The Seven

"It's the Seven!" they whisper, behind not-quite-closed doors, watching and waiting for the blue door at the end, the one covered in vines, to swing open.

"I've seen it open," boasts one of the oldest, who has seen all the doors open, though, being just a child when the Seven appeared, can hardly remember it. Still, she boasts, swinging her cane and speaking with her hands to anyone who will listen.

The Seventh door is the last in the line, the least frequently opened, the most overgrown with vines. Until yesterday, when the warning - the missive had come. The Seven shall arrive tomorrow. Prepare your children. Two will be chosen.

One is a place for children of good learning, where they disappear and return with secrets and inside jokes and a skill they have honed for years. Two is an honour, those who return become scholars. Three is slightly more dangerous. Only a certain number of children return, and half of them are unrecognizable, mad and haggard and relegated to street corners where they spout half-nonsense prophecies. Half of them come true, but they are never pleasant, and the villagers prefer to listen to pleasant things. The fourth door is for musical children. The Fourth produces children with the skills to draw whole flocks of sheep through gates with a few notes, to chase snakes from the hutches, to send children to sleep. The door to Five collapsed long ago. Some say it began the way Seven did. The door had opened less and less often until it had stopped opening altogether. It was had splintered and nearly come off its hinges and the villagers had decided to leave it be, that the higher powers would fix it if it was their intention. It has stayed that way for years. Six is a place for athletes, the ancient Sparta of the doors. Those that are spit out years later are rigid with muscle, nimble with their fingers, and generally not the kind of people one wants to anger.

But Seven, oh Seven is a different door altogether. And the Seven, the person-teacher-thing beyond it calls for only one or two children, at irregular times. No one has ever returned from Seven.

The children of the village are groomed and combed and perfumed and wrestled into itchy lace and uncomfortable trousers and pinching shoes. When the time has come, when the clocktowers are arguing noon across the rooftops, they are put into a single file line, before the door.

They begin at the first chime. They wait only seconds to see if the door opens. There is no movement from it, not fo the first child, nor the second. There goes the baker's son, the butcher's boy, the mayor's daughter, the farmer's twins from down the lane, the woodcutter's son, the orphans from the orphanage, looking particularly grey in their worn clothes. The librarian's son steps forward, meeting the number on the door with his calm, green gaze. He feels as though it is looking back at him. Very slowly, it opens. Just a crack, enough to cast a small shadow on the wall it is set into, but the villagers see it. The librarian comes to stand with his son beside the door, holding back tears.

The humber of children in the line dwindles. Villagers hold their breath until the door rejects their child, relinquishes them for some other destiny. The Seven does not want their children today.

It opens again for the cobbler's daughter, a tall red-headed girl with shining shoes and her hair loose, though most of the girls have tied their hair in ribbons for this occasion. She does not seem to believe at first that the door has opened, not until her father takes her shoulders with his shaking hands and steers her toward it.

The Seven swings open. Beyond it is immediate darkness. A cold gust of wind blows the librarian's son and the cobbler's daughter a step closer. The Seventh is getting impatient.

The librarian gives his son a quick kiss on the forhead and a pat on the shoulder. The cobbler embraces his daughter for the last time, kisses her cheek, and pushed her gently ahead. She steps into the darkness, just before the boy. They are swallowed by it immediately. The door swings shut. There is no noise. No sound. The Seven has made its claim.

Art by Anonymous

Text by Lucie MacAulay

The Eyes On The Walls

The hallway is lined with playing cards, walls of black and white and red. There is no discernable pattern, no order to the rows and columns that hide the walls. Faces are across at faces, the suicidal King, the black-haired Queen.

Some cards are flipped over, backs exposed. The designs are intricate, as extravagant as the curlicues and flourishes on tarot cards. They are images of vines and spirals and tiny buds.

You walk along slowly, looking to see if any of them are different, but the faces remain the same, the numbers do not increase above 10 or decrease below 2. You can imagine the feeling of the cards beneath your fingers, while they are pristine you imagine soft edges, bent corners, cards that have seen smoky pubs and logwood cabins and rainy days. Memories emerge from their corners and niches, some better than others.

You squint at the cards. Is the Jack smiling here? Has the suicidal King closed his eyes? Is the Queen weeping at the sight? The cards seem more morose, more tragic as you continue. This cannot be all there is.

You avoid the eyes on the walls as you continue down the corridor. You have not noticed that the most often occurring card is the 2 of hearts. 

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Art by Anonymous

The Magic Eight

The magic eight is only reference in the apex of superstition. On All Hallow’s Eve, when the black cat crosses one’s path, when a child wanders beneath a ladder, when one steps on the cracks in the sidewalks, one will go out of their way to see the magic eight.

It has been here for as long as anyone remembers. Even the gray-haired, deaf, pearly-eyed cannot remember a childhood without it. It has always been there, they say, and it always will be.

There is some speculation as to when it appeared. Some say a former neighbour left it behind long ago. Others insist it has always been there, it was born from the land.

And why eight? Why not seven? Why not nine? OR the unlucky thirteen? The magical, fairy tale three?

Touching the magic eight leaves some feeling cold, others warm. But each will come away with a new perspective. New eyes. The neighbours with the strongest of practical streaks insist it is electric shock. Nothing new about it. 

Most days the magic eight is ignored. Unseen. Strangers will point and ask questions. That? Just the magic eight. No, it’s always been there. Nothing lucky about it.

Yet, when the wind blows harshly, when the waves on the shore are capped with white, when the rain lashes hard against the small rickety houses on the hill, when the knife has slipped in the kitchen and blood is running over the tiles, when death stands over one’s bedside, someone will always be sent to the magic eight.

Deep down, no one questions the magic of the eight.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Art by Anonymous

Secret Destinations

“The boat departs at midnight,” the captain says. “It’s a cold journey, tonight. Bundle up.”

The wind is cold as a ghost’s breath across the deck, whistling in the sails. The lanterns flicker with it.

You depart with no suppositions about your destination. The journey alone is an adventure. There is a map of stars above your head, continents of constellations, the river of Orion’s Bow.

You are among others as you stare into the mist, then, as the mist dissipates, at the large dark mountains, like the backs of sea beasts rising above the water. These kindred spirits marvel with you over the sweet taste of the air, over the star studded surface of the water, over the tiny lights appearing in the mountains like candles.

The captain has vanished to the top deck. He is little more than a shadow against the light. You wave and, after a moment, he waves back. There are refreshments, timed exactly when the passengers begin to get hungry: champagne in glasses with coloured flutes, confections of cream and sugar and jam, and spices too exotic and strange to name.

Soon you forget that you are headed for a destination at all. The night reaches their pinnacle, and as it wanes, as the dawn bleeds over the mountains, the strange question re emerges. But there is no use wondering. The mist seeps across the lake once more. The captain has all but disappeared. But the ship shows no signs of stopping.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Art by Anonymous

The Dreaming House

You descend the stairs to a room filled with feathers, each as soft as clouds, so thick the floor is barely visible in the spaces between them. There are no walls, only bars on either side of you that outline a winding corridor, like the bars of a large birdcage.

You continue down the hall, where the feathers and metal converge to a door. Through it is a room filled entirely with evergreen trees, each as silver as tinsel, glowing as though lit from within. Their light is a ruler that measures your shadow.

You catch glimpses of figures, here and there, flitting from tree to tree. A blonde pig-tailed girl in a muslin gown, an old man holding a pipe, wreathed with smoke. A young woman with a handkerchief soaked in blood. An adolescent with short cut hair and a soft face who is not masculne, but too boyish to be a girl. You do not catch a glimpse of the same person twice.

Beyond the line of a group of trees is a wooden door, set between two trunks, and beyond it a room of such lightlessness that you are blinded. There are no walls that you can feel, and were your feet not firmly planted on the ground you might believe that it does not exist either. It is not until the first of the stars reveal themselves that you realize you are in an open space, as vast as a desert. It is, in fact, filled with sand, soft beneath your feet, white as snow. There is no door behind you.

You follow crest after crest until you fear there is no end to this desert. Perhaps you were wrong to choose that door in the trees. Perhaps you were wrong to leave the birdcage-hall. But in the dip between two hills is a trapdoor, and beneath it, a ladder made only of playing cards.

You fear, as you descend it, that it will break, but it holds steady until you stand in a hallway lined with mirrors. They are pieces of glass, of all shapes and sizes, framed and unframed, circular and triangular and in lines and jagged mosaics. Each one is different, you realize, as you pass them. In some your boots dissappear, in other they reappear, with extra buckles or without. In one mirror there is a hat on your head, in another it is gone. In one mirror your shadow has vanished, only to reappear in the next.

In one mirror a hand is on your shoulder, but when you turn to see its owner, you find nothing.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Art by Anonymous

The Price Of Decadence

"Life is like a box of chocolates," are some of the lady's first words to him.

The boy watches her swallow a chocolate after she speaks. She has a pleasant face. She has pleasant lips too, he notices. Carnation-pink, smiling widely.

"Oh?" he says, and takes a chocolate of his own. Hazelnut prailine. She turns the smile on him and he feels himself flush, deeply, in places he's never flushed before.

"A simple bite of the wrong one can put you off forever," she continues and licks her lips. He follows the path of her tongue across her teeth.

"And the right one?" he asks. He bites into his second chocolate. Coconut. Not his favourite, but he is hardly paying attention.

She pauses with a chocolate halfway to her mouth, lips pulled back, teeth poised to take a bite. "The right one can be worse. Addiction is a most dangerous poison." She sinks her teeth into the chocolate.

"I suppose it depends what you're addicted to." He reaches for another chocolate but a slender hand rests atop his and he pauses. There is a clash of instruments in his head, a sonata accompanying the loveliness of the face in front of him. The music dims when she leans close.

"Not that one," she says softly, pulling his hand toward another row of chocolates. She plucks one from its mold and places it in his fingers.

This one has a sweeter taste, tart like raspberries, bitter like wine, bubbly like champagne, rich like dark, dark chocolate. He tastes sunlight and shade and long nights and velvet and whispers.

She is whispering. Running her tongue across her teeth. She is close. He feels her body heat. Her face swims in and out of focus. Perhaps it is her nearness that makes the world appear as though it were on the other side of a distorted glass. Perhaps it is his vision that makes her teeth appear just a little too sharp.

The discovery of her breath on his neck arrests his thoughts.

"I am addicted to life itself," she says. Her voice is the most decadent thing he has tasted all night. His sudden sharp breath is the last thing he will taste, and the first thing she will taste of him.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Art by Ludovic Jaqcz

Bell Minders

Now that I think about it, it all began with the bells.

Silver and tarnished, found in the back of an antique shop for less than three pounds. The shopkeeper couldn't seen to remember when they had appeared, or where she had aquired them. We asked if she had ever seen anything like them and she had shrugged and given us our receipt and wished us a good day.

We hung them first on our porch, where e suspected the wind would draw sound from them, like a musician. They looked old, like dust and forgotten things and sad stories. But they were as silent as if they lay still in the back of the antiques shop.

Soon we forgot about them, except to duck our heads and we left the house. "Mind the bell," we began to say, until the word lost all articulation. Mindthebell, it became.

Grandmother came to visit and stared at them for a long time. While I poured our tea in the kitchen she nodded toward the front of the house. "Bell like those cause trouble. Mark my words. When they start ringing, you'd better run." Grandmother said some weird things, so I nodded and promised her I would and offered her a biscuit for her tea.

I shared the superstition with a neighbour, who shared it with other neighbours, and soon a common greeting evolved. "Those bells ringing yet?" "Don't worry about the bells, they're quiet as mice."

The bells began to ring yesterday. I'm not sure I believed grandmother, but I began to run. So far I'm the only one who's got away.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Art by Anonymous