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Lake Lewisia

Lake Lewisia

@lakelewisia.com

2 followers 2 following 140 posts

Community updates and very normal events. Voted Most Liminal Town in Marguerite County eight years running. Visit lakelewisia.com for more.

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Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 13h

While the living manor consisted mainly of perennials for stability, many annuals reseeded themselves in available architecture, and bird- and wind-dispersed newcomers bloomed like seasonal stained glass windows. Preservationists documented what changed and what remained the same, while groundskeepers simply monitored the well-being of whatever living things they found. Occasionally, that meant non-plant, non-architectural asylum-seekers, who were likewise recorded as part of the manor’s history and tended to as a welcome addition to the ever-shifting structure.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 2d

When an unfortunate incident with a wind storm and a food truck took out one of the oldest sacred trees in the area, the magical network in which it was an anchor faded and surged as the rest of the anchors tried to take up the sudden slack. Around town, people watched crystal balls dim then turn beacon-bright and cauldrons chill before boiling over. While occult arborists would spend the week removing the felled tree and planting a sapling replacement, repair experts would be stuck recalibrating magical tools and replacing blown crystals.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 4d

A local potter is asking for help, particularly from video game enthusiasts, with their latest project in repaired objects. Caches of pots have been hidden around town–and yes, some of them have small prizes inside, of course–and volunteer adventurers are being asked to find and smash them with gleeful abandon. The broken pots won’t go to waste, as they will be used for kintsugi and mosaic work that will pay homage to dungeon crawling tropes and the economics of destruction in storytelling.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 6d

For the weekend, some vintage Lewisian lore:

The two met in the junkyard, the night the robot’s creator dumped him in with the cars waiting for the crusher, some six months after the ghost’s body had been disposed of in much the same way, and it started as nothing more than a haunting of convenience. Ze figured out how to bridge frayed wires and revive burnt-out fuses until his processors came online enough to help in their escape. They only had the one soul between them, only one body too, but they could learn to share if it meant a chance at a free life for both.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 7d

Ever since the call had come, after hours while he was cleaning up the barbershop, he had been preparing for the special client. Alongside the usual scissors and combs and clippers, he laid out hedge trimmers and pruning shears, carefully sharpened and sterilized like any of his other tools. When the dryad arrived, tangle of vines and twigs trailing over his shoulders, the barber ushered him into a chair and asked, “How would you like it?” with something close to his usual confidence.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 9d

The old church had been carefully preserved both architecturally and culturally, from the basement to the bell tower. The bat sanctuary in the tower supported native species while also ensuring that unsettling clouds of dark bodies would burst forth at dusk, even in the absence of local vampires. The basement, home to weekly support meetings for the doomed and rummage sales, remained well-stocked with lightly mildewed old books in such traditional genres as “eerily prescient historical diaries” and “pseudo-Latin grimoire mixed in amongst the crockpot cookbooks.”

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 11d

Thankfully, the cause of the recent rash of sadness, malaise, and general low spirits has been identified and is being counteracted now. It turns out an upcoming candy maker, looking to outdo Fendler’s Sweet Shop for the Halloween season and thereby make their name, has been illegally siphoning whimsy from the town to cut costs without losing the active ingredient in most high-quality candy. The confiscated sweets will be distributed to the community to help in the recovery of this vital resource and bring our collective mental state back into alignment.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 12d

For the weekend, some vintage Lewisian lore:

Have you created new life and discovered the responsibility of looking after your creation is more than you can handle? Don’t despair, and definitely don’t leave it to roam the countryside alone and confused by its own humanity–let Waldman’s support and educational resources help. We offer child care (with no extra fees for the child’s size, strength, or number of contributing organisms like some other companies), live-in assistance, and parenting classes to help you cope with what you have brought into the world through biology, arcane arts, and/or unnatural experimentation. (Today’s post brought to you by Waldman’s Day Care and Parent Education: mad science can turn a corpse into a child, but we can turn you into a parent.)

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 14d

The two children and their respective black eyes and scraped limbs were dragged before parents and principal, who seemed most disturbed that both were equally damaged and equally unrepentant. Who had started it and why, the adults insisted, were the most important questions to ask, so that blame could be suitably assigned. The children, who had independently determined that they needed a temporary outlet for their knightly drive to battle until quests could be located, remained steadfast in their silence and in their devotion to each other, black eyes and all.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 16d

“We are made of star stuff,” it had heard, and so that was what it used to fashion a companion. Instead of clay or wood, it hammered out meteoric iron, plate after plate, delicately curved into a forearm or a cheek, along with the tedious work of thousands of little rings for mail to stitch it all together. By comparison, its quest, to catch a falling star to serve as the spark in his chest, was both quick and easy.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 18d

Windfall fruits have been fermenting under the trees as the season staggers on, and it seems some local creatures have been partaking of the backyard cider with amusing results. It is not unheard of to see squirrels, foxes, and moose in a state of blissful inebriation, but this time a pack of chupacabras were spotted out near Wagonwheel Field. Having traded goats for apples, orchard workers report they were cavorting, with much falling down and yipping, and we expect local cryptozoologists and brewers both will be finding inspiration in the odd sighting.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 20d

For the weekend, some vintage Lewisian lore:

She had been trapped in the tower for a long time, surrounded by silk and lace that held her as firmly as chains (though the unclimbable tower walls certainly did their part as well), but at last the one tiny blessing at her birth sparked and took hold. They had laid curses on her infant self–of wealth beyond use and luxury beyond pleasure and safety beyond comfort–that led her to this bower prison. But her godmother had been fae and strange and had understood that guards and barred doors tear as easily as silk and lace in the face of a two-hundred-pound teenage wolf wearing the tattered remains of a princess’s gown.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 21d

“Can I try?” the child asked after the blue jay had explained it was collecting acorns from the forest floor. “I don’t know, it’s very tricky to pick out good ones,” it hedged in extravagant tones of concern and doubt, until the child insisted on being allowed to make an attempt at gathering and sorting. The jay hopped up onto a branch to watch in comfort, thinking that being cursed to be a bird wasn’t too bad as long as someone else would volunteer their opposable thumbs.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 23d

Her journalism degree had, job markets being what they were, landed her at the sort of sensationalist rag that wrote up weekly updates on the status of Bat Boy, Elvis clones, and women married to gray aliens. Still, she researched her pieces as best she could as a matter of pride, even if it was more fiction than reporting. When she started finding actual evidence of bizarre creatures and happenings in one town, she decided she would move and try her chances there, wherever it was, if it meant she could do real journalism based on her questionable work experience.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 25d

We find ourselves poised on the very lip of the grave, friends, nearly ready to plunge into a temporary, voluntary underworld. Perhaps you might prepare some traditional funeral offerings and use them as your work lunches, sharing a meal with your future neighbors in the afterlife. Consider carrying a little extra cash for those in need, to practice for your own payments to the ferryman some day hence, lest you find yourself needing to busk at the on-ramp to the River Styx.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 27d

For the weekend, some vintage Lewisian lore:

“I’m sorry,” he told the princess as she lay in her crystal coffin, “I won’t be able to kiss you.” The prince explained, as best he could without actually understanding a bit of it, how her coffin had become a real tourist attraction, how the whole kingdom’s economy relied on her miraculous and tragic unwaking like a machine relies on a battery. “You’re just too important,” he informed her, as she went on dreaming of stretching her legs down to touch the forest’s mossy floor just once.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · 28d

Every phone, and attuned crystal, and carrier pigeon message capsule sent out an urgent update to residents and visitors alike: a very interesting patch of purple flowers had been spotted along the fence line of the baseball diamond, which no one had thus far identified. People hastily left work early, while others packed up children and pets to make a pilgrimage to the field. News crews consulted with botanists and gardeners, while poets and painters were given prime viewing locations from which to observe and memorialize the utterly mundane, impossibly lovely discovery.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · Sep 24

“You can try them on yourself,” she offered when her friend expressed sneering disbelief that her positive outlook really did stem from a set of magic, rose-colored glasses. He slipped them on, and her smiling face was bathed in blushing tones as she told him, “Wow, you look like a stylish adventurer in those.” The compliment softened his grouchy mood, his friend’s optimism suddenly seemed charming instead of foolish, and the glasses’ magic worked just as she had intended.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · Sep 22

As the season meanders on, you may notice unexpected additions to your garden in the form of vines you had not previously tripped over and stalks where there had been empty space. These are simply ghost plants, drawing closer to their living kindred as harvest time does as well. They mean no harm, though we recommend against allowing any particularly active squash tendrils from anchoring to you while you garden: they may not be too selective about what they guide into the afterlife.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · Sep 20

For the weekend, some vintage Lewisian lore:

We are currently accepting applications for the position of head librarian, after Marisela Lopez, the previous occupant of the position, exploded into a cloud of monarch butterflies shortly before closing time last Monday. Though we regret her abrupt departure, we wish Ms. Lopez all the best on her presumed southward migration and will carry on with our duties at the library in her absence. During this complicated time for the library, we ask that the public refrain from baseless speculation about the possibility that Ms. Lopez had always been a cloud of butterflies, masquerading as a human to seek employment, or that she might be a participant in the Pollinator Wars, sent to spy on the feral book colonies.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · Sep 19

He had seen the shape of disaster, looming like the storm clouds that no longer graced them even in what had once been the rainiest months. With little enough to offer any kind of revolution and no influence at all, he turned his mind to inventions that might serve in the coming years. If there would be no water in their collective future, he would find a way to make plants grow and mills turn using tears, one of their rare and painful abundances.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · Sep 18

One sizzling day in late summer, she came down from the tree, red from head to foot. Sunburn accounted for her nose and shoulders, throbbing and coppery, while the mulberries could be blamed for the smear of deep purple-red that tinted lips and teeth. Her hands and feet were red with something more visceral, which perhaps went some way to explaining why she had been missing up a tree for all season and had come back looking so wild.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · Sep 15

We have heard a rumor that a new shop is going into the rotating storefront on Chicory Lane, and this time it is soup. We plan to use the remaining un-soup-suitable weather to speculate wildly about the possible offerings of the new business, while conversion of the space takes place. We encourage everyone to report sightings of workers, chefs, food deliveries, and any other hints at the nature of the future soup, which promises both tasty food and cooler weather to come.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · Sep 13

For the weekend, some vintage Lewisian lore:

Almost anything could go feral, if it was canny enough to survive the process of abandonment and capable of hardening a heart that might otherwise be broken by the fall from domestication. Feral furniture, left on curbs and street corners or fallen from moving vehicles along the highway, had been interbreeding in herds for years. In vacant lots or along overgrown shoulders, one might spot something with an assortment of shelves and legs, roll tops or coat hooks on the big stags, passing headlights glinting off mismatched drawer pulls that regarded humans with the angry suspicion of the once-loved.

Lake Lewisia @lakelewisia.com · Sep 12

She hunted in stillness most of all, the long wait in her webbed funnel taking up far more of her time and attention than the final lunge for some small insect morsel whose footsteps danced and chimed along the silk strings of her home and trap. But that day, the plink-plink against the web was water droplets, sent by the rain god who watched over her hunting ground of aloes and aeoniums, who called out an “Oops, sorry,” and directed the hose spray a little to the left. She did not pray to this or any other god, but she sometimes wove messages into her web when it needed rebuilding, on the off chance that gods were interesting or tasty or useful when they weren’t bringing unexpected rain.