I’ve wanted to say this for a long time…
I’ve been to Neithernor.
I ran down the track, and they saw me and ran after me. There was an announcement on the loudspeaker that trains had been delayed. I broke into the cordoned off area before they could get to me and the door was there. One door out of the four or five down there was knocking, waiting for me to knock back. I tried the few knocks we thought of, but the correct knock was Gossmere, Weatherwatch, Ebenguard, Thornmouth, Flinterforge, Balimora.
I’ll have to try and adequately describe what I saw later, but I was in an old stone tower overlooking Neithernor. It was bare except a table and chair near a long window. There was one door, the one I’d come through, but I couldn’t open by normal means. It was raining, at least where the tower was, and I could see different weather patterns drifting across the land below.
I want to tell you everything I saw, but I know many of you have been there, and honestly, I can’t put it all into words right now. But the smell. The smell there was like… nostalgia on the air. Like I’d always known this place. I can’t explain it, but I was finally there, and I wasn’t alone.
A woman, translucent, with braided hair and boots and a long coat, appeared. I knew she was Molly. She smiled and came to me and took my hand. I could feel her fingertips on mine, like the tickle of a spiderweb, only for a moment though, because she pulled away, and I saw Woolie’s hand in hers, his body emerging from mine.
The pain I’d been dealing with for weeks ended immediately.
They hugged and then Molly held out her hand, to me I thought, but then I felt a rush of electricity as another translucent entity passed through me. A girl. No older than my daughter, maybe ten. She ran to Woolie, and he fell to his knees and held her.
I looked away. It didn’t feel right to watch, so I watched the rain instead. It looked like aquamarine falling from the sky. Woolie and I had been through so much, and though it hurt to have him in my head, it also kind of hurt to let him go.
I felt a tingle on my chest. It was Woolie. He had one hand on my heart and one on his own. He nodded. I nodded. We didn’t need to say anything. And then, in a blink, they were gone, and I was alone.
I sat on the edge of the desk and watched Neithernor for hours.
I know I have a life here, a family, friends, a business, all of you… but it felt like an ending of sorts there in the tower, and so I stayed and embraced whatever was ending. Honored it, and let it go.
But I did take something with me. Something that felt familiar, or at least like it was left there for someone to find.
).
