Imagine you are a young man, twenty years old and just starting out on a journey of independence. You want to leave home to go to college and earn a degree in … let’s say Geography. You apply to a number of schools and you’re happily accepted by a small college with a decent reputation.
Then having found your place of learning you need to arrange some accommodation. There are no dormitories at the college itself, so you need to apply to one of the halls of residence nearby. However, because you’ve been slow to read the paperwork (or more likely misplaced it), all the halls are full. Lectures begin in a few days’ time. You need to find somewhere else to stay — and fast.
So waving good-bye to your hometown, Blackburn, you hop onto a train and head southeast. Where you’re going is a fair old distance away. You’ll probably fall asleep with your nose against the window and snore, to the annoyance of everyone in the train car. Fortunately, you’re in no danger of missing your stop because the train ends in Boston, where you have to change. Time for a sandwich and a cup of coffee while you wait on a short, fairly isolated platform for your connection into the suburbs.
The train that arrives is nothing like the express that brought you this far. It’s a little dingy (inside and out). It rattles. The train cars move like a broken concertina. The people in the cars talk with a different accent from yours and none of them seem to be in any kind of hurry. The same could be said of the train itself. It stops every few minutes at stations that are becoming ever more rural. The busy streets of Boston have given way to green fields, low stone walls, and trees. It’s autumn, so the leaves are turning russet and brown, but most of them are clinging to their branches for now. You see churches, parks, the occasional stretch of water. Narrower roads. Old-fashioned telephone booths. People wobbling around on bicycles. The houses are redbrick, clustered into rows. One of these is going to be your destination.
When the train finally pulls in, the only person to get off is you. Slinging your one bag over your shoulder, out through the turnstile you go.
From a grubby little man at a newsstand on Main Street, you buy the afternoon edition of the Scrubbley Evening Echo. You flip to the pages listing places to rent. What you see there doesn’t look good. Everywhere is incredibly expensive. The paltry wad of bills you’ve stashed in your wallet is now cowering somewhere deep in your pocket. It would barely fund a week in any of these places. All you would be able to afford to eat would be a can of soup — and you’d have to make it last. Just to make matters worse, a lively autumn breeze lifts the paper from your fingers and carries it down the length of Main Street. It flies into the face of a large black Doberman. The dog doesn’t look pleased. You decide to move on.
As you stroll up Main Street, you come to an opening between the rows of shops. A civic center of some sort, with a large white building at the far end. Beyond it you can see a huddle of trees. You feel drawn to go and look at them. Powerfully drawn, but you don’t know why. Right beside you is a signpost, complete with blue signs. The big white building turns out to be a library. The trees are the Scrubbley Library Gardens. You stare into the grounds, looking slightly lost. Strangely, you feel as if you’ve only just awoken. As if everything that has gone before simply doesn’t matter. As if nothing even existed before this day.
“Hello. Are you lost?” A little old lady with a shopping cart is tugging your sleeve.
“I’m, erm, looking for … tourist information,” you say, noting there’s a blue sign indicating that it’s up Main Street. The old lady points in the opposite direction. But then, old ladies are like that sometimes.
The Tourist Information Center is a yellow stone building at the intersection of roads leading out of town. Perhaps they can provide you with a list of places known for student accommodation. Well, they might if they were open. It’s Wednesday afternoon. Half-day closing. Your shoulders sag. This adventure is not going well.
Sighing, you sit down on the steps of the closed TIC with your bag upon your knees and your chin upon your bag. People pass. They look at you. They smile. They wonder, perhaps, if you should have a cap for donations by your feet and a wire-haired dog on a blanket beside you. The thought of hanging a sign around your neck saying GOOD HOME WANTED does pass through your mind, just as a post office van pulls up nearby. Idly, you watch the postman unlock the mailbox and scoop the cascading letters into a sack. He locks the mailbox up again and throws the sack of letters into the van. Then he roars off into the countryside.
That’s when you see that he’s missed a letter. It’s in the gutter at the foot of the mailbox, in danger of being run over by dozens of car tires. So, hauling your bag onto your shoulder once more, you step into the road and pick up the letter. This will be your token good deed for the day. Tink. Back into the mailbox it goes. Bye-bye, letter. Have a nice journey. You shrug and turn around. This random act of kindness has left you standing outside another newsstand. Nothing special about that, you think. But in the newstand is a board full of flyers. Right away, your eye is drawn to this:
Sixty dollars a week. That’s more like it. But wait a moment, you have to write? You do have some writing things in your bag, but you don’t have time to mail a letter, catch a train home, and wait for a reply. But the Universe hasn’t brought you this far for nothing. Already, an idea is brewing in your mind.
You go to the newsstand and ask for directions. Wayward Crescent, the man says, is about a mile away, just off the main Scrubbley road. Turn right, after Calhoun’s General Store. Fifteen minutes, at a brisk walk.
Smiling, you open your bag. You find a bench and spread a writing pad over your knee.
4 Thoushall Road
Blackburn, MA
Mrs. Elizabeth Pennykettle
42 Wayward Crescent
Scrubbley, Massachusetts
Dear Mrs. Pennykettle,
Help! I am desperately in need of somewhere to stay. Next week, I am due to start a Geography course at Scrubbley College, and I haven’t been able to find any
I am scrupulously clean and as tidy as anyone of my age (20) can be. My hobby is reading, which is generally pretty quiet. I get along very well with children, and I love cats.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. David Rain
P.S. I’m afraid I haven’t seen any dragons around lately. I hope this isn’t a problem.
That last part. The bit about dragons. That was weird. Better dragons than spiders, though. Or mice. Or eggplants.
You’re wasting time. Away you go. At a brisk pace. Brisker than brisk. You’re out of breath by the time you reach Calhoun’s, but this is partly due to excitement now.
The Crescent is quiet. A sleepy little backwater, lined with mature trees. The sound of birds and lawn mowers is in the air. Number 42 is close to one end. It’s perfect. The ideal suburban residence. Bit of a hike from Scrubbley College, but let’s face it, you need the exercise.
You tiptoe down the driveway, up to the door. You push your letter through the slot, making sure the flap rattles. Then you step aside quickly so you can’t be seen.
“I’ll get it,” cries a woman’s voice.
Mrs. Pennykettle, presumably. You knock your fists together. They’re home. Success!
There’s a pause. You hear the sound of ripping. She’s opening the envelope, reading the letter now. How long would it take? Thirty seconds? Forty? You give it fifty, with elephants in between. Then you present yourself at the door. You take a deep breath and aim your finger at the bell … and almost poke your would-be landlady in the eye.
Because she’s opened the door already.
“Oh,” you say. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
She looks at you carefully, but before she speaks she glances at a small green dragon sculpture that’s sitting on a shelf just inside the door. “Mmm,” she says, as if the dragon might have whispered something important. Then she relaxes and says, “Hello, David.”
“Erm, hello,” you mutter. You want to blink, but it’s hard to take your eyes off this amazing woman. She’s not classically beautiful, but she is stunning. Piercing green eyes and a mane of red hair, as if plucked from at least three lions. She doesn’t seem at all fazed by what you’ve done. But how did she know to open the door?
“Would you like to come in?”
“It’s about the room,” you say, rather awkwardly. You feel that you ought to explain yourself, at least.
She smiles and says, “I know. I got your letter.” She waggles it and once again looks at the dragon.
Is that thing frowning, you wonder?
“Please,” she says, opening the door a little wider. So you step into the hall. And the first thing you notice are the dragons in the window recess, halfway up the stairs. There’s another one peeking through the banister rails. And another on the potted fern you’ve just brushed past. Little clay sculptures. All over the place. And all of them are looking at you.
Behind you, the front door closes softly. And you may think this is where the journey ends, but the truth is it’s really only just beginning. An incredible journey of love and legends, adventure and magick. In a voice like a wind from another world, Mrs. Pennykettle says from behind your back, “Welcome to Wayward Crescent, David. We’ve been expecting you….”