The Veilwood Tales

If you read my stories you probably came across at least one of short stories about Marie and/or Elisabetta— two sisters separated by the veil of a faerie realm.

The whole thing started with a single idea that came to me while working in the forest and just didn't want to leave me. It happened after I saw a weird insect flying by me. It looked like a dragonfly at first, but then I noticed it has large legs hanging down and it appeared to be carrying something. "Looks like a fairy taking something home" I said to myself, and later even told my boyfriend who just laughed. Fairies don't exist in his world.

But the whole thing just stuck with me. Which is weird, because I usually forget all my ideas. It's something that comes with my work.

I run a forestry business, mainly planting trees and brush cutting and if I'd stop every time to note down my ideas I'd never get any work done. Most of them are shitty ideas anyway. Also I don't carry my phone with me usually, and paper and pen is out of question. They would just get muddy and wet and end up being unusable by the end of the day.

So I entertained this idea for a whole week before I wrote my first notes down and decided to enroll into the challenge and never thought about it again.

Until later when another challenge randomly sparked another story in me, that was related to the first one. And it kept happening and now I just can't stop and every challenge prompt gives me more and more ideas to extend my little collection of stories — that I decided to collectively name as "The Veilwood Tales".

Maybe it's a stupid name but I kinda like it. It came to one night around 2.30am when I woke up to pee.

I say it came to me because that's how it feels. I don't really feel like I am actually making these stories up (or anything else I write, to be frank). It's hard to explain and probably sounds weird, but I feel like the ideas already exist outside of me and when I take on the responsibility to sit down and write them, they just flow through me.

Exactly like how my fellow Hungarian, Csíkszentmihályi Mihály or as you might know him Mihály Csíkszentmihályi described in his theory of "flow" —a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity.

I just sit down with the intention of writing a rough draft and often find myself sitting in front of my laptop for days, forgetting to eat, the day passing by like it was only 5 minutes and just hitting my keyboard like a madwoman.

Anyway, I wrote this post to collect all the stories of the cycle I wrote so far together in one place. I will keep it updates, so if you want to read the stories you can always come back to this one and choose the one you'd like.

The Veilwood Tales stories so far:

"The summer that never ended" tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of Elisabetta.

"Instructions for disappearing" is a cursed rhyme that evokes the fæ folk. Be careful! You might vanish after reading.

"The porch between us" tells the tale of Marie and what happened to her after Elisabetta disappeared.

"The borrowed face" is the story of Elisabetta waking up in the world of the fæ.

"The shape of almost all things" is a story of Elisabetta as she watches Marie through the veil as she returns every summer, hoping to get her back. Will she pull her to the other side, so they can finally reunite?

Journal '89: The Veilwood Manuscript is about Marcel, who starts to dream about Lizzy over 20 years after her disappearance. In his dreams, he finds himself in a time loop that seems to alter his waking reality. Can he do anything differently to save his cousin?

The Museum of a Lost Girls Life introduces the early life of Marie and the summers she spent as the house of Aunt Gabrielle, where she discovered a haunting family secret.

Thank you for reading these stories and the kind support and encouragement I received from so many of you to keep writing these stories. ❤️ It really means a lot to me!

Say tuned for updates! 😉