Notes on Heartwood, Heartblood

This story was written as a chapbook for the auction table at Swampstock XI and was composed over a week or so in mid-July 2004. (The finished volume went home with one Matthew Turley, who won it with the high bid of $15.)

Like most of the recent Jenny Haniver stories in prose, it's told by Jenny in first person. The events it chronicles take place sometime after The Vasty Deep and before the start of the first Adeptus story arc - though within that frame, it moves back and forth through time, a device I'll leave to the readers to decide if it works. It was written to be accessible to an audience with no prior exposure to Jenny's adventures, and so makes as good an early entry here as any.

It's also in small part an homage to the late Manly Wade Wellman, whose "Silver John" stories told of a haunted Appalachia as weird and spooky and unnerving as any landscape of Poe's or Lovecraft's. He was a true (and overlooked) master of American Gothic, and while I don't pretend to have a fraction of his magic, the least I can do is tip my hat.

For the purposes of this site, "Heartwood, Heartblood" is probably a bit long (5,300 words or so), though I haven't really had enough time with it to decide if that's too much or not enough. But for a week's work, I'm fairly happy with it.

The chapbook contained the following preface, which should serve as a fairly decent introduction:

Just in case you've come in late, it will soon be apparent that the following short story, an episode in the adventures of Jenny Haniver (urban mage and scion of the ancient and mysterious House Urantica, and that's about all you need to know going in here), is very much a part of a larger and more complicated narrative.

And it may be distressing to learn that none of this has been published to date in a traditional format; to which I can only say that I trust this whets your appetite for the Adeptus comic series, on the horizon in (we hope) the not-too distant future and starring the same bespectacled and irreverent heroine as this present tale.

However, I feel compelled to warn you that Adeptus picks up some time after the events of "Heartwood, Heartblood" leave off, and some few threads left dangling here may not be gathered in for some time yet. So readers wishing to know the context of Jenny's conversation with Rafe Urantica, or the circumstances under which she left the Guild of the Great Art (referred obliquely to in the line "You walked away from it all before"), are advised to be patient. All shall be revealed in time.

Dan Layman-Kennedy
July 2004

On, then, with the tale...

An Interview with Jenny Haniver

For the last couple of years, you haven't been able to put ear to wall in Norton's buzzing occult community without hearing the name "Jenny Haniver." From our own fair town and the Tower campus to the streets of Bruges and Glasgow, this headstrong, confident young magus has been making waves, kicking ass and helping disheveled-chic look good again. With her unmistakable Harry Potter-cum-grrlpunk look (and those ever-present cigars!), she's easy to spot - but what do we really know about what's going on behind the spectacles? We caught up with the overcoated adept at Orion's coffeehouse, and manged to talk her into a short-and-sweet 411 on all things Jenny.

maestro23: "Haniver" is a sort of unusual name. Care to shed any light on it?

jenny haniver: Mmm. It's not a family name, if that's what you're asking. I chose it during my apprenticeship, out of a 17th-century bestiary. Look up "jenny haniver" in a cryptozoology book sometime. It seemed sort of... appropriate.

m23: Aha. So what name were you born with?

jh: Nice try.

m23: Oh, right. The True Name thing. You magician types keep a pretty tight lid on that, don't you?

jh: Yeah, a lot of us do. You can get yourself into a lot of trouble with that stuff. Potentially, anyway. Some are more secretive than others; like my friend Murdoch doesn't use an alias. But then he says that's not his True Name, and I've never figured out what the hell he means by that. So there's a lot that even we don't know about it. (laughs) But a little paranoia, at least, comes with the territory.

m23: Your line of work brings you in touch with a lot of occult folk. Are they misunderstood geniuses, or as black as they're painted?

jh: We're all types, just like everyone else. Some magicians are as good and nice as you could possibly hope people would be - saints and Bodhisattvas. Some are complete and utter bastards. Most are somewhere in the middle, just trying to get by. By and large, it's the ones in the middle I get along with best.

m23: Ever met Saint-Germain?

jh: I sure wouldn't bet against it.

m23: I assume you wear glasses because you need to, and not just to look scholarly. Are you nearsighted or farsighted?

jh: I'm a magician, I should be saying "farsighted," right? (laughs) I'm mildly myopic. Stuff gets fuzzy outside a certain range. But the scholarly look's a nice bonus.

m23: I note that you're a prog fan. I approve. What are you listening to these days?

jh: The new King Crimson's pretty good. It's not Discipline, but it's not bad. Um, the first This Mortal Coil CD, the one with Lisa Gerrard. Porcupine Tree's Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape. And Masque, by Kansas - one of the best albums ever, ever.

m23: Ever make it to NEARfest?

jh: No, though I keep hearing about it. The big-crowds thing isn't really my scene, though. Besides, wasn't it in Jersey the last couple of times?

m23: Yeah.

jh: Yeah, fuck that, then.

m23: So I'm dying to know - what's in your coat pockets right now?

jh: Hmm, let's see. (pulls out of her overcoat pockets two handfuls of weird debris) Takeout menu for Da Foo. Paperback copy of Cable's The Dog Princes. A Norton bus schedule. Spare set of chopsticks. Box of matches. Safety pins, notepad, pen. Cigars, of course. Breath mints. Plus a couple of items I left in there that I'm not telling you about. (smiles)

m23: What's your favorite cigar?

jh: I like a maduro in general. Punch does a perfectly fine maduro cigar. These days, I've been smoking robustos a lot; they're thick, so they burn cool, but they're short enough you don't have to spend an hour going down on 'em. I tend to prefer Dominican or Brazilian, but I'm not much of a snob, I'm afraid.

m23: So, speaking of preferences... You've never made a secret about your sexuality. Would it make you happy to know you were a role model for young lesbian magicians everywhere?

jh: I'm not sure I should be anyone's role model for anything. The idea that it makes any difference who I'm fucking is a constant source of amazement. (pause) I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable with "lesbian." For one thing, I'm Italian, not Greek. (laughs) I like "queer" better. It's more dynamic and colorful. Less... limiting.

m23: So you've had, um, male lovers before?

jh: Sure! I mean, boys are sexy, right? Everyone's sexy. Why be narrow about it? (pause) I guess that I fall in love with women more easily, though. There are more emotional connections there, for me. That seems to be what I need somehow. But there are men in the world I wouldn't say no to.

m23: Seeing anyone right now?

jh: I have plans this very evening for a long, passionate night with a bottle of shiraz.

m23: One last thing: Gryffindor or Slytherin?

jh: Ravenclaw. All the hot chicks are in Ravenclaw.

m23: Thanks for your time.

jh: No problem.

* * *

Notes on the preceding:

I wrote this last fall as an excercise in preparation for my NaNoWriMo novel The Vasty Deep (as yet unfinished). It's not quite seriously meant to fit into Jenny's timeline, except that it's fairly early in her career, when she was in the service of the Guild of the Great Art, before the disastrous events in Prague that led to her split with the Guild. (This led to the one editorial change - a reference to Prague that was changed to Bruges. Not that she couldn't have done work twice in the same city, but I felt it best to avoid confusion.)

In particular, I'd advise continuity nuts to not place too much significance in the couple of things that seem to suggest real-world dates (e.g., the references to NEARfest). One of the things I've tried to avoid with the Jenny Haniver stories is tying them too closely to the calendar we know; ideally, they should exist in an ambiguous continuum, no more specific than Somewhere Around the New Millenium. This will, no doubt, eventually lead to inconsistencies and the odd anachronism - most of the ironing-out of which I leave to the readers, whose capacity for justification and on-the-spot retconning is not to be underestimated.

Mostly, this was just a lot of fun - a chance for a literal dialogue between creator and character. Jenny is pretty obviously an avatar of her author, for which I make no apologies; I spend a lot of time inside her head, and being able to relate to her tastes in music, cigars and lovers makes that process a lot easier. But it's also interesting to discover the ways she's not me, which are a bit more subtle.

Finally: Gold star to any gamers who spotted the Nobilis easter egg in there.

Introduction

IN THE BEGINNING there was formlessness, and neither space nor matter. Then things Became, and it's all been downhill from there.

But the Eldritch were there at the start of it all, watching, creating, changing. They're still out there. Vast, shifting, terrible, wondrous. And whenever something stirs in a deep pool on a young world, and starts to set down the path of becoming other than it is - you can see Their hand at work. And Their vision is made manifest in the architecture of all there Is.

These are Their stories. As all stories, ultimately, are.

* * *

Right, so, if you're new...

This is where I'm posting vignettes, works-in-progress, extracts, and sundry odds and ends having to do with my peculiar urban-fantastique fictional universe - particularly stories of Jenny Haniver, sidelines to the Adeptus comic, and the development of the Berengar Moran mythos. I'm thinking of it as a kind of laboratory/testing ground/brainstorming space for all things Eldritch, so I'm not expecting a lot of consistency or coherency (and neither should you).

In the interest of artistic, um, wossname, development, as well as community, I'm opening up comments, which all are invited to partake in. Constructive criticism is welcome, but be nice; I'm brooding and complex and my wee ego is fragile. That said, "This bit doesn't work for me" is something I hardly ever take offense to, especially if you give good argument. (What I'm not interested in is extensive copyediting. If that's your particular gift, by all means go use it -and your time - where you'll make some money at it.)

A disclaimer: This is gonna be grown-up stuff, kids. If you have a problem with adult language or themes, this is the wrong hangout for you. In particular, I find myself dealing increasingly with themes of sexuality and religion that can be touchy and controversial even to many open-minded folks. So don't say I didn't warn you.

If you've stuck with me this far, it's my hope and intent that you'll be entertained by what's to follow. You're witness to the process of building a world that I'm having a hell of a good time playing in. Here's hoping you will too.