Spellhollow Wood by Joe Scotti - HTML preview

Appendix

There is a very old and oft repeated saw, originating from a particular region of New York State, “Confess ye’ sin in the church, drown ye’ sorrow in the alehouse, but shall ye’ ever wish to meet or cheat the pale horse … the wood awaits.” *

Though it bears a different name today, the Gulliver County area of New York State is mainly comprised of three villages or hamlets, just as it has been for the last several centuries. The largest and most populated of these, set within a wedge of mountainous outcrop at an elevation of some two thousand feet is Highland Pointe, the county seat. Some seven miles to the west lay Woldred, with the hamlet of Lanasink twenty miles north. Yet all three places sit on the borders of what this story is chiefly about: the two hundred and twenty square miles of dense woodland known as Spellhollow Wood, more colloquially termed by the local folk, Spookyhollow or Hellhollow.

It was actually named the Dolriad Forest in much older days as well as Tekene MlallikLiwacan** in the Native American tongue, meaning “Forest of Witchcraft”. It remains one of the very last old-growth or ‘ancient-growth’ woodlands left on the east coast of North America— meaning that these particular woods for whatever strange reason have never been cut down and savaged for any logging or timber needs. It was also believed it had never been the victim of natural fire of any sort, from which almost all large woodlands suffer, some many times over. Yet by most learned accounts, this was not true— at least one huge fire did claim the wood, somewhere around five hundred years ago. Since then, the Dolriad trees and vegetation have grown back and stood untouched.

*No doubt an inaccurate quote, simply because “ye” was rarely, if ever used in Early Modern English of the 16th and 17th centuries, during which only the European/American colonization of New York State could have recorded it. I suspect “ye” was some time later substituted for “your” to falsely denote age, as if the sentiment were passed down from a far earlier time period, as well as perhaps lending a “spookier” tone.

**Assuming this is a correct translation, I still have not yet been able to ascertain whether it is the Unami or Munsee dialect of the Lenape tongue. Anyone with more information, please contact myself or Marie via our website.

The woods’ present namesake specifically refers to the western arm of the forest, long believed to be the most bewitched, set between two highland ridges, which the townsfolk describe as a ‘hollow rife with spells’. Most of the region’s residents have long been convinced they were hopelessly ‘cursed’ for living as close as they do — additionally believing they cannot escape this fate, which explains why few, if any, ever move away as the county sheriff often urged of them. Yet others remain, hoping upon a stroke of spellbinding prosperity, for the wood does not only bring suffering and tragedy but sometimes grants miraculous good fortune too. Still, they unanimously all wish to keep to themselves the secrets they have long taken great care to hide from the outside world. And so with this book, Marie and I will have ruffled more than a few feathers.

Marie Meehanan and her loyal, trusted friends, Courinn, Perion and Tilda, (incidentally, their real names, unchanged to protect the innocent) were just a group of kids I would see from time to time, during the summer. They were at least five years older than I, and as a highly naïve and immature lad, I had no idea what brave and true heroes they really were, as accurately described in these pages.

During the late 1960’s and up through the mid 70’s, I spent a period of either July or August with family at my aunt and uncle’s summer home in Highland Pointe, New York. These years became forever more the idyllic childhood summers of my youth, playing, swimming and fishing with my siblings and cousins. As you might imagine, the reminiscence of those days burns bright in heart and mind.

We were constantly forbid to enter the woods and nearly everyone listened, content to play elsewhere (at the lake) and mostly too scared by all the stories we heard. I, however, did not listen. From an early age, I have always felt a compelling kinship with the woods— any woods— as a place where I could as a pre-teen, readily find the rush of the adventurous unknown, then later as an adult, enjoy nature’s splendid serenity and the woods’ almost magical ability to re-ground myself when the mind and soul become entangled with what life hurls our way … along with perhaps still, a wee bit of adventure.

Though I hardly ever ventured far enough into the woods to encounter any of its real splendors or perils (apart from an angry run-in with a bobcat, which I luckily and thankfully sent fleeing after smashing my walking stick down upon its crown) I did one day come across Marie and Courinn walking about. Through them, I met Perion and the rest of the exiled boys soon after. I remained merely a general acquaintance with them all for a good many years, until our family trips upstate ceased sometime in the early 1980’s. I did not return until years after college, with a desire to see the woods once more, when, by chance I met Marie again. She did not live there anymore, having moved away with her family and was also back visiting. We went to a local eatery and after a few games of ping pong in which she thoroughly shellacked me, we sat and talked for the first time. By then, Perion and his comrades had long since returned home, and whether it was the sadness of missing him, or some other weighing melancholy, she began telling me some of their past adventures, of which I had never known or heard a word of.

Returning to my aunt and uncle’s home that night, my head was spinning with the details of the incredible stories Marie had recounted. I awoke late the next rainy morning, convinced my host had fabricated a rather large, however entertaining practical joke on me, until she arrived at my aunt’s door with my camera I had left behind. I vividly remember staring in sheer awe when I looked at Marie, seeing the unearthly, swirling colors of the rainbow in her eyes: a phenomenon occurring only during rainy or foggy days. It was exactly as she explained to me the prior night, after her adventure at The Rainbow’s End within the wood, years earlier. From that moment, I was a believer.

We stayed in touch from that point on, evolving from letter to e-mail correspondence, meeting every few years in Highland Pointe, where she would continue telling me more and more of the incredible tales she shared with Perion, Courinn, and eventually of course, Steavyn. I once asked her why she chose to reveal her fantastic stories to me, someone completely out of their circle.

“Amidst two worlds of imbalance, it makes very good sense,” she answered. I still have no clue what she meant.

Today, Marie lives with a family of her own in Northern California. Though my meetings with her had become fewer and farther between throughout the 1990’s, that changed in 2002. That year, Marie came to me with an extraordinary gift. A mammoth volume titled, “The Cycles of Exile” given to her by Professor Mifflin, yet composed not by him nor her, but Tybain, one of the Exiles, who had returned to Marie, along with Perion and Brage in 1996, then again by himself in 2001. He had set all of their tales down, meticulously chronicling their adventures here as well as back in their home world, a place that exists upon the twilight of all we can see and know, yet which is also directly linked to the mysteries and magic of Spellhollow Wood. It is from this vast work, per Marie’s request, that I have diligently transcribed these accounts into a unified narrative, the first of which at long last is this book.

Marie has also drawn the map and wonderful illustrations throughout the story, which she has created from her own mind’s-eye as only she remembers the events. I would like to sincerely thank her and Tybain for his monumental effort in making their stories possible to share. For those wishing more detail, it should be noted that large portions of this tale were transcribed sitting and walking within the very woods of Spellhollow as they exist today— changed a bit since the days of these stories, yet the very enchantment and bewitchment remain. I sincerely hope you enjoy spending time with Marie, Courinn, Tilda and Perion and that you might wish to return in the future and read their further adventures. I also hope you find their exploits at least half as exciting as I did that heady evening when a young woman named Emily Marie opened my eyes to the impossible.

Joseph Scotti

September, 2008