All right! Finally I've managed to make time for another episode.
The title is promising. But... uh. We're getting another person talking now. Yeah, I'm not entirely comfortable with this. Bad enough there were all those background characters hanging around the archive, now we're hearing other people direct? And on an episode with a title like this, too!
I'm annoyed. This isn't what I was looking forward to. And Naomi Herne doesn't strike me as particularly polite, either. What, may I ask, is wrong with tape recorders? I quite liked recording things on tape when I was growing up.
...Ooh, interesting.
Looks like they started off trying to do the recording on something a bit more up to date than a tape recorder, and it didn't work.
I like that. I like that very much.
And it's fascinating that the head archivist is taking her statement himself! "I can have it transcribed later"? How very odd. Why not just have her write it down? Isn't that what they've been doing for decades? And even now: the statement-givers write things down, the assistants research and verify, the archivist makes an audio recording and files everything neatly. At least, I got the impression that that's how it's supposed to be done. So what is this? Surely nothing could possibly have been confirmed yet—the statement hasn't even been given!
It's untidy. I don't like it. Naomi Herne shouldn't be talking to Jonathan Sims, it doesn't make sense. Shouldn't she be talking to the receptionist, what's the name... Rosie? Isn't Rosie the one who takes the statements in usually?
I feel like we're missing a buffer, and it's both unsettling and extremely interesting.
So.
Naomi Herne is here to tell the Magnus Institute about something that happened after her husband's funeral. And aha! Finally!
It's about time we learned when this podcast is happening. That's been niggling at me for twelve whole episodes now. "The date is the thirteenth of January, 2016." Awesome. So the first statement was transferred to tape at the end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016. I wonder how many they do a day, and whether they work weekends. It'd be pleasantly tidy if they recorded one statement to tape a day, every day. I'd like that.
Naomi Herne says the thing that happened was weird and inexplicable given her current knowledge of the world she lives in, and that she probably imagined the whole thing. Somehow I suspect she doesn't believe that at all, but would like to make herself believe it if she can.
...And Mr. Sims interrupts.
You know, I really don't like having more than one person here. It's an innovation I’m not particularly enjoying.
In any case, Jonathan Sims tries to leave, Naomi Herne wants him to stay... I don't understand either person here. Is there really a point to giving someone privacy while they make a statement that's going to be listened to and copied down and researched and so on by a whole team of people? What's the reasoning behind that thought? And, on the other hand, why would you not want to be alone?
Maybe it's growing up in a house with thirteen other people (nine siblings, two parents, two grandparents), but it seems to me that being alone is a rare and wonderful thing. You know I didn't even have my own bedroom until my late teens?
If someone is willing to leave you alone, in my opinion, you should be delighted.
Jonathan agrees to stay while Naomi gives her statement. Hopefully this won't lead to more conversation. I suppose we'll see.
Apparently Naomi Herne, like me, works at being a bit of a blender. Average, unnoticeable, overlooked—like the paint on a wall, something nobody really looks at or thinks about. A good choice if you want to get things done without being constantly interrupted by people wanting to chat or hang out or party or know what you're doing in a restricted area or who knows what all else.
Unlike me, however, she says she "did get a bit lonely sometimes," which I can't say I ever have. While it might seem useful to have friends as a sort of social camouflage, they're such a demanding form of camouflage that in practice it isn't actually worth it.
She says a Pastor David seemed worried about her comfort with her own company. Well, at least he was the only one.
Honestly, who worries about a thing like that?
[sarcastically] Ooh, it's not natural for people to live in isolation, humans are creatures of community by nature. Next I'll be hearing how I'm not human and don't really count as a person (again). Perhaps the definition of "human" ought to be expanded, hmm? Include some of those sentient, human-shaped beings who aren't, by nature, what people like Pastor David insist all humans are.
Well. Pastor David, according to Naomi Herne, was worried she might "get lost," whatever that means. Naomi says she thinks she knows what he meant by it—but for some reason she doesn't tell us! Inconsiderate. Eh, perhaps she'll do it later.
Naomi graduated from Leeds in 2013 with the highest possible honors degree in Chemistry.
I like chemistry. Seems like the closest you can get to alchemy in real life.
Anyway, she got a job as a science technician in Woking, near London, which is where she was applying for a better job—lab assistant in a biochemistry department at University College London—when she met someone named Evan, who was also applying for that job. Apparently she clicked with him. Got along with him so well, in fact, that she was happy to see him waiting for her outside the building after their interviews.
Of course, it couldn't stay this good. No. They had to start dating, and then living together, and then they got married, because everyone knows that's the natural progression when you actually get along with someone. No other flavors of relationship are valid (maybe not even possible).
Annoyance aside, Naomi Herne doesn't usually do relationships of this type. She says her past boyfriends left when they realized she wasn't all that thrilled about having them around, which seems like the polite thing to do, really.
This Evan, though, is basically her soulmate.
Despite the fact that he has a battalion of friends, and this ends up pulling her into having "what could perhaps be called a social life."
Doesn't sound particularly pleasant, but she says she didn't hate it, which I suppose I can almost see; it is easier to be around people when you have a trusted human buffer. And after Evan dies from a congenital heart problem, she stops hanging out with his friends and goes back to comfortably familiar solitude, which makes sense to me.
She did attend the funeral, though. It seems Evans had a very rich family, with their own personal mausoleum out at their mansion, Moorland House.
It was a very quiet funeral, and not a particularly friendly one.
Naomi says everyone there was wearing the same expression. Even the corpse. She doesn't say what expression specifically, though—just that it's hard and possibly angry. Oh, and finally we get a last name for her husband: he's Evan Lucas.
Huh.
They send her away to do the burial. That doesn't seem usual.
So she drives off in the pouring rain in the middle of a storm, which doesn't seem safe, and naturally enough she crashes.
It's not a melodramatic crash, though. She just plows off the road into a field and then sits there with her engine smoking and definitely not running, and realizes it's been five hours since she arrived at the Lucas place... oh, and she has no cell service (or GPS functionality) out there.
This means she has to walk. In the storm.
She gets so wet it wrecks her phone, which she finds infuriating, so she throws the useless thing onto the ground, where it breaks further, then bounces off the road and buries itself completely in the mud. She walks and walks and walks, crying and soaked through and very cold, until finally she collapses, at which point she notices that the rain has stopped and now she's surrounded by fog.
...Fog that seems to be following her. And gives her the feeling that it's malicious. And wants something from her. Well, now. That's interesting.
Uh.
And then she makes a point of saying there's no presence to it. Yeah, that makes no sense at all. Malice and desire aren't properties of nothingness! There has to be something present in order for it to want something from you.
"It made me feel utterly forsaken," she says, and in my experience it's always people who do that.
In any case, she gets up and starts to run down the road, hoping to reach the end. Instead she loses the path. It takes her a little while to notice that she's running on dirt and grass instead of tarmac. Once she does, she tries to backtrack, but can't find the road at all. So for some reason she decides to kneel down and check out the dirt, which is mist-damp but not rain-wet.
Ahaha, she went sideways, didn't she? This is delightful.
Whatever new dimension she's found herself in, it sounds most agreeable to me. No stars, no moon, no artificial lights, a night so dark you shouldn't be able to see—but you can. A shifting, slate-grey fog, skeletal trees, grass, dirt, old, abandoned gravestones....
If there were a sign saying "Stay, Wander Awhile," it couldn't be more welcoming than this.
In the center of the graveyard is a small chapel. According to Naomi Herne's description, "The top of its steeple was lost in the gloom and the windows were dark. There was stained glass in the windows, but without any light from inside I couldn't make out the design. Wrapped around the handles of the entrance was a sturdy iron chain."
At this point, for some reason, she starts shouting and screaming for help. I was prepared to be annoyed by this, but (wonder of wonders!) it's a sound-muffling fog. Oh, I like this place so much.
Naomi Herne, on the other hand....
This obnoxious individual continues yelling even after it's clear no one can hear her but herself, just to hear the noise. And then she goes looking for something to break a church window with because, inexplicably, she's decided being inside the church will keep the fog away from her. "Anything to get out of the fog"? Pardon me, Ms. Herne, but you're breaking a window, correct? It's just going to follow you in!
She also says "I was sure that eventually someone would find me," which isn't at all the impression I'm receiving from this dimension a step or two sideways from our own. Surely a place like this would keep you safe from everyone forever?
Whatever the case, she goes for a piece of stone that's fallen from one of the grave markers.
As she bends over to pick it up, though, she notices that the grave is empty.
"The hole was neat, square and deep, as though ready for a burial. At the bottom was a coffin. It was open, and there was nothing inside. I backed away and almost fell into another open grave behind me. I started to look around the cemetery with increasing panic. Every grave was open, and they were all empty."
Ha. Well, it looks like someone missed the Rapture.
You know, if it weren't for the danger of being buried by sliding earth, I'd be tempted to climb into one of those empty coffins and take a bit of a nap.
—Oh. How prescient of me.
The fog starts pulling Naomi Herne, our statement giver, into that first grave. She says it began to weigh her down: "It coiled about me, its formless damp clung to me and began to drag me gently, slowly, towards the waiting pit."
Backing away, she slips on the damp ground and falls. Sliding towards the grave, she uses that heavy piece of stone as an anchor to keep herself out.
Hey, and she gets away! Well done, Naomi Herne.
Struggling to her feet, she suddenly notices that the chapel's doors are open now. The chain's just lying on the steps. Huh. Well, who or what did that? Hmm. Whatever the case, this looks like an invitation to me. But how inviting is the inside of this church? I practically grew up in churches, so they're as familiar to me as libraries (oh, all right: even more so). In my opinion, the least inviting church tends to be the one with the most worshipers in it.
Oh, but this church is very welcoming! It looks as though she's being invited to go deeper, further sideways, farther away from the world we know.
"Through that door, where the inside of the chapel should be, was a field. It was bathed in sickly moonlight, and the fog rolled close to the ground. It seemed to stretch for miles, and I knew that I could wander there for years, and never meet another."
Ahh, that's beautiful.
This is the kind of thing I take my midnight walks for. Hours alone in the mountains under the moon, while the wolves howl in the distance and the lights of the city fade....
Naomi Herne, however, doesn't seem drawn to it.
She turns away from the door—and nearly cries when she sees that beyond the graveyard's edge is that same field. You know, some people have all the luck and just don't appreciate it at all. Of course, I could be mistaken about this place. But I have the feeling a person wouldn't need to eat or sleep here; that physical needs would be optional. I could use that. I'm always acting as though I think they are, and then my body stops working properly. It's annoying.
Anyway, our statement-giver runs away from the field beyond the door and into the field beyond the cemetery.
It beats me why she's running.
Apparently this place doesn't see why she should run, either. "The fog seemed to be getting thicker, and moving through it was getting harder. It was like I was running against the wind, except the air was completely still. I could hardly breathe as I inhaled it."
Yes; that's because you're running. Slow down and everything should be perfectly fine.
Oh. How unexpected.
As Naomi Herne is running through this endless field in a world two steps to the side of our own, her dead husband's voice calls to her. "Turn left," he says. And she does.
Turning sharply to the left, she keeps on running. She runs out into the middle of a road in our world, and wham! gets hit by a car. "I remember a second of headlights, and then nothing until I woke up in the hospital."
...Wait. "I would suggest you leave the stone with us so we can study it"?
What stone?
Don't tell me she was running around carrying that heavy piece of headstone? Surely not. And then, what, whoever hit her decided to take the rock to the hospital as well? That doesn't make a great deal of sense. But I'm pretty sure that's the only stone that's been mentioned this entire statement which she could possibly have brought to the institute, so....
Mr. Sims suggests that Ms. Herne see a psychologist. Ms. Herne is offended. The tape recorder gets turned off.
See? There's a definite click when that happens. We'd know if Mr. Sims took a break to do research. ...Not that I've ever heard him recite any incantations either, though. Maybe it's his research assistants who can do the beholding spell.
They certainly seem uncannily good at getting their hands on information.
Whatever the case, Mr. Sims says research was done while the tape recorder was stopped. Evan Lucas died from heart failure 3-22-15 and his family handled the burial.
"All requests to the Lucas family for information or interviews have been very firmly rebuffed," which is impressive given how much data these archival assistants have been able to dig out of everybody else in the past twelve episodes. It's rare for people to refuse to talk to them, which I could put down to the use of some sort of magic—but won't, because I'm fairly certain I'm not magical and yet people are always telling me things about themselves even when I didn't ask.
Not that I'm not interested!
I'm always interested when a stranger comes up to me and strikes up a somewhat one-sided conversation which evolves into them telling me about their childhood, or fear of Alzheimer's so desperate they'd rather die than have their mind slip away from them, or why they decided to become whatever they are, or some such thing.
If I have to interact with people, well—I think listening to their deeply personal information is one of the best flavors of human interaction.
...Though I will admit that having people talk to me like this all the time has kind of confused my understanding of what things are supposed to be private.
In any case.
Naomi Herne got hit by a car at about one am March 31. The funeral was a week after the death, so that means Ms. Herne slipped sideways on the 29th, which means she was in that otherworld for a full day and change?
The person who hit her was named Michael Getty, and the place was "Wormshill in the Kent Downs," wherever that is. Her car was in a field five miles away.
She was concussed and dehydrated, but there's no mention of her having not eaten for a full day and then some, so either they're ignoring that or food really isn't necessary in fairyland. Though apparently liquids are, which is strange since she was surrounded by fog the whole time! Hmm. You don't think the moisture was coming from her own body, do you? Amplified, yes, enhanced somehow, but... the non-presence in the fog... it could have been her.
That would make a kind of sense.
You can't have things like malice or desire without something present to be malicious or desirous, yet she said "it wasn't as though there was another person there...." Yes, yes, that makes sense!
I hypothesize that, somehow, the part of Naomi Herne that likes being alone manifested semi-separately from the rest of her, sucking moisture from her body to surround her as a thick fog and guide her off at an other-dimensional angle into a world where she could be alone forever. The part of her that doesn't want to be alone was terrified by this, and that's why she ran.
That doesn't explain her dead husband's voice, though. What kind of solitary fairyland has the ghosts of other people in it?
Also, her husband had plenty of friends and was apparently just fine with people—I somehow doubt his heaven would look like that. So what the hey. I can't make sense of that at all.
Well. Back to Jonathan Sims.
Mr. Sims would like to dismiss the whole thing as a hallucination, but unfortunately for him, Naomi Herne was clutching a chunk of carved granite when Michael Getty hit her, and the unfortunate near-perpetrator of vehicular manslaughter apparently decided the woman and the rock were a set, so she was able to bring it to the Magnus Institute and show it to him.
It's got an engraved cross design, looks like it came off a headstone, and has one word on it that's probably from the marker: "Forgotten."
Jonathan Sims says it's going to artifact storage. You know, the Magnus Institute's artifact storage must be an interesting place full of some very weird things. I wouldn't half mind taking a look.
And the recording ends.
This is probably the last episode I'll be listening to for a while, since once I've got this piece of commentary saved in my Tumblr queue I'll need to box my laptop up and ship it across the country to myself. I've never moved my entire life quite this far before. It's proving to be a bit of an undertaking. Once I'm settled in, though, I want to come back to this.
The Magnus Archives is an excellent podcast. I very much want to hear more.
“You made your decision.” - Nurse to me right before I was tackled for the SECOND TIME, within about 15 mins or so, by two security guards and two nurses to force an injection of 5 and 2. (5mg of haldol and 2mg of ativan)
Just because I wouldn’t stop hyperventilating after they preformed a forced strip search.
He posted another photo today. His hair is getting so long and curly. It brings an old ache I feel for him but it's better to be apart I think. We never seemed to love each other the way we needed. I want him to be happy
