In the Eerie Erzsebet series, I share the experiences that inform my Gothic sci-fi writing. Expect ghosts, monsters, haunted houses – all of the things you’d expect from the writer of dark psychological novels. Oh, there will be science, too!
(sometimes!)
My husband and I lived in Austin, Texas for over fifteen years. Our house was the last one on a street that dead-ended at the boundary of a flood zone. An uninsurable and therefore undeveloped lot sat on the flood-side of our house. Whereas the previous owners mowed it, we let it return to a natural state welcoming to the deer, coyotes, screech owls and armadillos on whose territory we encroached. A thicket of Carolina ash, pecan, and live oak trees grew along the far edge of the field, giving the illusion of expansive open land. On summer days, the air above the waist-high grasses and wildflowers filled with innumerable dragon flies. They were a dazzle of multi-colored movement, replaced by constellations of lightening bugs at dusk. It was a magical a view with surprising charm – entirely unexpected in the dense suburbs of a booming metropolitan city. When we moved back to Virginia, we left behind a masterpiece of nature.
On summer days, the air above the waist-high grasses and wildflowers filled with innumerable dragon flies.
In this house, I completed my first two novels. My desk was in a sunroom with windows on three sides, one of which was a view into the field. I wrote in the mornings before going to work, which meant I was at my desk well before sunrise, especially just prior to the Winter Solstice. It is not lost on me that my first novel is one about a family isolated in a house surrounded by a threatening wilderness. What else could I write in that environment?
I grew up a military brat and always had an active passport. I used it to travel, of course, but it doubled as my “proof of citizenship” when applying for jobs. Out of country travel and new jobs are not daily events for me, and the passport spent most time nestled in the protective darkness of the IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS folder. I no longer recall why I needed my passport but at some point, we discovered it was no longer in the folder. I had lost what is perhaps the only document more difficult to replace than a birth certificate. In the panic that comes with realizing that something important is lost, my husband and I began to search the house.
Our frenzy surpassed anything remotely resembling a “reasonable” search.
Everywhere in the house. The damn thing had to be there somewhere, yet it was nowhere. Our frenzy surpassed anything remotely resembling a “reasonable” search. Of course, there was no reason it should be in the freezer, but did I look – multiple times? I did. I even got so desperate I tossed the contents of both of our cars. There was no reason the passport should be there, either, but stubborn illogic reigns when there is nothing to curb it. My husband repeated my search of the cars. We admitted defeat.
I read somewhere that if you offer a pat of salted butter and a shot of whiskey as gifts, you can ask fairies to return lost objects. I put a chunk of fancy Irish butter and a double shot of Jack out on a fieldstone in my front yard. I worried a child might drink the booze or an animal get ahold of it, but I was desperate and, besides, no children lived on our street. I needn’t have worried. Both offerings were still there in the morning, though the butter was a puddle not a pat.
I read somewhere that if you offer a pat of salted butter and a shot of whiskey as gifts, you can ask fairies to return lost objects.
It didn’t work, it never could have worked. Magical thinking is not real magic; perhaps even “real” magic isn’t even magic, but science not yet understood. I went to work in my twice-searched Mazda (I loved that car!). When I got home from work, I parked in our driveway next to the field. It was hot and I had the car windows open. A huge dragonfly flew in and landed on the latch that closes the glovebox. It shimmered: blue and green and purple. Double pairs of delicately veined wings decorated the impossibly giant thorax: it was at least four inches in length, and far bigger than any dragonfly I’ve seen before or since. The strangeness of it compelled me to open the glovebox; it is only when I looked inside that the dragonfly disappeared back across the field.
On the top of the owner’s manual, on top of the registration papers, on top of the stray napkins kept in the glovebox for random spills – on top of all of this was my passport.
Erzsebet Carmean 