Aaron Conaway

A K&Q Press Publication

Front Cover Photo Credit: Bobby Burch Photography

First Edition 2018

Preface

THE ROAD THAT LED ME to write Waking The Weaver is long and filled with stories, whose tellers made indelible marks on me and to whom the debt of thanks I owe can never properly be repaid. Among them:

To Dad, who gave me my love of reading.

To Mom, who taught me that not all great stories are told in a straight line.

To Chris Conaway, who would react to a song he loved with laughter and joy.

To Carrie Conaway Craig, who I told my first stories to and who I shared my earliest adventures with.

To Sarah Conaway Ross, the first fearless person I ever met.

To Daniel Moler and Jason Thrasher, my brothers, my oldest friends. We Warriors Three of Mount Vernon who have embarked on many adventures together, both in real life and at the table. That spirit lives in every story I tell.

To Dusty Dean, whose unceasing enthusiasm and interest in Timberhaven have helped me see this book through.

To Matt Howard and Joanie, who gave this book a read when it was mostly scribbles.

To Bobby Burch and Hannah Arredondo for helping me with this book’s cover.

And to Lauren Conaway, my beloved bride, my Bella. Brilliant, beautiful, and ambitious. The copilot of all my adventures and dreams, whose love and support made all of this possible.

Timberhaven was born eight years ago to the day of my writing this Preface (2-15-2018), of misfit characters and story ideas that I didn’t know what to do with. It wasn’t until I put them all into one small town that things started to click for me. There’s science fiction here, yes. And fantasy. But among all of the weirdness and the mystery, the darkness and the goofy, there’s whimsy and hope.

Timberhaven can be a dangerous place, true. But it’s a place of wonder at its heart.

I hope you enjoy your time here.

- Aaron Conaway

The children always followed. The fair came with rules, it knew. Rules that the children, with their bubblegum laughter and cotton-candied little faces, were told beforehand – keep in mommy’s sight. No running off. Beware of dangerous men, with their big, dark coats and nasty teeth. So it kept in colors. Vivid, let’s have some fun! colors. No coats. Sparkling eyes, perfect teeth. Prizes and treats. And the children always followed.

The demon danced in the trees  Demon? Research alt. monsters.

From the journal of one Michael Gideon:

June 17, 2010

I’ve finally unpacked the rental car. It took much longer than it should have, for my only having brought a closet’s worth of clothes, some books, and my typewriter with me, but Timberhaven is a . . . it’s an interesting place. I was a little preoccupied.

Lord, I haven’t written in a journal in years. Good penmanship isn’t my area of expertise, but I thought it might help break the block when I’m stuck, get the juices flowing. And I can’t deny it, I’m stuck. Page 128 and I still don’t know what Chaos Fair is actually about or where it’s going. Patty’s left four messages just today and I don’t know what to tell him, but luckily the cell service is terrible out here so my missing calls isn’t that far-fetched.

So I’ll drink my bourbon, smoke my cigar and write in my journal, much like I imagine Hemingway did when he was stuck. Only I’m not sitting in a lawn chair on the beach in Cuba.

Timberhaven, man, this place is wild. It’s gorgeous and bleak all at the same time. It seems to be surrounded by forest – making its name make sense – and I’m digging that. I really feel like I’m off the radar here, which should be helpful, but it’s strange. Some of the trees here are what I think the trees in Oz – not the trees that talked, but maybe their neighbors – were like; enchanted with a sense of purpose – of function.

Well, that certainly sounds . . . stupid. Let us have another bourbon dear Evey, what say you? No? Just me then. Don’t mind if I do.

The first person I met here was Audrey. Audrey Fell. She’s a colorful, eccentric, girl. Her father owns and runs The Fell Hotel along with some rental properties in town. This house included. She helped out a bit by pointing me around town to the necessities: post office, grocery store, that sort of thing. Over the course of one afternoon, I saw her in three different theatrical hats and, though I met her as a brunette, I saw her a second time with streaks of red in her purple hair. And she seems to know everybody here, particularly in the area that the locals call the Village; an artist colony of sorts that blends with local peddlers and what looks to be Timberhaven’s homeless set. I couldn’t believe the number of tents and lean-tos I saw in what most small towns would call their square. She showed me Shadow Lake, with its rowboats to be borrowed and fishing nets to be lent, and where a group of mimes was performing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats in a small, stone amphitheater at the lake’s edge. It was a crazy walk around town.

I’m now looking out the window and across the roughly two acres between us at my neighbor, Hurd. Audrey told me his name. He’s another part of why I call this town interesting. It’s just after six in the morning as I write this. The sun is only now coming up through the trees behind his house and Hurd, this little old man, he’s eighty if a day, has been doing some sort of – I actually don’t know what to call it. It’s almost a dance. Like tai chi mixed with some sumo stances all set to a jungle rhythm that only he seems to hear. But he’s been at it since I sat down to write, at around nine o’clock last night. He’s just circling his house, over and over. The man has endurance, I’ll give him that.

I haven’t officially met him yet, him or his wife, Angela. She waves at me pleasantly, though, whenever she catches me coming in and out of the house. Much like any loving grandmother I’ve ever heard of. She seems like the apron-wearing cookie-baking type, what with the way the kids around here seem to flock to their house. Hurd hasn’t even acknowledged my being over here, though, sticking to whatever routine he has and going about his business with his head down. When he’s not doing his bring forth the sun dance, or whatever that is.

He’s gone inside now. I can just make out Angela through their kitchen window, making coffee.

Better get back to it – the cadence, the clickety-clack of the typewriter – or just go to sleep if I’m not going to accomplish anything else here.

I need to move that mirror off the wall. There’s a mirror across from where I’ve set up shop here in the living room and I keep glancing over at it, trying to catch what’s attracting my attention over there. So far, it’s just my reflection. God, look at me. I’m a mess. I look like a heavier Patrick Bergin without the mustache, if he’d been slapped around with a bugle.

Looks like it’s bedtime, after all, Evey.

We’ll try the real writing again tonight.

11:15 A.M.

I slept for maybe five hours.

I woke up with an unknown tune humming in my head. At least so far as I could tell, I think it was in my head. I was in that place where you’re only dreaming that someone punches at you or that you’re falling off a step stool, but your body physically reacts to it like it’s actually happening. Regardless, it sounded like someone was humming from somewhere in the living room. So much so that I actually sat up on the couch (I was so tired, I never made it to my bed this morning), and sought out the origin of the serenade. Nobody was around.

I’ve got to quit smoking cigars so close to bedtime . . .

I tried to sit down and do some work, but all I came up with to type was:

Y O U  A R E  A  N O  T A L E N T  H A C K

I debated on whether to hyphenate no-talent or to go with loser instead of hack but then decided that the entire exercise wasn’t very productive, prudent or not, and took a shot of vodka to clear my head. Tempt my muse from her hiding place as it were. Since I’m back to writing here, though, it seems she’s once again a no-show.

I’m going to clean up a bit and go walk around town.

3:45 P.M.

Today I met a man named Thegan.

He’s a giant of a man, with dark skin and dark eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the Chargers were playing some covert game in town and that I was talking to Shawne Merriman, in disguise, and with infinitely bushier hair.

Thegan is huge.

I met up with him as I wandered around the Village. Here was this colossus walking the streets in a dark blue, 80s-style puffy vest, jean shorts, and sandals all the while reading (and I still can’t believe it, stumbling upon such an obscure pick), Chaucer’s The House of Fame. Just slowly meandering about as he turned the pages. Imagine if you will, Evey, that my garage had taken up the habit of going out for after dinner strolls and you’d just about have him perfectly envisioned.

I stopped him walking into a low-hanging branch – well, low-hanging for him – and not long afterward we sat down, right there in the dirt street alongside the pub, and compared notes about what we’d been reading lately: he, a novel pertaining to Chechen scholars of the 15th century establishing a philosophical bend toward urban lore while contending with increasingly heavy lupine activity on the borderlands, and I, Maybe It’s Just Gas: A Guide To Getting Around Writers Block. So he won that little contest.

Just as I got up and invited Thegan into the pub for some of the Village’s finest liquid discussion, Ms. Fell came, reminding Thegan of a meeting that they had established earlier in the week where she would get to plaster cast his hands (hands, once she pointed them out, I noticed could crush my head like it was nothing if he so chose) for an art project, and he made to leave with her.

I then had a conversation that played out like this. I mention it here both because I can use the practice of writing my dialog and it’s a way to return to the oddness of the conversation later.

Oh, Ms. Fell? I shouted to her as they started to round the corner of the pub.

Please, it’s Audrey.

Of course, Audrey. You didn’t by chance happen by the rental house today, did you?

No, why?

"It’s just that I thought — no, I could have sworn that I heard someone humming a song while I was sleeping. It was probably just a dream, but it occurs to me now that it was a woman’s voice."

At my mentioning it, Audrey smiled at me and said, Ah, yes. You are my lady.

Um . . . excuse me?

"Freddie Jackson’s You Are My Lady. That was the song you heard."

I didn’t have much of a response, or at least none came quickly enough before:

Glad I could help, Mr. Gideon! and Audrey was off with Thegan.

I forgot to even go inside the pub, I was so confused. I just came back to the rental house and wrote all of this down.

I need a nap.

JUNE 18, 2010

It’s a little after midnight as I write this. My nap seems to have gotten away from me.

My head is killing me. Gonna grab something to wash it down.

Odd.

This note was taped to the front door:

Dear Sir,

I have not made your acquaintance as of yet and would very much like to remedy that. My name is Salme Nicoline and I would consider it a personal favor if you could attend a little engagement at my cottage on Sunday evening, June the twentieth, at seven o’clock sharp. Simply follow the small path that runs from behind the post office in town and you won’t be able to miss it. I apologize for the last minute invitation, but I am a traditionalist. Antiquated though the practice may be, I always check my well for assurances, regardless of what the wind whispers. I look forward to our meeting and I’m sure the others will as well.

Cordially,

Ms. Salme Nicoline

I’m taping this here as proof of just how weird this place gets. Who does this? First I’ve got some ghost humming songs at me (which I haven’t forgotten about and in fact just got goosebumps all over, though I don’t even believe in . . . whatever all of that is. I think I need to have a sit down with Audrey. At least I don’t hear any Freddie whoever tonight) and now some well-watching old lady gets a tip from the wind that I should come hang out with her and her bridge buddies. (I mean bridge the card game, of course, but it occurs to me that here in Timberhaven, bridge buddies could take on an entirely different meaning.)

Where’s a Billy Goat Gruff when you need one.

And I lost another day of writing! I can’t keep ignoring Patty forever and I’ve got nothing new to show since our last phone call. Not any real work.

There’s Hurd, out in the yard doing his thing.

Distractions, distractions, distractions. Maybe renting this house wasn’t such a good idea after all.

That’s it. I’m going to finish this cigar and knock out a chapter.

3:16 A.M.

Three hours later and nothing. My muse, my . . . talent has dried up and died, flushed away in a deluge of excess. I’m a failure.

My process is all muddled up for some reason. It’s like leaving to go on a cross-country road trip and reaching into the key bowl to find a handful of marshmallows where your car keys should be.

I just need to relax. Deep breaths. It will come.

Bourbon shot. Use the shot glass to catch the little bit that seeps out of my mouth. Mustn’t waste the good stuff, not a drop.

I can’t help but look at my note from Ms. Nicoline. Maybe I should start writing fantasy instead of horror. I could make a fortune here, what with all that goes on. And that’s only what little I know about! Imagine if I researched some, poked around and explored the streets and woods a little. I bet there are all kinds of crazies here. My experience, little though it is, seems to suggest so.

I’m going to do one more shot and then throw my shoes on