An Invitation

Magic rarely presents itself as such. Postal owls are quite rare. Aged maps, cryptic advertisements, and vagabond ravings are more typical introductions to the uncanny.

The sensible thing is to ignore it. That’s always an option. Magic never arrives as a demand. It doesn’t even make a promise, just offers an invitation.

Mine came from an improbable Viennese law firm bearing the inheritance of a long lost and conveniently penniless uncle. It arrived, bearing a decade’s worth of forwarding postmarks, long after I’d stopped believing in anything except mortgages and inevitability.

It was a trick, certainly, and an expensive one. But it wasn’t the confidence scam I’d expected. More a sleight of hand . . . the memory of a first kiss sweeter than the reality; an attic rediscovery of a present desired but never actually received; the way you can believe almost anything if you want to badly enough.

Then I was here. Having, inexplicably, always been coming here. And I was lucky enough to not be alone – my partner having accepted her own offer in the shadows of a bombed out Michigan factory town.

Maybe you missed your own invitation. Maybe you’ve been waiting all this time because it got lost. Or maybe you threw it away because you didn’t realize until now just how important it was. Consider this, then, your own. Whether second chance or first, we look forward to meeting you in 2020.

Augur,

The still somewhat bewildered inheritor of:

Hierophany & Hedge