“We’re on!” I exclaimed to a room empty of all but a flickering computer monitor. However he did it, Stormm had assured me it would be worth the trip to attempt a crossing of worlds.

     Be it history or mythology, it is a common tale among most of the Celtic cultures, that in ancient times there were other races that were displaced when our ancestors made their way to our hallowed isles. There were the Sidhe who moved into the lands beyond their hollow hills also called `sidhs´. Or the Tuatha De Danaans (literally the Children of Danu) who were a tall, Nordic looking race of near immortals but could be killed in battle. All of whom were behooved to move beyond the reach of mankind. A thousand races represented in the Fair Folk or the Gentry of ancient times who possessed a knowledge of wizardry that far surpassed anything known to man and capable of great feats of strength, wit and wisdom.

     Armed with the fairy tales I learned as a wee lad I met a strange man that demonstrated those strange qualities that are said no longer to exist amongst the race of men. The very substance of old superstitions wrapped in flesh and blood and magick. He, like the old wizard a thousand years his predecessor, has no earthly father and therefore the nature of two worlds in his blood and bones. This is why I flew all the way from Edinburgh to Rochester, New York on Lammas to traipse through a bloody steaming jungle on the edge of a city.

     It was bloody hot and had to be the hottest day of the year when I picked John up at his house. He came down to my rental car looking the penultimate Celtic barbarian with his long, blond ponytail adorned with raven’s feathers and his tall, athletic build barely contained in shorts and sandals with a collection of amulets and charmed silver rings on his fingers. Though I am ten years his senior, I am at least a foot shorter and of a stockier build. What a contrast we were. I in white shirt, shorts and sneakers and Stormm in his traditional black on black. He tossed a backpack and a kit into the backseat and we drove the few blocks to a cul-de-sac where we could park the car and start our hike into the woods at Durand Eastman Park.

     Getting out of the air conditioned Lexus it hit me like a brick wall. The air was so humid and sticky it was hard to breathe and I thought I might be taking my life and health in my hands with this trip into the forest. But we had planned this for months and it had to be Lammas if we were going to be assured of making the crossing or it was going to be the same kind of dumb luck we had trusted in past attempts where Stormy had tried to show me some rift areas.

     “Could it just possibly get any bloody hotter than this?” I asked in exasperation.

     “Only in hell,” he replied with a grin, “but we’ll be avoiding that neighborhood on this trip.

     “Can I help you carry any of that?” I asked, indicating his backpack and kit decked out like Batman’s utility belt.

     “Nah,” he replied, “I’ve got this part alright. You just concern yourself with keeping up with me and getting through this in the best possible shape. Along the way, I’ll see what I can do to make the trip a bit more bearable.”

     I suspected that he had made some kind of contract with someone on the other side for this trip the day before. It is well known in his family that on his birthday he disappears and no one sees or hears of him until late in the day. I was going to learn where he goes and maybe why he is the impossible kind of man he is. But God, the heat was oppressive and the bugs were eating me alive. They don’t seem to like Stormy though. He seemed to take it all in stride without even any visible sweating.

     “I swear I’m going to lose a pint of blood to these six-legged vampires before we get a full mile,” I complained, swatting at a swarm of deer flies and mosquitoes. “Don’t you ever worry about getting West Nile virus or something?”

     “I’ll fix that for you,” he said, looking about for his solution.

     As we walked down towards the brook he calls Kidron, I notice he is picking some large leaves with a thick milky sap and putting them into a plastic shopping bag he had pulled from a pocket in his backpack. Getting to the water, he fills it out of the brook and twists the end shut, shaking it vigorously.

     “Here, old timer,” Stormm says, holding out the water bag. “I want you to douse yourself thoroughly, from head to toe with this water. It’s milkweed sap, and there’s only one kind of insect that can tolerate it and the Monarch caterpillar won’t bite you, but because of the strength and poison in these leaves, even the birds won’t eat them.”

     “What will it do to me?” I ask nervously.

     “It will cool you down and make you very unappetizing to anything that might want to bite you,” he replied.

     I must say that it worked on both counts. Next he had me take off my shirt and soak it in the creek and then fasten it to the belt loop on my shorts and to occasionally slap the wet cloth across my chest and back to keep cool. This felt VERY good on such a day as this and I was beginning to think it might not be so bad until I saw the equipment Stormy was fastening on while we were stopped at the brook. He was slinging a single edged, ninja style, short sword over his shoulder under his pack so that he could draw it with one hand. He DID say to leave the equipment and victuals to him, and I had to wonder what he thought we might come across that would warrant carrying a sword. He seems a bit strange and eccentric at times, but when you know him as long as I, you learn to reserve judgment as he can be very practical about things too. He had a shoulder slung water bottle with iced tea and a couple partially frozen bottles of water, which we drank freely from along the way, a black bag with some rope and a folding grappling hook, several nectarines, a folding saw, some throwing knives, a slingshot, a cottage cheese container with Italian dressing in it, a pair of walkie talkies which he had given me one to use and numerous other odds and ends that he seemed to think would come in handy for some sort of emergencies as they might happen. He’s not only a wizard but a bloody fine Boy Scout. Still I had to wonder at what he expected.



     “Do you really think you’re going to need all of that?” I asked. “It’s only a walk in the park, you know.”

     “With me,” he said, “it’s NEVER just a walk in the park. I promised you we would crossover today and this won’t be the Durand Eastman Park that you ever knew. You’ll begin to see what I mean a little further in.”

     I know I practically begged for this experience, but I really didn’t like the way he said that. We crossed the brook and moved up a steep incline to a trail he dubs, the Emerald Tunnel. It snakes in a northerly direction along the top of a ridge just east and parallel to the brook. The effect of the sunlight through branches arching over the packed clay floor of the trail give it its name.

     A short ways up the trail from Kidron I begin to notice a couple things. The first is no more mosquitoes or deer flies. Not that they were just leaving me alone, I just didn’t see any. There were some interesting butterflies. I can’t recall ever seeing so many and so many different kinds of them. Then there were a flurry of small and large dragonflies, the largest being the size of a small bird. A group of several large iridescent varieties buzzed close to us. Their jeweled wings humming like cellos.

     “They’re here to check out the new kid,” Stormy indicated, the red, green and blue trio. “Careful not to swat at them. They might not like that and they won’t bite or sting you. They’re just curious.”

     “Just as long as they’re not too curious with how I might taste,” I quipped nervously.

     “Trust me,” he said laughing, “you taste just awful with that milkweed sap on you. Nothing in its right mind will want a taste of you. I didn’t bring you out here to let anything happen to you. But you have to follow my instructions to the letter. Not everything is safe here and little is only as it seems.”

      “We’ve crossed over?” I asked. I really hadn’t noticed anything. I half expected a light show or some kind of special effects heralding our crossing. I was sadly disappointed in this.

      “Just keep your eyes open for things you’ve never seen in your own world,” he said with his exasperatingly mischievous grin. “You tell ME when you think we might not be in Kansas anymore.”

      Stormy is a man who loves the turn of a colorful metaphor. He is also very used to teaching and lecturing, so I found it a bit unnerving that he didn’t seem to want to give me a running commentary as we walked the trail. The next thing I noticed, when we arrived at a clearing on the ridge trail was that there should have been a highway on the ridge just east of us and houses along that road, but no houses to be seen through the trees or in the clearings and no sound of traffic. I would think there would’ve been a lot of traffic going to the beach on such a blistering day. Not a single lawnmower or engine of any kind to be heard. The sound of birds singing and the rustle of squirrels frolicking in the trees and the warm breeze whispering through the boughs was all I heard in any direction. The trail was looking narrower than I remember it, but its been hot and wet here lately. Plants in this hot and humid environment tend to grow wild and fast. I also noticed that some of the hardwood trees along the trail have runes carved into them. Stormy had likely marked this trail in times past. Most things I could explain through normal coincidences and John encouraged that speculation. I could tell he was amused with the whole thing by the way he coaxed me along. The coincidences were about to take a left turn. My camera wouldn’t work and my watch stopped at the same time his had. About 10:27am. Bloody hell.

     The next spectacle were the deer. A well antlered stag and a couple does with fawns browsed peacefully in the shade near the edge of a meadow. They were unfazed at us being there and just watched us without running away.

     “When you see the wildlife like this,” Stormm explained quietly, “make no abrupt or sudden moves that can be taken for aggression. If you just stand still quietly, you can watch to your heart’s content and leave them the option to leave you in peace.”

      I noticed by the twitching of their big ears that the deer heard us and were aware of our presence. They didn’t seem concerned, so neither was I. Besides, Jungle Jim here had a sword. I found that it was not always possible to stop what I was doing and stand stock still when I had chosen to step off the trail to relieve me self. There I was, willie in hand and minding my own business when I saw the damnedest collection of animals ever to wear a single skin. There was no abruptly stopping anything as this creature had found me in the bushes. I stared and it stared right back at me. It had a ring striped tail like a raccoon and the body of a largish long haired cat, dusky black with white and tan streaks. The ears and yellow slitted eyes were more like a cat’s, but the face and nose were coloured and pointed like a red fox. The paws were more like the hands of a raccoon too.

     “You might be wanting to draw that sword of yours now,” I said quietly, “and come and take a look at this bozo.”

     He placed one hand up to his right shoulder and peered over the bushes. The critter gave him a casual glance and looked back at me and it just sort of sniffed and strolled off on its way as if it was satisfied it had checked me out.

     “Those are sort of common here,” he commented. “I’ve always referred to them as Cheshire Cats, though I believe they might either be some kind of sub-species of raccoon or a pooka.”

     “Where the hell is here?” I asked.

     “No longer in the park you remember,” he said with no further comment.

     The next thing we come to a series of broad meadows bordering wetland bogs. Frogs singing and herons fishing and a beaver dam. Stormm was hacking at the reeds among the cattails with his short sword and peeling the stalks down to their white piths and putting the sections in his cottage cheese container with the Italian dressing as a treat for later. We had stopped to enjoy the cold bottled water and the nectarines he had brought when it occurred to me that we should be seeing the golf course by now or the water treatment plant or the gravel access road to either of those but the trail continued on into the next portion of pine woods with a few oaks interspersed. Here we saw puffball mushrooms the size of hassocks. I’ve seen puffballs in these woods before but never so big. But it‘s been hot and humid for most of this summer and I guess such growth can be expected.

     Coming out of the piney woods on the other side, I about fell on my face in shock. Stretched out before us was the Lake Ontario. A great , fresh water lake so big you just can’t see all the way across it. By rights, we should have crossed Lakeshore Blvd before we come to the parking lot and THEN the lake but we had walked all the way through the woods and not a four lane highway insight anywhere. Or even a single lane gravel road for that matter. I’ve lived over 15 years in Irondequoit and I know this area well. There is no possible way to come out of those woods in any direction without crossing a road. Also there was nobody at the beach. The hottest day of the year and not a soul to be seen, not even the locally famous new swimming area the city proposed this year. It doesn’t look as sandy as usual but more small smooth pebbles than sand. Not a house or a boat of any kind to be seen anywhere. A herd of deer gathered at the water further up the beach. I was flabbergasted but Stormy had it in mind to peel off his pack and splash around in the waist deep water. The water was crystal clear and in the seventies. Like I said, it was HOT so I remembered who I was with and I bounded into the lake and went swimming too when he reminded me it might not be a good idea.



     “Just wade and cool off in the shallows,” he said, glancing nervously out into the distance. “The marine life around here can get a bit extreme.”

     I noticed that even though he had shrugged off his pack and kit, the sword was still slung in its nylon scabbard and baldric over his right shoulder. The stainless utilitarian blade was in no danger of rusting, but the memories of my friend squaring off against several local thugs in his old job as a store manager came flooding back to me. I remember it well because I remember the glint in his eye and the lopsided grin on his face as if he thought the whole thing might be a joke that only he knew the punch line to. He didn’t look nearly so smug now as the shadow of worry crossed his features. I waded back to the shallower waters in his vicinity and we lay back in the water watched the occasional puffy cumulus cloud drift by. It was a glorious day.

     We watched what appeared to be a lone turkey vulture circling lazily in the afternoon sky.

     “Bloody big bird, that,” I mused aloud. “I wonder if it’s circling because it thinks it might have found some carrion.”

     “I don’t think it’s a carrion eater,” Stormy said conversationally.

     “Of course it is, lad,” I objected. “It’s a vulture and that’s what they do.”

     “It’s bigger than you think,” he replied. “Watch.”

     I saw what I thought was a turkey vulture soaring high above. They are big birds but this one soared right into one of those big puffy clouds and I realized how high up that had to be and by proportion how big that bloody bird had to be to appear that size. I dare say it had to be AT LEAST big enough to carry off a full grown man. Those clouds had to be thousands of feet up. At least the better part of a mile and I thought it was just a turkey vulture circling a couple hundred feet off the ground.

     “That ain’t no bloody Cessna, is it?” I asked.

     “No, I think it’s a rok,” Stormy replied, watching the bird drifting in and out of the cloud. “The thunderbirds of Native American lore. They still exist here. I’m not sure if Natives came here and seen them or the birds, themselves crossed over into our world at some point in time and were seen. As we have often discussed, even myths and outright lies have to have at least some basis in reality to carry any weight for any length of time. That’s why I warned you not to go out too far in these waters.”

     “Sea serpents?” I asked, sitting up quickly.

     “Exactly,” he replied scanning the horizon again.

     “You know, we’ll burn if we stay too long out here in the sun,” I pointed out.

     “How about we retire to the shade of the trees and entertain ourselves with a little knife throwing?” he said, standing and wading to shore. “Later, we’ll see what we can do about dinner.”

      Under the trees, Stormm picks up a large piece of driftwood and pulls a marker out of his kit and draws a few targets on its surface and props it up. Pacing off about ten to fifteen feet he draws two leaf shaped throwing blades out of his pack and instructs me in their use. The more I relax into the exercise of throwing and flipping the blade, the more often it sticks. I can see why he finds this so relaxing. On the average, he seems to peg the mark four out of five times.

     “As often as you do this,” I said, playfully, “I would have thought you would be better at it.”

     “I was taught this a bit differently from how I taught you,” he said, turning his back on the targets. “I was taught to defend my weakest points. When you are ready, say: Stick ‘em up.”

     “Stick - “ I say, and he whirls and pegs the target in its middle. Sinking the knife into the wood up to the haft.

     I thought you’d have to be mad to pick a fight with this man head on, but it is sheer suicide to try and take him from behind too. I’m glad he’s my tour guide here today. We threw targets for a little while longer until my arm wearied and I hunted the beach for smoothed pebbles to make into a fine set of rune stones. Stormm had promised to carve them in Celtic runes for me when we got back to his apartment. Drawing his sword, Stormy lopped a sapling and shaved it smooth took out a piece of leather thong and lashed the knife onto the pole for a fine spear.

     I can’t help but let my Celtic pride get stirred as I watch my friend at work. If I squint my eyes just a little, his baggy black shorts with the silver Celtic Cross buckle looks like a warrior’s kilt. The designs and glyphs on his powerful arms and deep, hairless chest, along with the sandals, shouldered sword with the long flowing hair with the raven’s feathers intertwined complete the picture of a Celtic aristocrat about two thousand years ago. Spear in hand, he then spent about twenty minutes exploring an inlet to one of the ponds when he speared a good sized trout which he cleaned on the spot and left the head and guts on a flat rock for an offering. He showed me how to pick dry wood and twigs from the lower dead branches to make a smokeless fire and rigged up a rotisserie of green branches to cook the tastiest fish I have ever eaten in my life. The cattail piths made a fine salad to go with this that sort of tasted like cucumbers with a peppery aftertaste. I can’t help but notice that Stormy is very much at home in these woods.

     “You’ve done this before,” I comment.

     “Many times, with friends and family,” he said, with his eyes going distant as though he could see them now. “There are some sweet bramble berries up on that ridge behind us for desert if you like.”

     “If I died and went to heaven,” I muse, “it would be like this.”

     “Better,” he said. “The bramble berries there don’t have any thorns.”

     He says these things like he knows, and I’m long past looking for explanations at this point. By normal physics we have to be a hundred miles from where we entered the woods to be in any spot along this lake even half so remote. Even the bloody deer don’t look like the whitetail variety common to this part of New York State. We clean up our camp site and move up the ridge to gather fistfuls of the juicy purple berries and drink a bit more cool water from our bottles.

      Moving back into the forest, Stormy follows a tributary stream to a rise in the land where it drops about eight feet along a shale ledge into a sandy bottomed pool. The rest of the day, I felt like one of the lost boys chasing a grown up Peter Pan through the woods and swinging on the rope of his grappling hook over a waterfall and playing like a kid. I almost wanted to cry and pout when it was time to go home but the sun was getting low in the sky and I damned sure didn’t want to see what might prowl these woods at night. Stormy agreed and since he had the sword, I figured he knew best. Besides I still had a plane to catch and be at work tomorrow.

      I had one frightening moment on the trail back to Kidron, when Stormy sort of faded away on the trail in front of me. He was about 8 to 10 feet in front of me and then he wasn’t. There is only the one trail and the woods are thick here so I run for a bit in the direction we were heading and run right into him. He was there, and then he wasn’t and then he WAS. It was like running into a bloody tree. Damn that hurt but it was so good to see him, I decided not to be too riled with him for losing me like that. He pointed to his watch which was now counting seconds and I noted mine was working too, but it was only a little after 4:00pm and I could swear we were watching the sunset over the western part of the lake only moments before. We had plenty of daylight left but if anything it was beginning to feel hotter.

     “What’s all this mean?” I asked, tapping the crystal on my Rolex.

     “It means we’re back in our own plane again,” he replied. “We’ll want to get across Kidron and cool you off before the bugs here find you again.”

     It would be good to feel the air conditioning in the car again and I still had some people to visit before I caught a flight out of here. Sure enough, the deer flies and mosquitoes had to have another little taste of me before we made it to my rented Lexus.

     Back at the apartment, Stormm took my pebbles to the kitchen sink and put a diamond bit in his Dremel tool and carved runes into each of them under the running water.

      “Isn’t that dangerous?” I ask, pointing out that he was using an electric tool in a stainless steel sink with running water.

      “It tickles a bit,” he said as he continued carving, “but I’ll be done with these before my hands start to get sore from it all. No big deal.”

      It seems he said the same thing about handling the sticks in the cooking fire. Since his hands were only in the flames a little while, it was no big deal. I’d have thought him crazy as a loon, but there wasn’t so much as a blister on his fingers. So what could I say? As long as I’ve known him, he has never seemed to operate by the same set of rules as the rest of us. He has his limits, but never where you expect them to be. He finished my runes in short order and we celebrated our day by relaxing in the cool airiness of his living room over our traditional libation of tea and blackberry brandy. Before I left, I unloaded a couple inexpensive birthday gifts upon my good friend before he could object. They were items I knew he had use for as the items they replaced were in poor repair. He gave me a friendly bear hug and no complaints. Sometimes it can be a real chore getting around his guard to just do a little something for this man. I get the impression that it makes him really nervous when people start to get too close. He once told me it was a matter of only days after Jesus of Nazareth made his triumphal entry into the Beautiful Gate in Jerusalem and received a hero’s welcome that the same crowd called for his crucifixion. John is no ’Jesus’ to be sure, but he’ll be quick to point out that they burn witches. Don’t they?

      I spent the whole trip back contemplating how incredibly HUGE the universe must be. It was bloody BIG when I thought there might only be one of them. It would be too much to wrap my mind around this except it’s the only way to understand what I saw today unless Stormy hypnotized me. I wouldn’t rule THAT out as one of his many talents. I’ve seen him project his force of presence to change the minds of people up to no good in mid-stride. But the fresh carved rune stones in my pocket are no figment of my imagination and I still remember how good the fresh fish dinner tasted. I should have been hot and miserable or suffered heatstroke in those woods but I was with Stormy and he was at home in a world that made perfect sense to him. I think I know my friend better and the mystery of the disappearance of the ancient ones was no longer a mystery. Even though I didn’t see any of the ancient race there… well then, maybe I DID see one.

Imprint

Text: John Stormm
Images: John Stormm
Publication Date: 02-08-2009

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
To my favorite old druid, Merlinus.