If there’s no way in, tilt it and look again

This story began in April. I told Steven our process shouldn’t always be me writing, followed by him illustrating. So he sent a few illustrations with the idea I’d whip up a tale to incorporate them. One sparked the launch story “Kevin Becomes a Man.” That illustration showed a kid walking along a road as a lone figure waits ahead. I cheated; I wrote the character younger than he was drawn, so Steven had to redo the art. I still feel bad about that.

The current story, though, began with a very simple picture of a crooked window. He was in Vermont and kept seeing them. “It’s called a Witch’s Window.”

Well, that was interesting.

This is the image Steven sent in April that started us off.

So I did some research, only to find that details about the origin of this window are hard to dig up. At the same time, the windows themselves are plentiful in Vermont — and nowhere else.

Which was interesting.

I tried to write a story in May, but my initial pass felt dead on the page. The summer produced no better results and I felt like a failure, until finally in August I conjured something with potential: a tale of Fiona and Darell, pregnant couple moving to Blackbrick from Brooklyn only to develop marital troubles, as local matron Erin planted seeds of doubt between them.

Erin, by the way, was mayor of the town in this story. Which was a problem. Because who needs to know who the mayor is? The story was a rambling thicket of unneeded details.

The 3 exteriors shown were all lifted from the Insta account “witchwindows,” which does not credit its photographers.

Still, I spent weeks staring at its pages sideways before I managed to ask the one necessary question to find the real story: What is Fiona’s need? Well, it is to feel at home. Followup: What are her obstacles? Well, Darell is one, because of his competing need to move back to Brooklyn. Aha! Finally I realized how to make the story work. If we remove the husband, Fiona still has the obstacle of Erin. Therefore we still have a story. Ergo we don’t need Darell’s competing needs. So out the window he went.

That smoothed everything out, and this published version was written in six days in October. Too bad it took six frustrating months to get to the six-day spree of fun.

To be perfectly honest though, I did have some additional help along the way. By chance, in September, I met a trio of women in California who used to live in Vermont. And after many hours invested gaining their trust, finally they told me the true origin of these windows. Indeed, they even took me to a cabin in the remotest mountains here, and there shewed me sech rites and recypes as they enjoin for powers and snacks evil and blood-brothed. And though the extent to which I partook cannot wisely be shared; nay, nor shall I tell you exactly all they told me; I will reveal that they hail indeed from Blackbrick. A quite real village, born 1693 and still thriving — though marked on no map; and real as well its effigy and persons and pub, and the homemade syrups hidden behind the bar in that pub. Of course, our November horror short should not be viewed as factual. Only the town is real. And its windows. These new friends of mine made crystal-clear that I should not suggest witching in truth explains the disappearance of any tourists from the Blackbrick area. Do tourists disappear? Naturally. Some do. As people disappear all the time, all over our country, do they not? Let us be sane! Let us not lay blame for that upon witchcraft — of all things! There are, no doubt, simpler explanations.

Photo credit unknown, used in the hope its creator is flattered and not a dangerous witch.