet brick on a foggy Sunday. Also, there are so many other stories out there that are romantic -- pick one of them instead. Make something up. Hell, tell a story about a native girl and an English soldier who fall in love, and make it be not actual historic people. Next bay down the coast, do a bit of genuine research into whatever indigenous nation lives there, something, something, something. This is my hill, I will die on it: Don't mix history and fiction. Do 'inspired by' or 'alternate universe', then you can screw with history as much as you like."

Pause. And then, after the rabbit, "Don't eat Irving's veggies, she'll be sad."

"Hear hear," is Jules' hearty assent, given with a grin. But, "Least romantic? I don't know about that, you've got the whole tall, dark, mysterious stranger thing going for you. I'd nominate a football jock who likes to crush beer cans on his head and brag about his scores for the role of least romantic." Still wry, with a heavy dose of scorn. Her gaze is something else though, speculative as she looks at Ravn sitting there in the sun, curious about his self-definition and his reaction to this jesting rebuttal.

"Your jock's more likely to get romantic ideas in the first place, though." Ravn laughs softly. "Or well, ideas, anyhow. I'll just argue with you about cultural appropriation and the social control dynamics of folk tales. And then get my backside handed to me by that jock -- or at least that's how I remember most of my school years."

He leans forward to look at the map again. "You know. If Brennon gets the Historical Society back on its feet -- this is a project we should consider for it. Creating a local map that uses the indigenous names, with English translations. It'd solve some issues -- imagine having Dreams about something like, say, meet where the ravens go, and then find out that the rock formation over there isn't actually called Colonel McWhatever's Ribbons, but Raven's Bluff."

Jules just shrugs. "People are terrible, and I don't think anyone remembers high school fondly." With that, she leaves Ravn's romantic life alone and follows him into the subject change.

"That would be amazing. I'd love to help out with that, trying to recover those names. The library in our house might help with that, given how we've got some of the asshole ancestor's writings. I'll have to look back at his memoir and see if I can find any places he refers to. I probably should have been better at keeping a list to begin with, when I was going through it the first time looking for clues about what he stole, but I'm new to this research thing." She says it lightly, but her nose wrinkles. There's more to it, with this young woman who's only now begun taking college-level classes. "Brennon -- remind me, who's that?"

"Ava Brennon, the coroner who moved into One, Oak." Ravn glances towards that house -- the third house involved in the whole eternal summer backyard deal. "She's a local who's been out of town for a few years and come back. Ginger, energetic, kind of always in motion kind of person. Wants to revive the Historic Society, and take on the Veil and everything bad in town, pretty much all of it at once. This whole summer thing is hers and Irving's doing -- she instigated it, and Irving's baked things seem to be the price the faeries want for maintaining it."

The Dane scratches his nose with a gloved fingertip. "It sounds pretty crazy when you say it out aloud, doesn't it? Anyhow, that kind of map would probably prove useful for a lot of things. At the very least it would give us some ideas where the local -- ley lines is the wrong word, but, places of power? are. The thinnest areas -- and the places that were important before the lumber mills rearranged everyone's priorities."

"Oh, right. I've only met her once, but I know who she is." And has certainly heard about her role in creating this little slice of wonderland.

Jules rolls her shoulders in a shrug. "Crazy or not, it makes sense. Especially with what we were just talking about. How places get named because they mean something, even if the people doing the naming don't always realize it. Like, I'm sure Enchanted Valley is named that because some outdoor person with the park service thought it was so beautiful, but I think even that name points to something deeper." She pauses, tilts her head. "I don't know the story about the lumber mills."

"It's what white people settled here for -- the lumber. The natural shallow harbour, easily access to the ocean yet protected from Pacific storms. That's where the madness started, as far as recorded history goes -- the Baxters came here first and got started on lumber work, and then the Addingtons came in hard, built the old lumber mill and something went down. Folks in town assume that this is when the problems begin. It obviously wasn't, but whatever they did, made it worse." Ravn hitches a shoulder slightly; nothing new in recorded history belonging to white people -- they're the ones who make the records, and the ones who tend to assume that nothing ever happened before they turned up, too.

"Gray Pond may always have been a special place," the folklorist suggests. "But St Mary's nearby is obviously new, on this scale. And the old, abandoned lumbermill was probably not a special location until Addingtons began tossing Baxter souls into the wood chipper."

"Oh, I've heard about that feud." Now that there are more details, it's clicking into place. Jules has a grimace for the 'tossing into the wood chipper' part, but really, who wouldn't. "That's interesting, though," she muses. "How things going down here have that ripple effect. Is that something that happens elsewhere? It would make sense, to me, that when you cause destruction and have all that hatred brewing, it spills over. The whole 'everything's connected' thing."

"We know there are thin spots elsewhere, and the ones we know about do tend to be in places that have seen things. I'm going to venture a guess and say, either suffering creates these spots -- or they create suffering. Chicken and egg? Either way, think places like the battlefield at Somme, or Pripyat in Ukraine. And for that matter, some tunnel system in Portland." Ravn nods. "At my home too, to a lesser degree -- though I'm not really sure what prompted the suffering there, unless all old manor houses have seen enough serf abuse to count. They well might, given how many of them are reputed to be haunted."

"Everywhere there's ever been a genocide," Jules murmurs, adding it to the list. She's sober now. "Ugh. At least it sounds like all thin spots aren't like that -- that there's some that exist because they're special places, like the one you showed me on your phone." She's already forgotten the name. "And the kinds of places I'm hoping to find."

"I'm fairly sure there's not been a genocide at my family home," Ravn muses. "But given it's built in the 1500s, I'm also certain that we've had our fair share of asshole noblemen, not to mention half a dozen wars against Sweden and Germany. It's never great to be the little guy during war times, and the manor houses are where little folks go for protection. So yes -- some element of human suffering at least."

"People are the worst."

Jules leaves it there, and she starts to gather the items she's pulled out of her backpack and stuff them back in. "Well, thanks for helping me out. I'll let you know when I'm off, and where. And Una and Della obviously. In case I don't come back."

Ravn looks up and gets to his feet as well. "Take a phone. Turn the GPS on. If you don't check in at the expected hours people will know where to look. I imagine you're supposed to do this alone, but I'm pretty sure that most walkabout style rites usually had someone nearby, watching -- even if the walk-about-er didn't know. In our day and era, I figure GPS will do. It'd be stupid to get all the answers and then die because you broke a leg in a ravine somewhere."

"Well, yeah." Jules doesn't add the obviously part, but it might as well be there. "I'm gonna see if I can borrow one of those GPS devices, for when I get out of range for cell service. It's definitely stupid to go out alone without a way for people to find you if you need it. There's won't be too many hikers out at this time of year, yet -- which is good, for what I'm doing, but also makes it that much easier to disappear."

"And the hikers are going for the scenic spots." Ravn nods. "Look, I'm a worry wart. I'm not going to tell you what to do in the wild. I'm pretty damn certain you know a lot better than I do, for all my father's attempts to teach me glamping. But please stay in touch, yeah? This seems -- well, it's your business, but on some level, you might learn things that are the business of us all."

"Glamping." The one word says it all, along with her expression. Jules does not glamp. "But yeah, you make a good point. Check-ins make sense. Especially since I don't know how long I'm gonna be." She stands, backpack once again over one shoulder, and gives Ravn a smile. "I hope this works out. Keep an eye on Una and Della for me, okay? Una will probably freak out."

"Promise." Nothing about Ravn's expression suggests he thought glamping was a good idea, either. Some people are born to stay the hell out of the wilderness. He's definitely one of those. "And you -- come back with all the stories. All the real stories, the old ones."