Salutations! Tis the season and will dwell on that. Yes, we do have a calendar and do have one tv station that has the time, day and year on the screen. Most of us grew up with some kind of Christmas. Trimming the tree, some going out and cutting it, decorating the house, buying gifts for each other, some going to church on the eve. Yes, I loved Christmas and everything that went with it including both giving and receiving presents until the whole juggernaut of capitalism and a market dependent on growth and sales grew to be a monster way more dangerous than our president or Vecna.

  So beginning in 2025, my family from central Ohio decided to not support growth but instead give a gift of us in some way, like doing something or creating something without spending any money. My brothers and I got together and decided to combine a treasure hunt and a written story that they would have to read in parts, the clues in each leading them to the next part. What we didn’t know was that our mom had overheard us talking about it and decided with dad to do the same thing with us. They waited until we were asleep to hide theirs.

  Plot. There are two young men who I want to be with during whatever this is. Each one has vastly different back stories, special interests and mannerisms. Both are readers of different genres of fiction but share the same intensity for environmental justice and a road back to sanity. Both are articulate, sensitive and sometimes look at me in the way a girl understands a man’s underlying desires.

  I spent a couple of days walking back and forth between the B & B, sitting on the steps meditating on it, even visiting the elders pod with a few others to say hello. I didn’t want it to be easy or obvious or too obtuse or stupid. It had to be just right. I wanted my true core inner feelings to show, a soul searching cry for a soul mate, how the time was absolutely right and how together we would change the world. I just didn’t want a partner but an accomplice during what’s being called Restoration. I wanted, I desired, I needed, I was searching. I wanted it to be partially intuitive, felt more than thought, not rushed but meditated on, certainly not an IQ test but more like a map, on a way of finding us.

  But I wasn’t prepared for what happened as if you can for anything these days. As part of this crafted ritual of discovery, I decided to spend two nights sleeping in the stacks, which I’d always wanted to do and since they would be complicit in this spiritual endeavor, I brought a blanket, pillow and water up around 2am and found the sci-fi section. Seuss would rub up against me, purring, saying hello and maybe thanks, then off mousing. There was close to a full moon, offering its dull lemony light enough to see my way around while slipping the pieces of my soulful quest next to the books, two of course for the two hunters. In the last I folded two sheets in half and inserted them inside. It was strange being the only one there. It added a dimensional quality of timelessness, of being a traveler stopped for a moment to get my bearings. The Keep felt like a fortress at times, a monument of the past that harbored not only our history on this planet but us, from our colossal fuck up!

  There were odd sounds, some within the stacks themselves, perhaps insects feasting on Poe or Dickens? And as I moved around, slipping the written clues between books to find the next, I swear that I was being followed. I whispered hello but silence so I sat down, took off my shoes but left the socks on and stealthily crept down an aisle, slipping around the end, peering down the next and the next, always losing a little bit more moonlight as I did. At the other end of the last stack near the door to the children’s stacks was a dark shape. There was a light on inside and what sounded like muffled children’s laughter. Always the intrepid adventurer, I walked right up to the shape and stopped cold. No! A part of me wanted to run and yet the fearless part of me had to understand.

  The shape was a five foot rabbit standing on two feet dressed in a tuxedo, wearing white gloves and a tall black hat and sandals. I knew right away it was Wiggles, my closest friend for a bunch of early years. Mr. Wiggles said, ‘hello Haley, you must show me your invitation before you can enter.’

  ‘Invitation! Why do I need one if I live here! And why is the door knob on the wrong side?’

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  ‘It’s on the left side which of course is the right side so not just anyone can enter, of course!’

  ‘But..’

  ‘But, but, but, is that all you can say? You might try oh, I don’t know, maybe please or hand me a bunch of organic carrots or praise my choice of threads! You could tell me an excellent short story, including me in it of course or you could apologize for throwing me in the trash can or..’

  ‘What.”

  ‘Yes, trash can.’

  ‘I didn’t know! Okay, look, I didn’t throw you away, I loved you more than my parents, I took you to bed with me, sat you at your own table and fed you stuff I took from my plate at dinner. I taught you how to play games on the iPad and ..’

  ‘Okay, okay’, and stepping aside, I went in, the door closing behind me and I thought, Crap, this might be the most incredible thing in my life or a waking nightmare. All my favorite characters from childhood books were spread out, sitting at the reading tables talking to children and laughing while my other favorite characters from my favorite adult fantasy/sci-fi stories, were either standing or sitting in the overstuffed chairs. Should I engage? With whom? Stay all night or leave if that was possible.

  I stayed all night and am presently writing about the experience for another journal entry. It was the quintessential mind blowing event of my life, no close runner ups and prepared me for what came next. I think the two messages stand out. One, rabbit holes aren’t bad things, that they’re there for your personal growth and important for what comes next and if you ignore them, you’re bound to repeat your mistakes over and over. They all pretty much said the same thing but in their own inimitable way and Gandalf didn’t have to tell me about how the Hobbits didn’t have to leave their idyllic Shire but of course they had to because what was coming would eventually get there. Everyone should spend a night like that!

  When I got tired and needed sleep, the door opened. I slipped the instructions beneath each of their bedroom doors and quietly opened and closed my door, took off my clothes and realized that I’d forgotten the sneakers. Crap! I’d wake up early and get them.

  But they weren’t there the next morning and not in lost and found. Maybe that’s where I should stay! I peaked over the next two days and nothing had been touched. The strange thing was that when talking to them as usual, neither one made any hint of receiving the instructions or following them. So, between the night with my favorite characters and this, I thought I’d stepped into another dimension. I rationalized that LUNA had perfected holograms to near perfection and both guys still hadn’t figured the first clue yet but not even hinting of the hunt didn’t compute. After a festive communal dinner at the B & B, after glasses of champagne accompanied by wild survival stories mostly by our new friends, I got back a little before twelve and was about to strip and hit the sack when there was barely a knock on the door.

  ‘Yes’, I yelled, ‘come in.’

  It was Huck holding my sneakers. He’s a relatively new ‘V, always the loner, shy or asocial, never around. It was the kid that broke a hundred girl hearts before he graduated from high school. A lot of the members felt he was unapproachable simply because he didn’t engage with others, shrugging his shoulders a lot. We knew he wasn’t vacant because of the books that he read and he did work hard outside, mostly with his shirt off. Eye candy some said. I had filed him under, No, no chemistry, no communication, no backstory, no interest.

  So when he kneeled down and put the sneakers on my feet and looked up with that look that was worth a thousand words or stories or the one look that I’d waited for, gently tying the laces, my heart sang.

  ‘But how…’, I began,

  ‘’I’m a ‘V, three weeks now, and I’ve felt you since we arrived here. I haven’t said anything, being close to you was enough but since I took spit, its only grown more intense to the point where I feel your thoughts. I understood what you were about to do so I intervened on our behalf. If I sound too confident or presumptuous, please let me explain. Will you allow me express what my inner voice tells me?’

  I nodded.

  I’m sure he wouldn’t mind but I’ll let him tell his love with his words whenever he feels it. I fell in love that night without asking him how he knew about Cinderella or how he was able to retrieve the instructions I slipped underneath locked doors or if he had anything to do with my favorite characters gathering or treats like candy bars, I’ve found in my room sometimes or if he thought I would also take spit.

  He left after allowing that inner voice to speak, touching me unlike any other words ever could. He had saved an apartment for us at the B & B and asked if I would do him the honor of a candle light dinner tomorrow night. On Christmas Eve. I nodded, shy, so ready to begin that journey but part of me feeling I was just having a lucid dream.