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The River Runs Orange

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R.J. Harlick

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“We rode for perhaps an hour with the snow tapping at our cheeks before we came to a little gully where the mountainside folded itself around a grove of misshapen willows. Even if the changeling hadn't directed us there, I would have taken it for a faerie door of some sort; though there are many sorts of doors, they all have a similar quality which can best---and quite inadequately---be described as unusual. A round ring of mushrooms is the obvious example, but one must additionally be on the lookout for large, hoary trees that dwarf their neighbors; for twisted trunks and gaping hollows; for wildflowers out of sync with the forest's floral denizens; for patterns of things; for mounds and depressions and inexplicable clearings. Anything that does not fit.”

“Above us, the aurora was bleeding. I stood frozen. The long ribbons of white unfurled all the way to the ground, growing filmier as they went. The green and blue of the aurora was unaffected. It was as if something were drawing the silvery whiteness to earth, like fingers pulling paint down a canvas, to a place just beyond the curve of the mountain---less than a mile away.”

“Indeed, the door before us was nearly identical in shape and style--- it blended into the Greek countryside perfectly, its wooden boards painted with a scene of pale, pebbly stone and sun-dried vegetation. A little patch of rock roses to the left continued into the painting, and these two-dimensional blooms tossed their heads in the breeze in time with their tangible brethren. Even more impossible, to my mortal eyes, was the doorknob, a square of glass enclosing a splash of turquoise sea. This nexus is truly the most peculiar variety of faerie door I have encountered in my career.”

“As we went on, I could not help but noticing that the path Wendell made for us was a much cheerier one than Ariadne and I had followed; we traversed sunny glades and bluebell meadows, and sections of bilberry-studded moor open to the sky, often boasting impressive standing stones. Silver baubles sparkled in the treetops, about the size of globes and light as air, which sometimes drifted from one tree to another with the wind. Wendell informed me that these were, in fact, a kind of faerie stone, which contained enchantments meant to provide comfort to travelers.”