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#Darts Hill Garden Park
flowerishness · 2 years
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Paeonia (Peony)
Yesterday, I finally visited one of our local horticultural hotspots, Darts Hill Garden Park. One of my local tumblr buddies, https://5-and-a-half-acres.tumblr.com/ has been encouraging me to visit Darts Hill for ages and I finally ran out of excuses. Darts Hill is famous as a rhododendron garden but I’ve decided to lead with peonies. You’ll be seeing more posts from Darts Hill in the near future. 
By the way, admission to Darts Hill is by donation and they recommend a standard five dollars. I threw a twenty dollar bill in the box and they were delighted, but I stayed for two hours and took over five hundred photographs. If you work it out, that’s about four cents a shot. I call that a bargain at twice the price.
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ghouljams · 3 months
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hey bestie listen. I’ve just learned about glove decorum in the regency era. wearing gloves was insanely important and rich women had like a gazillion of them. but anyway apparently letting a man take your glove off was akin to rawdogging it in public and I was like “oh König would. nasty bitch” my question is who else in the regency au would do that
FUCKING ALL OF THEM BESTIE
König tugs your glove off as you walk through his gardens, your royally assigned chaperone looks the other way as he raises your hand to his lips to kiss your bare knuckles. You freeze when his tongue darts out to trace between your fingers, warm and wet, and darkly promising when his teeth scrape your skin. He pulls your glove off at your very public proposal as well, just so he can "see the way the ring looks against your skin." His thick fingers are tight around your wrist to keep your from nervously pulling away, and he dares anyone to say anything when he turns your hand over to kiss the soft skin of your wrist.
Price tugs your glove off under the table at a dinner party. His fingers tracing over yours, enjoying the soft skin. You can only be glad that the table cloth covers the way he rubs his thumb against the back of your hand. It would be proper for you to pull your hand away and pull your glove back on, but proper doesn't make your stomach flutter the way Price's fingers do. He traces a gentle "L-O-V-E" against your palm and you have to stop from giggling. Neither of you look at each other, merely continue your separate conversations with the understanding that you're both terribly, improperly, in love.
Soap has no problem tugging your glove off at a party after someone bumps into you and your drink spills over your glove. You're engaged, what does he care if people think it's rude? You smack him just hard enough to maintain your dignity, and he grabs your bare hand to hold it against his cheek, excitement twinkling in his eyes. You've never been more sure of your impending demise than when you see him smile against your palm.
Ghost pulls your glove off in the sitting room of your family home. He quietly studies your hand, tracing his fingers over the hills and valleys of your knuckles, around the blunt edge of your nails, around the sides of each finger. It's like he can't stop from touching you, from observing every inch of you down to the smallest scrap of skin. He turns your hand over to trace the lines of your palm, his nail gently following the whorls of your finger prints as he stares at your skin. You take his hand to measure your own against it, and he curls his fingers over yours, slips them between yours to hold your hand. His eyes shine with affection. He covers your bare hand with his, two big hands concealing your lack of a glove, when your maid brings in tea.
Gaz "notices a tear" in your glove and offers you his while you walk through the park. You offer him your hand to show you where the supposed tear is, and he very kindly pinches the seam and pulls it apart. You curl your fingers against his hand when he tugs your glove off, his eyes linger on your ring finger and you both enjoy the warmth of the other's skin. He's much slower helping you fit his gloves onto your bare hand. "You may as well walk around with a matching pair," He tells you, pulling your other glove off to replace with his own. His fingers dip under the far too loose band to stroke your bare wrist as you finish your walk.
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storiesbyrhi · 2 years
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Siouxsie and the Soulmates
Eddie Munson x Witch!Reader More Eddie fics here
12,968 words
Warnings: Drug use; reference to canon-typical violence; canon-typical trauma; extensive discussion and depiction of scars; no beta
Synopsis: When you roll into Forest Hills Trailer Park, a white cat and daisy lines following you, Eddie Munson is just a little bit obsessed. A soulmate story featuring Eddie back from the Upside Down, a lot of witchy magic, and even more soft love.
Includes the ‘soulmate find what the other has lost’ trope. Post S4, but canon-divergent: Eddie survived, the gang stopped Vecna and saved the day; everything is ‘normal’ in Hawkins.
Author's Note: If you read the sneak peek, some of that section has changed so don’t skip it. Includes Eddie has all the gnarly scars, including facial scarring, for reference click here and here. We love a girl who tries to be mysterious but falls head over heels for Eddie Spaghetti.
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There was something really… freaky… about the newest resident of Forest Hills Trailer Park. Eddie Munson was absolutely convinced she was a wizard, witch, whatever. He had no tangible proof. But the circumstantial evidence, your honour, was overwhelming.
Firstly, your small, black VW Bug appeared silently overnight, pulling a small trailer home in what seemed like an impossible feat of automobile engineering. You set up next to the Mayfield’s home, cordoning off your rectangular plot with a black plastic picket fence hammered into the ground. It was short, reaching only your knees, but it laid claim to the land in a way that kept unwanted guests away from the garden.
Secondly, that garden. The trailer sat at the back of the plot, with green grass surrounding it that hadn’t existed before you arrived. Pots of plants framed the land, their flowers and fruit spilling out as if they had been growing in their positions for months. Bees and butterflies had come to Forest Hills, making home in your established greenery.
Thirdly, nobody had seen you. Sometimes the black Bug was there. Sometimes it wasn’t. A few long-term residents of the park had taken it upon themselves to step over the pickets and knock on the trailer door. They received no answer, although the lights inside were on.
Eddie would watch your place as soon as he rolled in, driving his van slowly. He’d sneak looks through the blinds of his trailer and take too long to hang the laundry around the back, close to where he could eavesdrop on the locals gossiping about the mystery of it all.
It was near the witching hour, 3:00 am, when Eddie shot up in bed one night, drenched in sweat. The scratching in his nightmare transitioned into real life and he looked around for the source of the sound. Small, frantic scratching. Unfamiliar, persistent scratching.
He followed the noise outside his bedroom and to the door that led to a makeshift deck. He’d only begun to crack it open when a snow white cat darted through, her scratching replaced with happy meows.
“Hi there,” Eddie said to the cat, squatting down and holding a hand out for the creature to smell. The cat rubbed her face on his hand, welcoming any and all pats. “Where’d you come from, huh?”
The cat wore a red glittery collar holding a small tag printed with her name. Siouxsie seemed to be a big Eddie fan; the feeling was mutual. The pair was so engaged in their purring and patting that Eddie didn’t notice you arrive.
“Jesus!” he screamed when he clocked you out the corner of his eyes. He fell backward, spilling through the open bathroom door behind him.
Startled, Siouxsie went running outside. You watched her leap from the deck and cross the gravel road, disappearing under your trailer. Turning back to Eddie, you waited for him to get to his feet. He wore blue and white checked cotton boxer shorts and nothing else.
“What were you doing with my cat?” you asked him, only briefly making eye contact before letting your gaze travel to his sketchy tattoos and D.I.Y. pick necklace. The scars… You couldn’t begin to guess what had caused them, but that was the thing: you usually wouldn’t have to guess at all.
“Uh… She woke me up. Tried to break in,” he answered, his voice cracking with sleep and nerves. And, oh fuck, was he nervous. “Guess she’s a… cat burglar?”
Eddie looked at you, the way that lights from the park backlit you like an angel. You were in a black dress that fell around your feet. The hem was ratty from where it dragged behind you wherever you went. Bracelets and rings and necklaces adorned your body, and your nails were painted Barbie pink.
“She woke you?”
“Yeah… The scratching…” Eddie went to explain, but couldn’t describe how the sound was in his head, then was real. Your expression filled him with dismay; had he said something wrong? It was the joke. He shouldn’t have made the joke. The joke was bad.
He stood still and silent, watching you look him up and down. Suddenly aware of his near nakedness, he blushed hard and felt weird. Nobody had seen his scars like that.
“You just moved here,” he said, needing the quiet to be filled. You cocked your head to the side, taking his sentence as a statement and not a question. He knew the answer. “I’m Eddie,” he introduced, holding a hand out. He looked down at his arm, confused as to why he was being so formal, operating on autopilot.
Eddie watched your hand take his, gently shake and not let go. You said your name, followed by, “Siouxsie likes you. Put a bowl of salt next to your bed to stop the nightmares.”
You were gone then. In the morning, he couldn’t remember watching you walk back to your trailer.
Jesus fucking Christ. You were definitely a witch. And he was obsessed.
“What d’ya mean she’s a witch?” Wayne Munson replied, sighing at his nephew’s manic bouncing-off-the-walls energy. He’d just woken up and was getting ready for his night shift at the plant, but Eddie had been waiting all day to talk to him.
“Like, she knows shit she shouldn’t. She can probably see through Siouxsie or something-”
“Who’s Siouxsie?”
“Her cat. She woke me up trying to break in,” Eddie said. “And you should see what she looks like. She’s way too fucking pretty to be here. Like, Arwen pretty,”
“Let me get this straight. A pretty girl has a cat, so she’s a witch?” Wayne asked, picking up his keys. “Thought you didn’t judge a book by its cover?”
“You’re not even listening,” Eddie grumbled. “How’d she get all those plants to grow that fast? Seriously! Look.”
Eddie took his uncle by the shoulders and led him to the door, opening it. Wayne looked across the park’s road at your trailer.
“Ed, buddy, they’re in planters. Planters can be moved. Think maybe you need to cut back on the dope? Less time with your head in the clouds?” Wayne was poking fun, knowing exactly how to annoy Eddie.
Consider Eddie annoyed.
“She’s a witch,”
“Guess you better go ask her to marry you then, huh? Make an honest man out of you. Don’t forget to take the trash out. It’s Thursday. See ya later, bud,” Wayne called, leaving the trailer and making his way to his truck.
Eddie winced at how loud their conversation was. He was sure you could hear everything. As he watched Wayne drive away, he took the chance to steal a look at your trailer.
Siouxsie was sitting in one of the garden beds, looking back at him. Instinctively, Eddie began to wave, before he caught himself. Slapping his hand to his face, he quickly retreated back into his trailer before anyone saw him waving to a goddamn cat and added that to the qualities that made him a certified freak.
On Sunday, Eddie found a necklace that didn’t belong to him sitting on his bedside table. He woke up, squinting in the too-early morning light, and reached for his watch. He felt the cool metal before he saw it. As if it had given him an electric shock, his hand jerked back from it and he sat up.
Bedside lamp on, he looked at it. The silver chain, the crescent moon. There was no doubt that it belonged to you. He’d seen it hanging from your neck Thursday morning.
Were you in his room? While he slept? He would have heard you, surely. There would be some other trace of you. The clothes and books scattered around hadn’t been displaced. It was like the necklace had just appeared.
However the fuck it got there, Eddie Munson wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. He pulled on the cleanest clothes he could find and headed out the door.
As soon as he stepped over the black plastic pickets, he felt it. A sudden drop in temperature. A quietness. The air smelt honeysuckle sweet and it felt just a touch harder to breathe, like how it does when the humidity rises.
The grass was cool under Eddie’s bare feet; as he knocked on your door, he wriggled his toes and smiled to himself. You might not answer, he thought. You hadn’t to anyone else. It would be okay if you didn’t. The feeling of the grass was a good enough experience to justify the trip.
Eddie was a split second away from turning around and leaving when you opened the door.
“Did you find my necklace?” you asked, expression open and inquisitive.
Was that what you slept in? Silk and lace, all light and flowy but tight around your curvy belly and thighs. Your hair was messy, bed hair, and when you punctuated your sentence with a yawn, Eddie’s entire body began to shake. It took all his willpower to keep fucking still.
“What?”
“My necklace. I’ve lost it. Did you find it?”
The necklace was burning a hole through his pocket, not immediately observable.
“How did you know?”
You smiled kindly, still overtly amused at his confusion though. When you held your hand out, Eddie had no choice but to give it up.
“Where was it?”
How was he meant to tell you that without sounding insane? While he hesitated, tried to come up with a lie, he felt Siouxsie curl around his legs. He looked down and beamed at her.
“Hi,” Eddie greeted the cat, crouching and holding his hand out to her like he had before. She bypassed the outreached hand to come closer, rub herself against his legs.
“Was it in your bedroom?” you asked.
How did you know that? Eddie wanted to ask if you’d been in his room. Somehow, he knew you hadn’t been. At least, not in the physical form human being sense. Could you astral project? Instead of asking anything, Eddie continued to pat the cat. 
“Did the salt work?”
Eddie felt relief. That was an easier question and answer. “Could be a coincidence,” he replied, standing up and looking at you.
“Do you think it is?”
He was shaking his head because focusing on you again meant words were… hard… to… make.
You looked him up and down. “Mmm,” you agreed. “You could test it. Go without it. If you’re a sceptic.”
He wasn’t. Eddie really wasn’t. He didn’t know why he said what he said. He was freaking out.
“Thanks for bringing this back,” you said, and like Siouxsie knew it was a farewell, she jumped up and disappeared inside your trailer.
Eddie stood for a second at your closed door, confused and even more obsessed.
Eddie hadn’t seen you all week. He had, however, begun a page in his D&D journal dedicated to documenting occurrences he felt were out of the ordinary and therefore, had something to do with you.
He liked to imagine himself confidently knocking on your door, where you would invite him in. He’d present his evidence and draw his conclusion. You would smile, confess, kiss him and-
Stop, he thought.
But how could he go about his days as if nothing was different? A line of daisies had appeared, mapping a route from his door to your black picket fence. The moon was brighter, shining into his bedroom even when he covered the windows in heavy canvas Corroded Coffin banners. And every single cup of instant coffee or cheap tea tasted sweet before any sugar could be swirled through.
When Eddie woke again at 3:00 am Thursday morning, he thought maybe you’d cast a spell on him. The bowl of salt had rid his sleep of nightmares, but the dreams he was having were just as vivid and just as likely to make him sticky with sweat.
Eddie rolled out of bed and made his way to the kitchen. Two glasses of tap water later, he was standing still, listening.
Scratching. Scratching. A soft meow.
Siouxsie was back at the deck door. Eddie checked for you as he let the cat in. The park was quiet, the night warm, and an uneasy feeling settled in Eddie’s stomach.
“What brings you here?” he asked the cat, watching as she walked circles around the trailer, returning to him and meowing. She went into his room, jumped on the bed, and sniffed the sheets.
Before Siouxsie could settle into a little loaf of white bread, Eddie scooped her up. “Nah, man. You can’t stay here. Let’s get you home.”
When Eddie arrived at your door, his heart was racing. There were no lights on inside and the thought of waking you made him want to die just a little bit. He looked at his armful of cat and started to chew his lip.
“Fuuuuuck,” he said under his breath.
Eddie curled an arm around Siouxsie securely, then knocked on your door. No response. A second knock, louder. He waited, listened to the silence of the park. The abject silence.
Eddie couldn’t hear anything. No buzzing of generators. No trees in the breeze. No mosquitos or birds or people or anything at all. It was as if all the noise in the world had been sucked into a vacuum.
He was going to panic. Red lightening and It doesn’t hurt me, Do you wanna feel how it feels? Razor sharp teeth and empty lungs. Had Eddie been dumb? Had he tumbled into your garden, not seeing a monster in disguise? Maybe you were like Eleven though. You could be good, right? So good.
Jesus fucking Christ, he thought. At least he could hear his thoughts. His internal monologue. And the sound of… bells?
Eddie moved, his body naturally turning to face the noise.
It wasn’t bells. It was the bracelets on your wrist gently clinking against each other as you stepped over the pickets.
“Hi,” you greeted, your voice restoring the rest of the trailer park soundscape. The feeling in Eddie’s stomach was gone and everything seemed normal again. He could almost cry with relief.
“Hi,” he breathed out.
“She woke you again?”
“No… I was awake already,” he assured you, not wanting you to feel guilty.
You approached Eddie, stood in front of him and held your hands out for your cat. When you took Siouxsie, you hugged her close then looked back at Eddie.
In your short life, you had seen a lot. There had been beautiful people before, but none that made you feel the way Eddie did. You knew nothing about him, only spoken a handful of words, and yet, he made you want to scratch at his door like Siouxsie. Of course, you’d never. And judging by the Bambi-eyed expression on his face, you really wouldn’t have to.
“You have beautiful eyes,” you complimented Eddie.
He was taken aback, his mind cycling through the million and one things he thought were beautiful about you.
“And I’m sorry,” you continued. “I’ll talk to her. She’s just worried about you,”
“The cat? Is worried about me?”
“Yeah. She probably has the wrong Thursday though. She’s never been good at keeping track of the days.”
Eddie stared at you in absolute awe. Either you were a witch or you were a couple Crayola’s short of the rainbow. Both versions of you excited him.
“Does that mean there’s gonna be a Thursday where something bad happens?” he asked.
“Maybe. Maybe it’s already happened,” you answered with a shrug.
Eddie was processing, trying to work out if you were just taking the piss. He watched you step around him and open the trailer door. Siouxsie jumped from your arms and padded off to bed. You turned around and looked at Eddie again, smiled softly at him.
“Have you lost anything?”
“What?”
“Have you lost anything?” you repeated.
Eddie shook his head, his eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “Like you lost your necklace?” he asked, to which you nodded. “No. But… There’s these flowers growing…” His sentence trailed off when he realised he was now the one sounding unhinged.
You made a humming sound of approval. “I saw. Almost like a little fairy highway from your door to mine.”
God, there had to be something more than just obsessed because Eddie was dying.
“That’s… weird,” he told you, smiling wide.
“Anything else… weird?” you asked him.
He was sure you knew. Maybe it was a test. Maybe you wanted to know what he noticed. “Coffee tastes sweet. Moon’s brighter. I found a dime bag I didn’t know I had… but I don’t think that one was you,”
“It wasn’t,” you confirmed.
Did that mean the other things were you?
Eddie’s smile was full of wonder and warmth.
“If she comes to you again, she can stay the night, if you want her to,” you said then, turning to step up into your trailer. Before he could stop himself, Eddie was stepping after you. “Goodnight, Eddie.” Hanging from the doorframe, you leaned down to press a light kiss to his forehead.
Eddie’s mouth was too dry to make words come from it and too soon you had closed the door, leaving him alone in the wake of your leave.
Saturday morning was cold, frost threatening to burn the tips of leaves and fingers alike. When you woke alone, you realised Siouxsie had spent her second night with Eddie, leaving you no company but your thoughts.
You were young, still learning to master your thoughts. It was why you were in Hawkins, a town built on a pattern of fault lines and far enough away from everything you knew. Somewhere to learn independence, and maybe figure out exactly who you wanted to be. It had history, which meant the promise of earth magic and plenty of energy to work with.
All of that was made easy with Siouxsie at your side, and you already missed her comforting purr and shiny eyes. Maybe you shouldn’t have offered up your only friend to Eddie so easily. For a moment, you thought she had heard your lament, the unmistakable sound of her crying at the trailer door becoming louder.
Putting down your marmalade toast and tea brewed from hand rolled balls of fresh leaves, you opened the door. The cat rubbed her face against your bare legs, then moved across the green grass as if she was going to leave again.
“That all I get?” you asked her, looking up to see where she was trotting off to, lament unheeded.
Eddie was under the hood of his van, switching between kicking at it and mumbling to himself. You watched Siouxsie make a great leap from ground to van rooftop, where she sat staring at you.
Help him, she was saying. He lets me have all the blanket.
Eddie didn’t hear you approach; it was only when he took an exasperated step backwards, growling in frustration, that he saw you standing next to the van. You’d thrown a huge, forest green knitted jumper on. The sleeves were too long and the hem came to your knees. It warmed all of you, even with the cold and wet stones beneath your feet.
Eddie’s expression softened when he saw you. “Hi,” he said, his voice in stark contrast to how it was moments ago.
“Are you okay?” you asked, forgoing a greeting.
“Ah… Yeah. No. Yeah, I am, I mean. My van though… When it’s this cold it has trouble starting. Starter motor, I guess?” He looked back into the engine with no idea what he was doing. Wayne wasn’t home from his night shift, so Eddie had to fix it or else call in sick to work.
After last year, Eddie wasn’t sure what he was going to do. At some point he’d need to study and test for his HSC. Not, yet though. He wasn’t ready.
He didn’t have Hellfire to occupy his time and the other members of Corroded Coffin were still haunting the halls of Hawkins High. He knew he wasn’t really the mindless manual labour type, even Wayne calling him too pretty for it, so he went for what he knew – music.
Eddie was persistent in his approach to getting a job at the only decent record store in the town. He wrote a letter to the owner, demonstrating his musical knowledge and appreciation. He showed up day after day, talking to customers like he already worked there. He promised he’d never arrive at work high and he’d always be on time.
The cold snap causing the oil in his van’s engine to become thicker, therefore, was a fucking disaster. Increased friction. Starter motor working harder, or not working at all, Eddie was running out of options and looking distressed.
“You don’t got a spell that can just like, fix this, do you?” Eddie asked you, half joking and half hoping you really would.
“A spell?” you replied, raising an eyebrow and smirking at his audacity.
“Yeah, fuck, never mind.” Eddie felt dumb. Embarrassed, even.
“I have a car though. If you need a ride,” you offered, glancing up at Siouxsie. She climbed down the front windscreen, jumping from the van and heading back across the road to home, satisfied with your intervention.
“Yes! Holy shit, yes. Thank you!” Eddie exclaimed, jumping on the spot then hugging you. “Fuck. Sorry,” he quickly said, pulling away from you like you burned. He must have seen the confusion on your face. “I, uh, normally ask. Girls. Before I, you know… Touch… them…” Embarrassed, definitely.
“I guess that’s a good policy,” you said to him, shrugging. “I’ll get my keys.”
He had followed you across the road and stood patiently at the passenger door of your black Bug while you retrieved the keys. Eddie noted that you elected to not put on shoes or pants. You noted that he was slightly too tall to look comfortable in your car.
“Where to?” you asked him as you reversed out of your spot and headed for the park’s exit.
“Hawkins Records. It’s Downtown, I can give you directions,” Eddie replied. “You’re saving my ass here. I owe you big time.”
The ride was short, Eddie knew, but an opportunity nonetheless. Since his stunning revelation that after last year, he probably shouldn’t purposefully get involved in more supernatural shit (even if the supernatural shit was a super pretty probably-witch), he had decided to gather more intel. Make an informed decision about if you were dangerous or connected to the Upside Down.
“So, ah, why Hawkins? Surely plenty of other cooler places you could’ve moved to?” he asked, trying his best at sounding casual.
“Have you heard of scrying?” you replied, glancing over at him. Eddie shook his head. “Hold a crystal over a map, let it swing, and it will land of a place of significance.”
Eddie thought for a second. “I really can’t tell if you’re fucking with me,”
“I know you can’t. Next question,” you said, smirking. As if you wouldn’t be able to sense the interrogation begin.
“Do you know anyone here?”
“I know you,”
“Do you know about… all the shit that’s happened here?” Eddie asked.
“I know what the papers say. I know there are still people that think you’re… bad. And, I know, this town is steeped in trauma. I can feel it. It radiates off everything and everyone.”
Eddie was plunged into his memories; it felt like an ice bath.
“Do you want to ask me anything else?” you asked, turning the heat up in the car.
Eddie’s eyes were glassy as he watched you turn the dial. “How did your necklace get in my room?”
“I truly don’t know how that works,” you answered honestly.
“But you didn’t seem… surprised,” Eddie said.
“No. I mean… I can feel it. Can you?”
Could Eddie feel what? Was there some cosmic energy he couldn’t sense? A shift in fate’s plan? Or, was he just meant to be feeling the swelling obsession he was nurturing for you? Could you feel that? Did you know what was in his mind and heart?
“Did you make the flowers grow?”
“No.”
Eddie was dismayed by that. “But… they’re… because of you, or something?” He was getting desperate for any proof. He needed you to admit to something.
“Maybe, Eddie, what you see in me, you’re seeing all around you now too,” you said, although you could see he wasn’t placated by your words. A small sigh, and you offered, “If it makes you feel… comforted… Then, yes. It’s me.”
It didn’t comfort him. But your car smelt like pine needles and there was a peacock feather hanging from your rear view mirror. Your cat slept soundly at his feet during the night. You were in his dreams.
“You don’t have more questions,” you stated. “My turn then?”
Eddie’s face lit up with curiosity.
“How personal can I get?” you asked.
“I’m an open book, baby,” Eddie replied, his charm defence back on.
“You weren’t… here… when you got those scars, were you?”
The question threw him entirely. It wasn’t that it was about the scars; he had predicted that it would be one of the first things you wanted to know about him. It was the implication of your question.
You clocked his breathing hitch and a heaviness settle in his shoulders.
“You almost died,” you, again, stated rather than asked.
Eddie nodded. “Yeah. Last year.” He laughed then, not joyful but somewhat entertained by what he was about to say. “On a Thursday,”
“Hmm. She’s a very perceptive cat,” you told him. Eddie would have to come back to that one later. “Where were you?”
“How do you know I wasn’t here,”
“I would say something like ‘oh, you won’t believe me,’ but I think you would,” you started. “I can… read you. Anyone. Anybody. Literally, bodies. Your freckles and scars. Anything with a history on this mortal plane. But I can’t read your scars. Not those ones.”
He didn’t know what you meant, not with any certainty. His mind was ticking over at a million miles an hour while he tried to fill in the blanks, come up with explanations he could make himself understand. Maybe you really were like the superhero girl Eleven. Or maybe like the smallest Byers, touched by something and unable to ever shake clean of it. Or maybe he didn’t know anything about witches.
“They called it the Upside Down,” Eddie said, his voice shaky but measured. “It was like the normal world but… bad. It was… decomposing while alive. Had monsters. It was evil,”
“I have a lot of questions, Eddie,” you told him softly. “But not today.”
He looked over at you and almost imploded at your softness. Your knitted jumper and bare legs, unshaved and dotted with strawberry spots. Your specific brand of weirdness, and how it felt like kindness to be around.
“Can I ask you one more?” he ventured. “Are you jealous that Siouxsie loves me so much?”
You laughed, explained that she was prone to short bursts of heavy affection and that she would return to where she truly found safe haven. Eddie looked through your car mixed tapes, then you bid him a farewell as you approached Hawkins Records.
“Do you need me to pick you up after school?” you teased through your open window.
He flipped you the bird and you pretended to catch it like it was a kiss. He grinned.
It wasn’t until the sound of plastic to metal startled you, that you realised something was different. You were a few grams heavier than you were the night before. Bold of you, you thought to fate, taking Eddie’s pick from around your neck and holding the chain in your hand.
You weren’t so dumb as to call Eddie to you, but to that necklace… that could be done with minimal magical risk. Sitting at your alter, you centred yourself before creating a circle.
In front of you, true north, you placed a white candle as the gatekeeper. Clockwise, a bowl of salt to keep the nasties at bay, then a rhodozite to cleanse and magnify energy. To your left, a bunch of daisies freshly picked and a small jar of dirt in which one earthworm lived as it always had and always would, never growing, never aging, simply being.
Saying your prayers, you put Eddie’s necklace in the small silver bowl on your alter, followed by a bay leaf on which you wrote his name. Calling him to his lost thing, you lit a small red spell candle, letting it burn quickly. After lighting the bay leaf and watching it go up in flames and turn to ash, you breathed out and closed the circle.
Across town, as he put a display for the new INXS album up, Eddie suddenly brought his hand to his chest, feeling for the necklace he never took off. It was gone. Inside him though, was a strong sensation that he was being pulled. Back home to the trailer park. No. Not home. To you.
All day, Eddie was distracted. He barely bothered to even try and talk customers out of buying George Michael and into buying, “Fuck, man, even The Smiths are better than this.” As soon as his van had been put into park, he was crossing the road and banging on your door.
Inside, you had just begun cooking cranberry and dark chocolate muffins in anticipation of his arrival. When you opened the door, Eddie looked feral, breathless.
“Do you have it?” he asked, pupils dilated.
Leaning down, you put his necklace over his head and watched him hold the pick between his fingers. The mania subsided and he felt normal again.
“Would you like to come in?”
He nodded and followed you into the trailer you called home.
“Holy shit, this is like… What the fuck? This is some sort of… magic, right?” Eddie said, almost spinning on the spot as he tried to calculate how much square footage the trailer should have.
“What do you mean?” you asked playing dumb.
“It shouldn’t be this big in here.” He was looking around… it felt like the inside of your small trailer, the very one that your Bug pulled along, was as big as his own free standing one.
It opened into a small kitchen that was comparable to his, and a living space. Maybe it was the fact that instead of a couch and coffee table, you had a beanbag, a large cushion collection, and a table that looked like its legs got cut off about a foot from the top. Or maybe it was witchcraft.
Eddie invited himself to go through a door that led to your bedroom, again, comparable to his own in size. Through another door was a small bathroom. When he wandered back out, the confusion set deep on his face, you laughed.
“Surely, you’ve seen stranger things, Eddie Munson of Hawkins, Indiana?”
“I mean… Yeah, but… Fuck, I don’t know.” He sat himself down on the beanbag, his long legs folded in front of him. “You’re really a witch, huh?”
“You floated that idea by anyone?” you asked him, leaning with your back to the kitchen bench.
“I live with my uncle,” Eddie said, pointing outside and across the road to his home. “Said I was judging a book by its cover,”
“Are you?”
“No. I’m judging you by all the weird shit that’s happening. This,” and he pointed to the trailer below him. “This is a big one. Fuckin’ Mary Poppins trailer.”
You laughed at the analogy; it was good. Accurate.
“How does it make you feel?” you asked then, watching him carefully.
Eddie felt like he was on fire whenever you looked at him like that. He was scared you could see into his soul. Of course, you couldn’t, but there wasn’t a single thing about watching Eddie that wasn’t fun.
“Honestly?” he said, paused mostly to begin to stitch together a sentence rather than to hear your reply. “Like I could be doing something dumb,”
“Because I could be… from the Upside Down?” you asked.
He nodded slowly. “Yeah, but you’re not. That’s gone. Or, at least, the door got closed. Nailed shut. I hope. Doesn’t matter. You’re not from there,”
“I’m not, no. I have never heard of something like it before either,” you told him. He believed you, implicitly. “I don’t want anything from you, Eddie.”
Someone always did. His teachers wanted him to be more productive. His friends wanted him to be their larger-than-life Dungeon Master. His uncle wanted him to be the best he could be, which wasn’t a bad thing but came with its own set of expectations and let downs. Fuck, even his enemies still wanted him to show up outside their parties so they could buy from him.
“Except, maybe, your company,” you added, smiling at him and turning back to the batter you were stirring.
Eddie was blushing and therefore grateful you had turned away. He ran his hand through his hair, then looked around. Sitting under a window that framed his own trailer perfectly, was a record player and your beloved collection.
Eddie crawled over to them and sat cross legged, flicking through the stack, making little snorting and huffing sounds.
“You got something to say to me?” you asked, not turning around.
“Nope. No comments from me.”
Whitney Houston. The Cure. Fleetwood Mac. Depeche Mode. Prince. David Bowie. The Clash. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. Alice Cooper. The Damned. Patti Smith. Bauhaus. Tom Waits. The Birthday Party. Brian Eno. And of course, Siouxsie and the Banshees.
“You gonna call me cliché, because people in glass houses, Eddie,” you told him, pointing the wooden spoon in your hand at him.
“No… A few surprises. But there is… a lot of black eyeliner in this collection. That’s all I’m saying. A lot of cats in the dark and then she is the darkness kind of thing,” he joked.
“You getting enough oxygen, all the way up there on your high horse?”
Eddie laughed, settling on Joan Jett. He’d always loved the cover of Crimson and Clover. He stood and came to see what you were doing. He ran his finger along the top of the mixing bowl, scooping up some of the batter and tasting it.
“Spicy,” he reviewed.
“Good spicy?”
“Yep. Like… Christmas spices. What’s it for?”
“Muffins,” you answered, handing him the wooden spoon to lick as you used a smaller one to divide the batter evenly into the muffin tray. “For you and your uncle.”
Eddie was quiet as he sucked on the spoon. Then, “Are we meant to bring you somethin’, like a housewarming gift?”
“I don’t know. Are you?” you asked, looking up at him.
He grinned then quickly leaned in and kissed your cheek. “Welcome to the neighbourhood.”
Stronger together, you knew how it went. Find a coven. Sisterhood (not cisterhood). Community. All that empowering jazz. At least without one, you had nobody to torment and tease you about how utterly infatuated with Eddie you were.
You could hear the ghosts of covens past. A boy? A mortal metalhead boy had you that ruffled. But, yeah. Yes, he fucking did. Maybe it was that he followed you like a lost puppy while you went hunting for special leaves and sticks. Maybe it was that he now brought over any vaguely interesting rock to ask if it was a crystal. Maybe it was that he was so easy to be around.
Eddie let you put thin braids in his hair and read his palm. He’d gotten all serious about it until you told him it wasn’t actually a specialty of yours. However, you could tell him the basics. The waves in his head line meant he was a progressive thinker. A life line with a clear arc told a story of a vibrant and energetic personality. His heart line was deep and curved.
“It means you invest in relationships. All or nothing. And that you express emotions willingly,” you’d told him, tracing the valleys of his palm. “See how your sun line is close to your fate line? That’s a strange one. It means that your public image is controlled by external forces. Things out of your control,”
“You mean like how the entire town seriously thought I was a cult leader that murdered teenagers in the name of Satan?”
“Yep. That’s it,”
“And it says that? On my hand?”
“I mean, if you believe it, yes,” you answered, never pushing him to feel or think anything other than what was coming naturally to him.
He studied his palm, looked at the lines you’d read. “But this isn’t your thing?”
“No. Not my area of expertise,”
“What is?” he asked.
“I gotta keep you coming over. Don’t want to ruin the mystique by telling you everything,” you said with a casual shrug and a smirk Eddie loved.
He held his hands out to you, you took them and let him thread your fingers through his.
“I’m not here for the mystique,”
“Anymore,” you clarified.
“Right. Anymore,” he agreed.
“Then, why are you here?”
It was an obvious question. Self-serving. You just wanted him to say it. However, as smitten as Eddie was with you, he was still a troublemaker. Someone who would not go quietly into the night, so to speak.
“The baked goods and Siouxsie,” Eddie said.
You pouted and pulled the saddest ever face. Eddie laughed, then yanked you by your hands towards him. He tipped backward, pulling you on top of him. Between the cushions and blankets, it was a soft landing. You let it happen, curling up to him and laying your head on his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat.
“I’m here for you,” Eddie whispered, resting one hand on your back and the other running soft lines through your hair.
You moved, putting your chin on his chest so you could look up at his face. “I’m here for you too.”
If you had been asked to place a bet on how long it would take Eddie Munson to kiss you, you would have gone home in debt. It had been a month since you had moved to Hawkins. A month of lost things and mushroom picking and late night reading. Still, Eddie hadn’t braved more than a kiss on the cheek.
There had been afternoons where you fell asleep spooned together on his bed and mornings where he’d woken too early, made his way over to your place to brew tea and cook pancakes. Still, no kiss.
Eddie was sometimes like a caged animal, sometimes like a lost pet. His moods and outlook on the world shifted often and wildly. It was hard to know exactly what was going on in his head, but you were sure he wanted you. Through all his trauma, he was a lover at heart.
The universe spoke to you as well. She said the same thing. One afternoon you took a cat nap on your bed, woke up feeling spaced out, dreamy, to Eddie staring at you.
“What? What’s wrong?” you mumbled, rubbing your eyes.
“How… How did you…” but he couldn’t form words. You looked around. You were in Eddie’s room, on his bed. “There’s no way… You didn’t have time…”
He’d walked into his room to collect the dirty dishes, got to the door to leave, stopped as he remembered the stash of water glasses on the other side of the bed, turned back around and you were there. Asleep on his bed. Appeared out of thin air.
For a moment, you just stared at each other.
“Is this real?” Eddie asked, putting his collection of dishes down and kneeling on the bed. You sat up and met his hug. “You feel real,”
“I’m real,” you reassured him.
“You don’t know what’s happened,” he stated, sensing that this wasn’t one of your secret little witchy things you did.
You shook your head and racked your brain for an explanation.
From the kitchen, Wayne yelled, “You forgot what you’re doing in there or what?”
“I’ll be right back,” Eddie said, picking up the dishes and taking them to where Wayne was waiting by the kitchen sink.
As soon as Eddie took his eyes off you, you blinked back to your own bed. It was instant. Painless. So fast that you took a second to realise you’d moved again.
Eddie ran back to his room to find it empty. He left through the door near his bedroom, Siouxsie’s entrance of choice, and walked to yours. You were already opening the door as he approached.
“Did you-” you went to ask.
“Yeah. You were just in my room. What the hell was that?”
No book nor muse could give you answers. There was only one place to turn. You dropped Eddie at work, then found a pay phone on a quiet street. Although you didn’t know if it was entirely possible, you didn’t want them to be able to use the line to find you.
“The universe is restoring things once broken,” the oldest witch you knew said.
“That doesn’t make sense. How does putting me in some boy’s bed restore something broken?”
“Edward. And he’s not some boy to you,”
“Jesus. How do you- Whatever. Am I meant to do anything? Is it going to happen again? Can I stop it?” you asked, not getting stuck on how she knew Eddie.
“Stop it?” she laughed. “Of course it could only be you that asks to stop the universe.”
You said nothing, slightly ashamed that you, even for a moment, thought you knew better than the universe.
“Listen to her. Use your gift. You know what it means.”
She hung up.
You banged your head on the glass door and groaned. Goddamn witches, you thought, everything’s gotta be so goddamn mysterious.
It didn’t happen again. Both you and Eddie waited for it, but nothing. When a week went by, you decided it was a one-off kind of thing.
“Maybe it means you should spend more time with me,” Eddie said from the beanbag in your trailer.
Looking up from where you were journaling, spread out on the cushions of your living room, you gave Eddie a look that so clearly said ‘we are together all the time.’ He chuckled and rolled onto the floor to be next to you.
“Your grimoire,” he said, poking the journal.
“Not everything I do is all magic and moonlight, Eddie. Just a normal journal.”
He made a small ‘hmm’ sound and picked up one of the black pens you were using. He positioned himself next to your free arm and began to draw bats to match his. You were going out of your mind; you had never been the type of girl to let anyone mark you in any way, shape, or form. But it was Eddie.
When you closed your journal with a definite snap, Eddie jumped a little. He dropped the pen.
“No. Keep going. I like it,” you told him, handing him a thicker sharpie to work with.
You laid on your back and let Eddie draw all up your arm. Eyes closed, it felt good. Soft. Intimate. When you could tell he was going back over the same lines, you opened your eyes for explanation.
“It will look dumb if you’re entirely covered,” he offered in a hushed tone.
There was a solution to every problem; you took a pen and marked the line on your thigh where your skirt’s hem sat. Then, you bunched the skirt up around your waist, revealing a lot of skin for Eddie to work with.
There was a simple pleasure in watching Eddie try not to look at your underwear but fail miserably. He could contain the grin on his face and you laughed at him.
“Draw me something,” you asked.
He blinked at you a few times, then did the only thing he could think of. In clear letters, at the top of your thigh, he wrote his name and circled it in a heart. He beamed up at you and you reached out to pat his hair.
“Good boy,” you praised, then wriggled down into the cushions and blankets. “More.”
Eddie wasn’t what the world would consider a sublime artist, but he knew his way around a dragon. His sketches were fantasy in nature, and they translated onto your skin remarkably well. As he covered you, he hummed happily, and you continued to play with his hair.
When Eddie ran out of space, he sat up and watched you wake from the totally blissed out altered state you were in.
“Hi,” Eddie whispered, waiting for you to inspect his work.
“I like them,” you told him. “Shame they’ll wash off,”
“I will do this anytime you want. Just say the word, I am here.”
You smiled, felt your skin flush red and your body react to being so close to him. You were all tingles and hot spots. And Eddie, well he was doing his best to angle himself in a way that would hide his own body’s reaction to your bare thighs and underwear. Keep your shit together, Munson, he yelled at himself from inside his skull. Now or never.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Yes. Please,” you replied, the whininess in your voice obvious to both of you.
Eddie grinned ear to ear, then leaned in and kissed you like it was something he did all day every day. His arm wrapped around you, pulling you into his lap. His hands began to roam, touching his drawings on your legs and the softness of your waist.
You wanted to touch him, hold him like he was holding you, but his scars were deep and he was covered in them. The singular time you’d spoken to him about them was when you’d given him a ride to work, all those mornings ago.
“Eddie,” you said his name into his mouth. He nodded but didn’t break the kiss. “Can I…” You gently placed your hand on his face, over where the scars began. It was those ones – on both cheeks and his left jawline– that made him most self-conscious.
Eddie’s grip on you stayed tight, but his gaze lowered and he licked his lips nervously. You waited for him to speak, not settling for anything less than explicit and voluntary consent.
“I want to tell you about it,” he said. He looked at you with an open expression. You kissed him again, deep and heavy.
“Tell me about it.”
Sleep between warm flannel sheets and velvet blankets. Holding cups of hot cocoa. Being kissed, gently, softly, all over. These were the things you wanted for Eddie.
He was a wonder before you knew about 1986. Knowing that he survived quite literal horrors, bitten and bleeding. On the cusp of death then expected to live knowing how it felt to be eaten alive. You wanted to worship at his feet for the rest of your life.
You were a firm believer that all trauma and pain were relative. What could seem like just a bad day to some, could send others to therapy. Yet, you were in awe of how kind and happy Eddie was. Even before the creatures in the Upside Down, the ostracising and villainising, the abandonment and the loneliness… Eddie could be half the person he was and you’d still think he was a miracle.
“You have magic in you,” you told Eddie.
Wrapped up in the softness of your bed, he was happy; it was his happy place. The light filtered in and broke against crystals, prisms of rainbow beams shooting across the space. It always smelled of muffins or incense or sage. Siouxsie was always thrilled to see him and you’d let him add a few vinyls to the stack.
“Magic, huh?”
“Yep,”
“Nah… That’s just like, your love, but in me,” he replied.
“Nope. You have a special brand of magic. It’s earth magic. I can feel it,”
“Can I do anything with this special earth magic?”
You thought on it, watched Eddie stretch and stopped yourself from cooing ‘oh big stretch’ at him like you did with Siouxsie.
“Well, I hear that boys with long hair and earth magic can ask people like me for almost anything, and they just say yes,”
“Oh really?” Eddie laughed. “What if I ask for… a kiss?”
“Your wish is my command,” you replied, wriggling closer to him and kissing him lazily.
“And here,” he said, pointing to the tip of his nose. You giggled and did what he said. “And here.” The top point of his right cheekbone.
It was the hesitation then that made you aware of what he wanted to ask for. The words got caught on their way out, stuck on a branch of self-consciousness.
“Maybe, here?” you asked, then planting a feather-light kiss on his right cheek, over the scar. Eddie nodded before your lips left his skin. “And here?” A kiss to his left cheek, where the scars ran deeper. His breathing hitched, but you could tell by the way he was pulling you closer that he was fine. More than fine.
“I’m gonna say it just one more time. And here?” you said, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses down his neck, over the bites.
Eddie’s final wall came down and you traced every line of his body. When the weight of letting you in, letting love touch the part of himself he hated, he cried. He tried his best to wipe the tears away quickly, but nothing got by you unnoticed.
A joke for him, to lighten the mood. You gasped, covered your mouth in faux shock. “Not the nipple!” you said in whispered outrage.
Eddie laughed and the joyful sound broke the tension. It all evaporated into the air, along with any hang-ups he was harbouring about his body, and about if making it out of the Upside Down was worth it at all.
When he had told you about what it was like there and how the scars were formed, he also told you about the pain. Not the pain in the moment, but in the healing.
Some doctors said it was like his skin had been poisoned; it rejected grafts and began to heal twisted, regardless of how perfectly the stitches were placed. Other doctors were more superstitious. They’d seen some fucked up things come through the emergency room doors. They said Eddie had been cursed. There was no medical explanation for why the scarring seemed to get worse the more they tried to heal them. There was no scientific reason for Eddie’s body to refuse medicine and food.  
“They still hurt you,” you stated, focussed on his arms, kissing the insides of his elbows.
Eddie nodded after a split second of confusion. “You never told me what you meant,” he said. “About how you can… read? Is that what you said? You can read scars?”
Since you met Eddie, your conversations had been peppered with information about each other. Things that warranted immediate interrogation. Things that probably did, but you each let slide. Then things of major interest you made notes to return to. You had wondered how long it would take Eddie to ask you about it.
“It’s my specialty. Some of us palm read. Some can conjure elements. Talk to the other side. See the future. Endless possibility,” you started. Eddie was listening intently. “Me. I got a bit of a weird one. Only useful in very specific contexts, but you know how it is,”
“No. I really don’t,” Eddie replied with a small laugh. He waited for you to continue.
“So, this freckle here,” you said pointing to the spot on his wrist that was darker than the others. “I can see you. You’re… four, maybe five? It’s summer. You’re walking home eating a popsicle. This freckle got darker that summer.”
Eddie brought his wrist closer, studied it.
“And that teeny tiny scar under your eye. As white and thin as one of Siouxsie’s whiskers. Guitar string snapped when you were seventeen. Sliced right across your face.”
Eddie’s mouth curved into a smile. “You can do that with anything?”
“Anything that…” It was hard to explain. “Changes your body in an unnatural way. Tattoos included,”
“Don’t judge me,” he quickly said.
“Sketchy home jobs. At least you made sure the needle was sanitised,”
“Mmmm. High pain tolerance and I’m smart. Total catch,” Eddie joked.
“You are, actually,” you told him, not letting him linger in self-deprecation. “And if I am being totally honest with you, Eddie Munson, I would like to formally catch you, if I may,”
“Formally?” he repeated, smiling widely and opening his arms in an invitation.
You climbed on top of him, straddling his lap. “Eddie. I love you. I like who I am around you… I tried to be all ‘mysterious witch rolls into town,’ ‘ohhhh leave her alone,’ but, I don’t know. I didn’t see you coming. But now you’re here. Under me. Around me all the time. And I don’t want you to go. I love you. I’m in love with you.”
Eddie was breathless, submerged in a sea of your devotion. But he couldn’t fucking help himself. “So, you admit you’re a witch?”
You huffed dramatically and rolled off him, pushing him away playfully.
“I’m sorry!” he yelled. “Come back! I love you too!”
Too late. You were up, off the bed. Eddie ran after you, chasing you until he had you pinned down on top of the piles of pillows in the living space. He tickled until you were begging him to stop, then he kissed you like it was the single reason he refused to die. Maybe it was.
“So, you’re saying if I smoked that, it would kill me?”
“Eddie…” you warned.
“I’m serious. Look at all this. We could make a lot of cash if we’re smart about this.”
You pushed him away from your kitchen bench. “Go back over to your fucking rollies and let me work,”
“So serious!” he teased, walking to the cushion thrown he’d built and plonking down.
You were dividing herbs, crystals, and other conduits into small hessian fabric bags. Some were for you, some were gifts, and some were for sale. Eddie, also involved in the distribution of earth magic, was rolling joints ready to sell to first timers. It was second nature to him, something he could do blindfolded, so while he worked, he watched you.
“Can you tell me everything is for?” he asked, making eye contact while his tongue ran along the edge of a paper.
“Well… this is one is for Lucy,” you said, holding up one of your small parcels. “There is angelica herb for the baby’s colic, and valerian to help Lucy sleep. But everything has a twofold purpose. The medicinal and the magical. Angelica helps to protect the home, and valerian is good for romantic energy,”
“Lucy as in, my boss’ wife?”
“Yep. I have a long list of Hawkins clients. Not all of them would own up to it… Like… Mrs Miles has requested fire agate.”
You took the crystal over for Eddie to inspect. “What’s it for? Help her be less of a bitch?”
“It would take a whole lot more than agate for that. This is a positive stone. It helps manifest safety and security and that kind of thing. Depending on how you use it, it can help you be a little braver, and help reflect harm. But that isn’t what she’s using it for,”
“Oh?” Eddie quipped with a grin. “Do tell,”
“She didn’t tell me everything, but she did say it was for her husband. And this is a crystal that we use to fight cravings. Addictions. Less than healthy desires,”
“Oh shit. What do you reckon he’s into?”
“Probably something boring, like the bottle. I don’t know. I do hope it helps though,” you reply.
“Do they deserve your help?” Eddie asked sincerely.
“She’s not the nicest person I’ve met, but who I am to gatekeep magic? It’s bigger than me, you know? I… serve… it? In a way? I don’t know how to explain it.”
You went on to tell Eddie about moonstone and black obsidian, mistletoe and borage leaf.
“And I can’t smoke any of it,”
“Not any of this, no. I mean, you could try, but I think most would either do nothing or do harm. However…” You stood on tippy toes and pulled a jar off the top shelf.
Eddie was at your side quickly, taking the jar and shaking it. “This kind of looks like dope. What is it?”
“Mugwort,”
“That sounds super fucking witchy,” he said with a laugh.
“It’s smokable, but is pretty bitter. Some people say it tastes kind of floral but I don’t get that. It doesn’t give you a high while you’re awake, but it makes your dream suuuuper trippy,”
“People buy it?”
“Yeah,” you confirmed. “To help lucid dream, mostly.”
Sometimes, you worried that Eddie would get bored if you rambled on about the history of herbs and magic. You didn’t know, but sometimes he worried you would get bored if he rambled on about D&D and Metallica. The truth was not somewhere in the middle, but at the absolute extreme end of it being impossible to bore each other at all.
Eddie was listening, watching, waiting for you to continue.
“The Aztecs made it into incense, because they believed it to be sacred. Native Americans use it for purification. Ancient cultures from everywhere used it to ward off evil spirits. People like me believe it’s connected to lunar energy, which is very strong,”
“The moon?” Eddie asked with genuine curiosity.
“Yeah. Lunar energy is about cycles, things that repeat. We can’t be static; we need to move through life’s cycles, you know?”
He nodded despite not entirely understanding. “Soooooo, can I-”
“No. Maybe if your nightmares stop you can try some,”
“I don’t have the nightmares when I sleep with you,” Eddie argued.
“I know. But I won’t be able to live with the guilt if it fucks you up. So, it’s a hard no.”
Eddie accepted your ruling, shook the jar again and handed it back.
“Tell me more,” he said, once again becoming side tracked from his task by you and your magic.
It happened again. While you watched Eddie, who had not gone to sleep in your bed but was beside you when you woke, you thought about it.
The universe is restoring things once broken. Use your gift.
The universe had taken great effort in moving you to Eddie, all those weeks ago. Whatever you’d done between then and now, she wasn’t satisfied. She had moved Eddie to you. A clear message that there was something to be done for him.
He’s not broken, you said to yourself. But he was in pain. Maybe if your medium was scars and bodies, you could do more than just read them.
Eddie’s eyes began to flutter open, focus on you.
Maybe there was something you could do for him. It would take planning. Planning that he could not be privy to; you wouldn’t give him hope where there may be none.
“The fuck?” he mumbled, sleepiness slurring his words.
“Feels weird, doesn’t it?”
Eddie sat up and realised what had happened. He looked to you for an answer, but you had none, so all you could offer was a shrug.
“Alright… Well. Hi,” he grinned, moving over to kiss you.
“Hi,” you said into his mouth. “I think, if I take my eyes off you, you’ll go back,” you told him. “That’s what happened with me, right?”
Eddie nodded. “Guess we just have to stay in bed, staring at each other forever,”
“You’ve got to open the store. That’s why you slept at yours last night. Didn’t want to wake me early.”
The smile faded from his face and was replaced with a silly pout. “Fuck. Yeah. First time opening. Huge promotion, you know? Lots of responsibility,” he joked.
All you had to do was raise an eyebrow and Eddie knew what you were thinking. No more self-deprecation. It was good that he liked working at Hawkins Records. It was good the boss was teaching him how to open and close, how to balance the books and bank the cash. It wasn’t to be laughed at or be considered small.
“I love you,” he said then.
“I love you too. I’m gonna let you go now,”
“Fuck, does this hurt?”
“No, baby. If it did, I wouldn’t let it happen to you.”
Before he could reply, you leaned in and kissed him, then rolled over in bed, feeling the weight of his body disappear in an instant, leaving you alone in your trailer once again.
The trust in Eddie’s eyes was deep, unwavering. He was laid out in front of you, flat on the floor of your trailer. You’d made him as comfortable as possible. A faux fur blanket was beneath him and Siouxsie was cuddled into his side. Still, being stark naked in the middle of a pentagram of candles was a scary thing.
“Would you be more or less anxious if I, like, talk through this? You could just close your eyes and let your mind wander, or-”
“No. Talk me through it,” Eddie replied.
“Okay. Well, first we need to create our circle.”
Like you had countless times before, a gatekeeper white candle at true north, salt bowl, rhodozite, fresh flowers, and an immortal earthworm. Eddie found a spot on the ceiling to focus on and tried to slow his heart rate.
“You ready? I’m going to cover your scars with this,” you explained, holding up a jar of the homemade concoction. “It has a careful balance of four pain relievers – wormwood, yarrow, St Johns’ Wort, and willow bark. The plants all came from specific places and were grown at specific times. Then, we have chickweed, comfrey, and meadowsweet for healing,”
“It will make the scars go?” Eddie asked. You hadn’t told him what exactly you were doing, just that you wanted to try something.
“No. That would take a different kind of magic, one I don’t have. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with how you look, Eddie. I don’t want to change you. I just want to take your pain away. And I can.”
He nodded, went back to staring at the ceiling and patting Siouxsie.
“The plants were dried, then ground up. They’ve been steeping in chamomile oil for exactly thirty-three days,”
“You’ve been planning this for a while, huh?”
“Yep. This is… kind of the culmination of all my talents. An extension of them, maybe… Anyway. The oil is stabilised with some beeswax,”
“Then you put it all over me,”
“Yep. How’s it feel?” you asked.
“Uh, weird. Cold and warm? And… surprised I don’t have a raging hard on.”
You laughed. “It’s the circle. There’s intention here, and it’s not a sexual one,”
“Huh… I just don’t want you to get offended. Any other situation in which you were putting this gooey shit all over me with this much… attention, I would be creaming my jeans.”
Again, you laughed, shaking your hair and trying to pull yourself back into the right mindset. “Eddie, shut up. I need to focus,”
“Sorry, sorry. Go ahead.”
Eddie remained quiet while you wrapped his arms and legs in red twine. You had him sit up so you could wrap his torso and neck. When panic briefly flashed across his face, you kissed him.
“I’ve got you,” you whispered, continuing the twine up around his head so his cheeks, mouth and nose were covered. You checked he could breathe then laid him back down. “You need to stay still, as much as you can, for thirty-three minutes. I know it’s uncomfortable, but I promise this is gonna work.”
You placed a small black onyx over Eddie’s heart, for protection. Jade in his left hand and smoky quartz in his right. Lastly, gently sitting on his forehead, the master healer – brandberg amethyst.
It was the most still for the longest time Eddie could remember being. He thought it was going to take all his willpower, but it didn’t. Something was happening that he couldn’t describe. He felt awake and alert but far away and light. So light. Like he was floating. It felt as though his body was deep into a dish of edibles, but his mind was calm and on mum-friend duty. It was good.
When he felt the weight of the crystals lift, he opened his eyes. He watched you carefully put them into a bowl of salt water. Next to it was another bowl, one that held the smallest, cutest bonfire.
You began to pull the twine from his legs, feeding it into the fire slowly. When Eddie’s body was free, you extinguished the flames and poured the still-hot ashes into a small glass vial.
Lastly, you used a muslin cloth to wipe the potion from his skin, then closed the circle.
“Alright. You can shower now, and I’ll go bury this,” you told him, picking up the vial.
Eddie remained placid as he nodded and disappeared into your bathroom. Siouxsie took it upon herself to follow him and keep watch until both she and you knew the spell had worked and Eddie was safe.
When you came back in from the cold night, Eddie was sitting on the edge of your bed in pyjama pants. His scars had remained, but were perhaps a lighter shade of pink. They didn’t scream in angry red.
“How do you feel?” you asked him, coming to stand between his legs.
Eddie took hold of your hips and looked up at you. A tear slipped down his face, followed quickly by more. It was only once it was gone that Eddie realised how much pain there had been.
“I… I can’t… feel them. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he cried, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling himself into your belly, hiding his face against your warm body.
In numerology, four is a figure of stability, security, and dependability. So, when Eddie finally asked to have his tarot read, you calculated the days since you first met him. It had been four-hundred and forty-four days, a bit over a year, since you had found Siouxsie in the company of Eddie.
Of course, you thought.
Eddie had jumped at the chance to have you read his palm. Nearly weekly, he’d bring his empty mug to you so you could decipher the tea leaves. But his cards? It had been a hard no.
“Can I ask why?” you had said softly.
Eddie shrugged. “Feels like… everything is good right now. I don’t want anything to fuck it up. If I know too much about what’s coming, might do something stupid.”
It was simple logic and you respected his boundary. Sometimes, if the tea leaves said too much, you’d not speak of it all to Eddie.
Months later, when he asked for you to shuffle your deck, you asked him what had changed. Once again, he shrugged.
“Woke up feeling good?” he offered. You were sure it was the number four and the placement of the moon, but just nodded and retrieved the cards from the special place you kept them.
While you were in your bedroom, Eddie lit a joint and gave Siouxsie a little treat. He put Van Morrison’s Moondance record on; it was not his usual thing but it always made you happy, and Crazy Love fed the butterflies in his stomach.
You and Eddie sat opposite each other on the cushions in your living space. Over the sawed-off coffee table, you laid a deep purple silk cloth. When you asked if he wanted a simple three-card spread, or something more complex, he said he was all in.
Swapping the cards for the joint, you let Eddie shuffle while you inhaled deeply.
“We can stop at any time,” you reminded him as he put the deck on the table.
Eddie nodded and waited for further instruction.
“Okay, you’re going to shuffle them again, but this time I want you to think about something. It might be a general question you have or something you wanna know more about. It doesn’t have to be super specific, but try to focus in on a theme.”
He picked up the cards and did what you said. There was something about the image of Eddie sitting cross-legged surrounded by cushions, joint hanging from between his lips, shuffling tarot cards that made you feel a little bit feral with love. You needed to focus though; if he was ever going to let you do this again you needed to channel your energy into reading his.
Once Eddie placed the deck on the table, you pushed it along, spreading them in a line.
“You’re going to pick your cards now. Hold your hand out flat, like this, and see if you can feel anything. The right card might feel warm or like static. It’s okay if they don’t though. The first one is going to represent your preconceived ideas about the theme.”
Eddie held back a smirk as he moved his hand along the line of cards like you’d shown him. He felt a little bit silly, but he was a believer regardless. He knew your magic was real.
“This one,” he said, pushing a card out of the line. You moved it away from the rest.
“Again. This card will represent the present.”
He repeated the process for the unexpected, the near future, and the distant future. Once the five cards were drawn, you put the remaining deck aside. Eddie’s chosen cards were neatly arranged side by side on the table.
“You can turn your first card over.”
The Chariot.
“He looks cool,” Eddie commented.
“He is. This card is about having direction, control, and willpower. It would suggest, whatever it is your thinking about, that you have a sense of real, practical determination about it,” you said, watching Eddie for that flicker of recognition people got when the cards resonated with them.
“Can I tell you the thing?” he asked, to which you nodded. “Been thinking a bit about work. I think they’re gonna open up that second store I told you about. Their kid is nearly one. I don’t what they’re thinking about managers and who’s gonna run the record store, but…”
“But it could be you?” you finished for Eddie, because he felt like saying it out loud might jinx it.
“Yeah,”
“I think it could be too. And, this card is saying that you’ve been working hard and, you know, moving forward. The moons on his armour represent what is coming to be. It has a connection to the Divine will. So, it’s a good headspace to be in,”
“Okay. Yeah, cool. Next one?” Eddie asked. He was getting into it.
As soon as he saw the card, Eddie groaned.
“No! It’s not bad! The Death card is good. Metamorphosis. If we apply it to your theme, then you’re right. There is change happening at work, and it will bring new beginnings,” you told him. He raised his eyebrows. “Come on, Eddie. You know better than anyone that there’s more to dark imagery than like, actual death and doom,”
“Alright. I’ll trust you on that one,”
“Good; trust me. Next one is the unexpected… The Tower,” you read, then began to hum.
“What? Is this one bad? It’s upside down,”
“It is. That changes the meaning. See, the upright Tower means disaster. The lightning and fire, the people jumping or falling. It’s not normally a good omen, but yours is reversed. That symbolises disaster avoided, or just delayed.”
You were speaking slower and more considered, and Eddie clocked it immediately. “Just tell me,”
“Well, no, it’s just… if this is your unexpected thing, it means there probably will be something you have to overcome. The Tower is falling, and you can’t stop it, but seeing it reversed means that you’ll cope and survive and probably be better for it,”
“Right,” Eddie replied, thinking.
You weren’t entirely sure what it meant for Eddie’s future, but that’s the nature of the cards. It was certainly the nature of the unexpected position in the five-card spread.
“So next is the future?” Eddie said, then flipped the card.
“Yep,” you said, then laughed as The Fool was revealed.
“Great. So, I get a burning tower and now I’m a fucking clown?”
“This is a good card, Eddie! I promise. The Fool has a free spirit. He is taking his first steps out into the world. He’s happy and excited,”
“He sounds dumb,” Eddie said deadpan.
“A little. Innocent, definitely. See the cliff? He needs to be maybe just a little bit more aware of his surroundings, but he’ll have help. The dog is his warning sign,”
“We have a cat,”
“Firstly, we? Do we? Secondly, it could be a metaphor. It just means, take to the road light-hearted but heed the warning signs,”
“Alright. I can do that. Last one,”
“That was your near future. This is more long term.”
You held your breath as Eddie turned the card over. If it were up to you, Eddie’s future would be filled with comfort and ease, triumph and beauty. Alas, it wasn’t up to you, it was up to the universe. While you trusted her, she had dealt Eddie a pretty shit hand.
When The World sat face up on the table, you breathed out happily and wiped your eyes, unaware they had started to well with tears.
Eddie looked up at you. “Baby?” he asked concerned.
You sniffed back the tears and smiled at him. “It’s good. Really good. And it makes sense for today, too.”
Eddie grinned, picked up the card and studied it. “There’s a lot going on,”
“Yeah, um,” you started, composing yourself. “The World. Okay. At the heart of her is balance, in all things. But, not at the expense of progress. The World is eternal evolution in movement. And, uh,” you paused, giving Eddie a chance to reign you in if he wanted.
Eddie saw the sparkle in your eyes, the excitement and the innate need to just talk.
“Tell me everything,” he reassured you.
“Well, like, today, you know what today is? We’ve known each other for four-hundred and forty-four days, right, and see here, in the corners. These four guys, they represent Scorpio, Leo, Aquarius and Taurus, from the zodiac, and they in turn can represent so much, like the four corners of the universe, the four elements and seasons, and the four suits of Tarot, four compass points…”
“Everything is coming up fours, huh?”
You were beaming. “Yeah, and if you wanna get all hippie about it, if you pull The World it means there is wholeness in your future, Eddie. Like, alignment of you and everything around you. A sense that you’re connected to something bigger.”
Eddie laughed. “These are some big feelings to have about a job,”
“Maybe. But maybe that stability brings, you know, something more? Fulfillment and achievement. And, maybe the cards have branched away from just your main theme. They have waited a long time to tell you their story, so maybe they’re just peppering in other things too?”
“Ah, I see. So your cards are as tricky as you? Love a bit of mystery?”
“They do. I do,” you replied, looking back down at the table. “This is a really good reading, Eddie. How do you feel, ‘cause I feel… I’m so happy for you,”
“I feel like this is promising me a lot but if I have learnt anything in the past four million four thousand four hundred forty-four point four four days is that I can trust you, my little witch,” Eddie replied, smiling fondly and reaching across the table to boop you on the nose.
“I love you,”
“I love you too. You make me… so fucking happy,” Eddie said, his voice equal parts soft with love and rough with lust.
For a moment, a timeless moment, you and Eddie watched each other. The air was hazy with incense and smelt like choc chip cookies. Siouxsie had departed, off to chase leaves and make friends with mice, leaving the two of you alone.
You crawled around the table and sat in Eddie’s lap. Quickly, immediately, his hands were holding you, travelling under your shirt and up around your back. You buried your head in his neck, kissing over what used to be pain but now was perfect neutrality. His hair curled around your fingers and as you pulled, Eddie felt his scalp tingle and his entire body scream that it needed to be closer to you, closer than it was, closer than humanly possible.
The kissing was desperate, messy, unprecise. As you pulled away, Eddie brought a hand to your mouth to wipe away spit before it escaped. You sucked in his finger, holding it between your front teeth and not letting go. He grinned, all manic and beautiful.
“I need you… in like, so many ways,” he whispered.
“You’ve got me. In every single way, Eddie. Always.”
Lavender and lemon balm. Fairy circles and magic mushrooms. Serpentine and Australian opal. The Sun and the Moon and the stars and everything under and beyond them. Infinitely, Eddie and his sketchy tattoos and pick necklace and his scars. You were obsessed.
End Notes: I poured my soul into this one and it means a lot. I’m usually chill about reblogs but I would really appreciate your support and feedback for this one.
Find me on AO3 here. My Eddie Munson zine is now on sale here.
If you want more witchy fics, here's a rec list.
Taglist of cool people that wanted to read this even before it was finished: @apolixyan @rgbsona @pink-hufflepuff @hocuspocuscrocus @nightless @httpsunflowers @draguta @moon1ightdreams @dreamlandcreations @veiellis @blackwood-asylum @lunarielevesque @pistachoz @munsonsmel0dy @fic-for-readers @wtvbabes
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5-and-a-half-acres · 2 years
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One of the many art displays at Dart’s Hill garden park this weekend.
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Love plus ds • Location guide by loveplus guide
* Req. = Requirement
** Some locations are only available at a certain time. (Morning, afternoon, night ,etc.)
*** School can be selected as a date spot when you call your girlfriend out for a short date in Real Time Mode during morning-afternoon on school days.
Mountain Area (奥十羽野駅周辺)
- Restaurant (湖畔のレストラン) Req. Lake Lv.1 or Zoo Lv.1
- Lake (十羽野湖) Req. Mountain Lv.1
- Art Gallery (山の上美術館)
- Zoo (山の上動物園) (Different Animals)
- Mountain (天羽山) (Different Seasonal Activities) Req. Art Gallery Lv.1
Hill Area (とわの坂上駅周辺)
- Japanese Desserts (和食甘味屋) Req. Botanical Garden Lv.1
- Amusement Park (遊園地) (Different Attractions)
- Indoor Pool (室内プール) Req. Japanese Dessert Lv.1
- Planetarium (プラネタリウム) Req. Indoor Pool Lv.2
- Botanical Garden (植物園)
- Sports Center (スポーツセンター) (Skate, Squash, Gym)
School (学校)
- Corridor (廊下)
- Courtyard (中庭)
- Behind School Building (校舎裏)
- Club Room (部室)
- Library (図書室)
- Rooftop (屋上)
New Station (新とわの駅周辺)
- Fast Food (ファーストフード)
- Family Restaurant (ファミレス)
- Fountain Park (噴水公園)
- Shrine (十羽野神社) Req. Family Restaurant Lv.2
- Movie (映画館) (Cinema 1, Cinema 2)
- Bowling (とわのボウル) Req. Movie Lv.1
Station (十羽野駅周辺)
- Coffee Shop (コーヒーショップ)
- Noodles Shop (ラーメン屋) Req. Coffee Shop Lv.1
- Live House (ライブハウス) (Different Shows) Req. Noodles Shop Lv.1 or Karaoke Lv.2
- Karaoke (カラオケ)
- Game Center (ゲームセンター) (Medal Game, Darts, Billiard)
- CD Shop (CD屋) (Different Artists)
- Electronic Town (電気街) (Electronic Store, Anime Shop, Maid Cafe)
Sea Area (臨海駅周辺)
- Restaurant (レストラン) Req. Shopping Mall Lv.1 or Aquarium Lv.2
- Event Hall (イベントホール) (Different Events)
- Shopping Mall (ショッピングモール) (Boutique, Accessory, Cosmetic)
- Harbor Park (港の丘公園)
- Bay Bridge (ベイブリッジ) Req. Restaurant Lv.2 or Aquarium Lv.2
- Ocean (海水浴場) (Swimming Area, Off-season) Req. Aquarium Lv.1 or Bay Bridge Lv.2
- Aquarium (とわの水族館) (Different Shows) Req. Harbor Park Lv.1
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travelingue · 10 months
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Naples (6): Elevation
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The story so far: on the morning of our last full day in Naples we found the genteel part.  And we began to suspect that the nicest bits were on the hills, looking down on the grimy centre.
As we boarded a bus climbing up to Capodimonte, home to Naples' main art museum, I flashed Lesley's phone at the driver who waved us through before I could conjure up both e-passes.
This relaxed attitude provoked the ire of a woman sitting at the front.
Throughout our 20-minute journey she harangued the driver while glaring at us.  You didn't need to understand Italian to get her drift: fare dodgers were an insult to regular users and bleeding the transit system dry.
The driver occasionally responded with sighs of impotent sympathy: "Lo so, lo so..."  All the while, people were getting on and off freely.  For all we knew, the only fare-paying passengers on board were that bitching woman and us.
As we alighted at the top of the hill, she said in English: "For the return, make sure you buy a ticket at that shop over there."
The gardens of Capodimonte Palace confirmed our hypothesis about the correlation between elevation and refinement in this city.
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The museum cafeteria was located in the grand courtyard. Sparse attendance, swift service, tasty food: our lunch experience had everything the Museo archeologico had failed to provide a day earlier.
The gallery itself is fabulous.
The women in various states of rapture (such as Titian's Magdalene and Botticelli's Madonna below, left and centre) are so over the top that an atheist may wonder if the artist is taking the piss.
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I am certain, however, about the pout of scepticism Raphael put on God's face as He crowns His son (above right).
We were looking forward to admiring The Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio – painted as he passed through Naples while running away from murder charges.  I asked the staff where I could see it. 
"At the Louvre," the man said.  "It's on loan until December." "Are you telling me," I thundered, "that I flew across Europe to see a painting that has been shipped to my native city?" "Le mie scuse signore."
I quickly checked the Louvre's website.  In "a dialogue between the masterpieces of the two museums", the French were getting their hand on not just on Capodimonte's Caravaggio, but also dozens of pieces by Michelangelo, Titian, etc.
Dialogue?  I call that a plunder of Napoleonic proportions which, from my point of view, was no less invidious for being temporary.
"Lo so, lo so," The man sighed in impotent sympathy.
Our afternoon to the museum, however, was far from wasted.  Among the marvels on display was the piece at the top of this post: Scuole diverse ("Different Schools", 1890) by one Augusto Moriani.
Another underrated local genius, Achille d'Orsi, crafted this 1877 sculpture of two men asleep on a park bench.  I find the title, Il Parassiti, refreshingly brutal.  Nowadays it might be marketed as "Helpless victims of neoliberalism".
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On our final evening we decided to explore another hill.  We made our way to the funicolare we had spotted that morning.
The ride itself was disappointing: you can't see anything as the carriage rattles through tunnels.
Once we got to the top, though, the Vomero district bore out my altitude theory of desirability.
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We wandered through opulent streets. A few tasteful streamers overhead quietly honoured the Napoli football club, which had just won the Serie A - nothing like the garish bunting and images of Saint Maradona that were ubiquitous downtown.
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From the medieval fortress of Sant'Elmo you had a clear view of Mount Vesuvius.
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We knew there must have been at least one area in Naples where people hung out, a place where you could dine on something else than good pizza and drink wine. We were happy to have found Vomero on our final night.
We returned to our hotel by metro. The escalator at Duomo station was down. We had memorised a complex succession of lifts that got you to the surface.
During the day, you had to dart from one to the next ahead of other passengers.  At 10 pm, there was little competition.
But the final lift was "not in exercise", and we reached the empty street via the stairs.
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Previous entries on Naples:
1. Ryanair 2. Neapolis or Nablus? 3. Daylight robbery 4. Sybaritic afternoon 5. The benefits of being bombed
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navysealunsealed · 1 year
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Town Events
1.) Above And Beyond or Hartsville Beer Festival 2.) Chalk It Up or Sweet Saturday 3.) Chopping Block or We React Night 4.) Classic Cash or Skateland 5.) Dart Drop or Slippery When Wet 6.) Enchanted Island or Prestwood Co-Ed Sports 7.) Field Days or Stir Crazy 8.) Get Vertical or Lawton Park 9.) Go Green or Shh! Bid2win 10.) Got Mud or Prestwood Party Boats 11.) Harvest Moon or Rocketcity 12.) Jump Zone or The Crypt 13.) Laser Blitz or Prestwood Lake 14.) League Of Fire or The Vault 15.) Let's Get Together or Yoga Works 16.) Planet Granite or Win Or Die 17.) Split Happens or Ghost Whisper 18.) The Book Box or Breakout Clinic 19.) Get High or Kalmia Gardens 20.) Heart Orchard or Runners Ranch 21.) Smokey Hill River Festival or Turning Earth 22.) Behind The Curtain or Hartsville Night Out 23.) Hartsville Rodeo Company or Lady Godiva 24.) Happy Tails or The Pit Stop 25.) Sweet Meadows Farm & Orchard or The Great Campout 26.) Let's Go Fly A Kite or Lonely Hearts Club 27.) On The Same Page or Backyard Bonfire 28.) Treasure's Untold or Skeet It Up 29.) Slasher Night or Dark Skies 30.) Dutch Hollow or The Big Slope 31.) Warefare or The Best Lures 32.) Starlite or Enchanted Island 33.) Harvest Moon or Urban Garden 34.) Run-A-Muck or Aqua Dawg 35.) Jeffries Creek or Zachary's Basement
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harlow-jackson · 1 year
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Optional Task 416
Hartsville's Town Events this or that! If you don't know what something is check the Events Tumblr. 1.) Above And Beyond or Hartsville Beer Festival 2.) Chalk It Up or Sweet Saturday 3.) Chopping Block or We React Night 4.) Classic Cash or Skateland 5.) Dart Drop or Slippery When Wet 6.) Enchanted Island or Prestwood Co-Ed Sports 7.) Field Days or Stir Crazy 8.) Get Vertical or Lawton Park 9.) Go Green or Shh! Bid2win 10.) Got Mud or Prestwood Party Boats 11.) Harvest Moon or Rocketcity 12.) Jump Zone or The Crypt 13.) Laser Blitz or Prestwood Lake 14.) League Of Fire or The Vault 15.) Let's Get Together or Yoga Works 16.) Planet Granite or Win Or Die 17.) Split Happens or Ghost Whisper 18.) The Book Box or Breakout Clinic 19.) Get High or Kalmia Gardens 20.) Heart Orchard or Runners Ranch 21.) Smokey Hill River Festival or Turning Earth 22.) Behind The Curtain or Hartsville Night Out 23.) Hartsville Rodeo Company or Lady Godiva 24.) Happy Tails or The Pit Stop 25.) Sweet Meadows Farm & Orchard or The Great Campout 26.) Let's Go Fly A Kite or Lonely Hearts Club 27.) On The Same Page or Backyard Bonfire 28.) Treasure's Untold or Skeet It Up 29.) Slasher Night or Dark Skies 30.) Dutch Hollow or The Big Slope 31.) Warefare or The Best Lures 32.) Starlite or Enchanted Island 33.) Harvest Moon or Urban Garden 34.) Run-A-Muck or Aqua Dawg 35.) Jeffries Creek or Zachary's Basement
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rykeranders · 1 year
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Hartsville's Town Events this or that.
Optional Task 416 - January 24,2023 1.) Above And Beyond or Hartsville Beer Festival 2.) Chalk It Up or Sweet Saturday 3.) Chopping Block or We React Night 4.) Classic Cash or Skateland 5.) Dart Drop or Slippery When Wet 6.) Enchanted Island or Prestwood Co-Ed Sports 7.) Field Days or Stir Crazy 8.) Get Vertical or Lawton Park 9.) Go Green or Shh! Bid2win 10.) Got Mud or Prestwood Party Boats 11.) Harvest Moon or Rocketcity 12.) Jump Zone or The Crypt 13.) Laser Blitz or Prestwood Lake 14.) League Of Fire or The Vault 15.) Let's Get Together or Yoga Works 16.) Planet Granite or Win Or Die 17.) Split Happens or Ghost Whisper 18.) The Book Box or Breakout Clinic 19.) Get High or Kalmia Gardens 20.) Heart Orchard or Runners Ranch 21.) Smokey Hill River Festival or Turning Earth 22.) Behind The Curtain or Hartsville Night Out 23.) Hartsville Rodeo Company or Lady Godiva 24.) Happy Tails or The Pit Stop 25.) Sweet Meadows Farm & Orchard or The Great Campout 26.) Let's Go Fly A Kite or Lonely Hearts Club 27.) On The Same Page or Backyard Bonfire 28.) Treasure's Untold or Skeet It Up 29.) Slasher Night or Dark Skies 30.) Dutch Hollow or The Big Slope 31.) Warefare or The Best Lures 32.) Starlite or Enchanted Island 33.) Harvest Moon or Urban Garden 34.) Run-A-Muck or Aqua Dawg 35.) Jeffries Creek or Zachary's Basement
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daydreamerxo · 1 year
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hartsville's town events this or that 1.) Above And Beyond or Hartsville Beer Festival 2.) Chalk It Up or Sweet Saturday 3.) Chopping Block or We React Night 4.) Classic Cash or Skateland 5.) Dart Drop or Slippery When Wet 6.) Enchanted Island or Prestwood Co-Ed Sports 7.) Field Days or Stir Crazy 8.) Get Vertical or Lawton Park 9.) Go Green or Shh! Bid2win 10.) Got Mud or Prestwood Party Boats 11.) Harvest Moon or Rocketcity 12.) Jump Zone or The Crypt 13.) Laser Blitz or Prestwood Lake 14.) League Of Fire or The Vault 15.) Let's Get Together or Yoga Works 16.) Planet Granite or Win Or Die 17.) Split Happens or Ghost Whisper 18.) The Book Box or Breakout Clinic 19.) Get High or Kalmia Gardens 20.) Heart Orchard or Runners Ranch 21.) Smokey Hill River Festival or Turning Earth 22.) Behind The Curtain or Hartsville Night Out 23.) Hartsville Rodeo Company or Lady Godiva 24.) Happy Tails or The Pit Stop 25.) Sweet Meadows Farm & Orchard or The Great Campout 26.) Let's Go Fly A Kite or Lonely Hearts Club 27.) On The Same Page or Backyard Bonfire 28.) Treasure's Untold or Skeet It Up 29.) Slasher Night or Dark Skies 30.) Dutch Hollow or The Big Slope 31.) Warefare or The Best Lures 32.) Starlite or Enchanted Island 33.) Harvest Moon or Urban Garden 34.) Run-A-Muck or Aqua Dawg 35.) Jeffries Creek or Zachary's Basement
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xstarxgazerx · 1 year
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This or That: Hartsville Edition
1.) Above And Beyond or Hartsville Beer Festival 2.) Chalk It Up or Sweet Saturday 3.) Chopping Block or We React Night 4.) Classic Cash or Skateland 5.) Dart Drop or Slippery When Wet 6.) Enchanted Island or Prestwood Co-Ed Sports 7.) Field Days or Stir Crazy 8.) Get Vertical or Lawton Park 9.) Go Green or Shh! Bid2win 10.) Got Mud or Prestwood Party Boats 11.) Harvest Moon or Rocketcity 12.) Jump Zone or The Crypt 13.) Laser Blitz or Prestwood Lake 14.) League Of Fire or The Vault 15.) Let's Get Together or Yoga Works 16.) Planet Granite or Win Or Die 17.) Split Happens or Ghost Whisper 18.) The Book Box or Breakout Clinic 19.) Get High or Kalmia Gardens 20.) Heart Orchard or Runners Ranch 21.) Smokey Hill River Festival or Turning Earth 22.) Behind The Curtain or Hartsville Night Out 23.) Hartsville Rodeo Company or Lady Godiva 24.) Happy Tails or The Pit Stop 25.) Sweet Meadows Farm & Orchard or The Great Campout 26.) Let's Go Fly A Kite or Lonely Hearts Club 27.) On The Same Page or Backyard Bonfire 28.) Treasure's Untold or Skeet It Up 29.) Slasher Night or Dark Skies 30.) Dutch Hollow or The Big Slope 31.) Warfare or The Best Lures 32.) Starlite or Enchanted Island 33.) Harvest Moon or Urban Garden 34.) Run-A-Muck or Aqua Dawg 35.) Jeffries Creek or Zachary's Basement
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flowerishness · 2 years
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Astrantia major (great masterwort) and Bombus ternarius (orange-belted bumblebee)
Busy signal...
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el-heladero · 1 year
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Hartsville's Town Events this or that! 1.) Above And Beyond or Hartsville Beer Festival 2.) Chalk It Up or Sweet Saturday 3.) Chopping Block or We React Night 4.) Classic Cash or Skateland 5.) Dart Drop or Slippery When Wet 6.) Enchanted Island or Prestwood Co-Ed Sports 7.) Field Days or Stir Crazy 8.) Get Vertical or Lawton Park 9.) Go Green or Shh! Bid2win 10.) Got Mud or Prestwood Party Boats 11.) Harvest Moon or Rocketcity 12.) Jump Zone or The Crypt 13.) Laser Blitz or Prestwood Lake 14.) League Of Fire or The Vault 15.) Let's Get Together or Yoga Works 16.) Planet Granite or Win Or Die 17.) Split Happens or Ghost Whisper 18.) The Book Box or Breakout Clinic 19.) Get High or Kalmia Gardens  20.) Heart Orchard or Runners Ranch 21.) Smokey Hill River Festival or Turning Earth  22.) Behind The Curtain or Hartsville Night Out 23.) Hartsville Rodeo Company or Lady Godiva 24.) Happy Tails or The Pit Stop 25.) Sweet Meadows Farm & Orchard or The Great Campout 26.) Let's Go Fly A Kite or Lonely Hearts Club 27.) On The Same Page or Backyard Bonfire 28.) Treasure's Untold or Skeet It Up 29.) Slasher Night or Dark Skies 30.) Dutch Hollow or The Big Slope  31.) Warefare or The Best Lures  32.) Starlite or Enchanted Island 33.) Harvest Moon or Urban Garden  34.) Run-A-Muck or Aqua Dawg  35.) Jeffries Creek or Zachary's Basement
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storiesbyrhi · 2 years
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Sneak Peek... Eddie Munson x Witch!Reader
Hey there friends and family. I'm working on a witchy fic because, well, you know me. I was born for this kind of content. I haven't decided if it will be a one shot or multi chaptered, so while I type away I thought I'd let you enjoy a sneak peek.
I'd love to hear your early thoughts! And, as always, if you have any cute little details you'd love to see in the story, let me know. Under the cut ;)
TITLE TBA
There was something really… freaky… about the newest resident of Forest Hills Trailer Park. Eddie Munson was absolutely convinced she was a wizard, witch, whatever. He had no tangible proof. But the circumstantial evidence, your honour, was overwhelming.
Firstly, your small, black VW Bug appeared silently overnight, pulling a small trailer home in what seemed like an impossible feat of automobile engineering. You set up next to the Mayfield’s home, cordoning off your rectangular plot with a black plastic picket fence hammered into the ground. It was short, reaching only your knees, but it laid claim to the land in a way that kept unwanted guests away from the garden.
Secondly, that garden. The trailer sat at the back of the plot, with green grass surrounding it that hadn’t existed before you arrived. Pots of plants framed the land, their flowers and fruit spilling out as if they had been growing in their positions for months. Bees and butterflies had come to Forest Hills, making home in your established greenery.
Thirdly, nobody had seen you. Sometimes the black bug was there. Sometimes it wasn’t. A few long-term residents of the park had taken it upon themselves to step over the pickets and knock on the trailer door. They received no answer, although the lights inside were on.
Eddie would watch your place as soon as he rolled in, driving his van slowly. He’d sneak looks through the blinds of his trailer and take too long to hang the laundry around the back, close to where he could eavesdrop on the locals gossiping about the mystery of it all.
It was near the witching hour, 3:00 am, when Eddie shot up in bed one night, drenched in sweat. The scratching in his nightmare transitioned into real life and he looked around for the source of the sound. Small, frantic scratching. Unfamiliar, persistent scratching.
He followed the noise outside his bedroom and to the door that led to a makeshift deck. He’d only begun to crack it open when a snow white cat darted through, her scratching being replaced with happy meows.
“Hi there,” Eddie said to the cat, squatting down and holding a hand out for the creature to smell. The cat rubbed her face on his hand, welcoming any and all pats. “Where’d you come from, huh?”
The cat wore a red glittery collar holding a small tag printed with her name. Siouxsie seemed to be a big Eddie fan; the feeling was mutual. The pair was so engaged in their purring and patting that Eddie didn’t notice you arrive.
“Jesus!” he screamed when he clocked you out the corner of his eyes. He fell backward, spilling through the open bathroom door behind him.
Startled, Siouxsie went running outside. You watched her leap from the deck and cross the gravel road, disappearing under your trailer. Turning back to Eddie, you watched him get to his feet. He wore blue and white checked cotton boxer shorts and nothing else.
“What were you doing with my cat?” you asked him, only briefly making eye contact before letting your gaze travel to his sketchy tattoos and D.I.Y. pick necklace.
“Uh… She woke me up. Tried to break in,” he answered, his voice cracking with sleep and nerves. And, oh fuck, was he nervous. “Guess she’s a… cat burglar?”
Eddie looked at you, the way that lights from the park backlit you like an angel. You were in a black dress that fell around your feet. The hem was ratty from where it dragged behind you wherever you went. Bracelets and rings and necklaces adorned your body, and your nails were painted Barbie pink.
“She woke you?”
“Yeah… The scratching…” Eddie went to explain, but couldn’t describe how the sound was in his head, then was real. Your expression filled him with dismay; had he said something wrong? It was the joke. He shouldn’t have made the joke. The joke was bad.
He stood still and silent, watching you look him up and down. Suddenly aware of his near nakedness, he blushed hard. You took note.
“You just moved here,” he said, needing the quiet to be filled.
You cocked your head to the side, taking his sentence as a statement and not a question. He knew the answer.
“I’m Eddie,” he introduced, holding a hand out. He looked down at his arm, confused as to why he was being so formal, operating on autopilot.
Eddie watched your hand take his, gently shake and not let go. You said your name, followed by, “Siouxsie likes you. Put a bowl of salt next to your bed to stop the nightmares.” You were gone then.
In the morning, he couldn’t remember watching you walk back to your trailer.
Jesus fucking Christ. You were definitely a witch. And he was obsessed.
Alright, there it is. Feedback and literally any interaction with this post would be incredibly helpful and heartwarming lmao. I'm excited about this one!
While I've got you, one chapter left of Vintage Reeboks. Make sure you're up to date. xo Rhi
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5-and-a-half-acres · 1 year
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Dart’s Hill garden, from the parking lot.
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southernxrose · 1 year
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Optional Task 416
1.) Above And Beyond or Hartsville Beer Festival 2.) Chalk It Up or Sweet Saturday 3.) Chopping Block or We React Night 4.) Classic Cash or Skateland 5.) Dart Drop or Slippery When Wet 6.) Enchanted Island or Prestwood Co-Ed Sports 7.) Field Days or Stir Crazy 8.) Get Vertical or Lawton Park 9.) Go Green or Shh! Bid2win 10.) Got Mud or Prestwood Party Boats 11.) Harvest Moon or Rocketcity 12.) Jump Zone or The Crypt 13.) Laser Blitz or Prestwood Lake 14.) League Of Fire or The Vault 15.) Let's Get Together or Yoga Works 16.) Planet Granite or Win Or Die 17.) Split Happens or Ghost Whisper 18.) The Book Box or Breakout Clinic 19.) Get High or Kalmia Gardens  20.) Heart Orchard or Runners Ranch 21.) Smokey Hill River Festival or Turning Earth  22.) Behind The Curtain or Hartsville Night Out 23.) Hartsville Rodeo Company or Lady Godiva 24.) Happy Tails or The Pit Stop 25.) Sweet Meadows Farm & Orchard or The Great Campout 26.) Let's Go Fly A Kite or Lonely Hearts Club 27.) On The Same Page or Backyard Bonfire 28.) Treasure's Untold or Skeet It Up 29.) Slasher Night or Dark Skies 30.) Dutch Hollow or The Big Slope  31.) Warefare or The Best Lures  32.) Starlite or Enchanted Island 33.) Harvest Moon or Urban Garden  34.) Run-A-Muck or Aqua Dawg  35.) Jeffries Creek or Zachary's Basement 
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