Reflections on Esoteric Ways to Travel

So, the big piece of news for this week: that odd business where I avoided being in a nasty car wreck because I was suddenly relocated to the living room of our apartment? Well, that was me doing that. I know, because I've managed to reproduce the effect. Twice. (The second time, I managed to take my clothes with me, which was helpful.)

It's... well, it seems to be less teleportation than a sort of translation. I push my way into another space - don't ask me how, I don't think I could explain it in terms that make any sort of sense, and this already sounds more than enough like delusional ravings, thankyouverymuch. Anyway, I do my traveling there, and then push my way back into our world.

And yes, if you're wondering: it's the world from my dreams, with its drifting mists and its peculiar, hexagonal landscape.

The process isn't perfect. It isn't even close. For one thing, I don't always end up where I want to be. Part of that is a matter of correspondences, I think: not every place in our world has an equivalent in that other place, or maybe they do and I just can't find them. But part of it is also that while I'm there, I'm a part of that place - a drifting, silver mist - and my thinking doesn't work the same way it does when I'm flesh and blood, here. It's... not so much like my mist-self is some separate entity with ideas of its own. It's more like when I'm there, I think like a mist... and mist-thinking is different. I'm not entirely sure how different, or in what ways, though.

It's also a lot of work. Some of the shaking and exhaustion that I'd attributed to shock (after being run off the road) seems to be a consequence of traveling this way. There may be other side-effects, too, that I just haven't seen yet. So I need to be very cautious about how I use this.

Which is almost a shame, because it's actually kind of fun.

I've been trying to keep an eye on the three snake cultists who ran me off the road, but it's been difficult. I've know the one ritual that can be used to spy on people, but if they happened to notice the spy it wouldn't be very difficult to trace it back to me. That was why I went to Mbata about them in the first place. I'll have to see if he knows anything else I can use; otherwise it's going to be more research in the archives. Or I could do it the mundane way - go and watch them myself - if I were fond of plans that seem designed to backfire.

And other than that, things are going pretty well. I mean, the weather's still all over the place, and work remains insanely demanding, but Claire and I are still together and still having fun, and nobody's tried to kill me in a couple of weeks - or her at all, which is even better. All in all, life is good.

Reflections of a Deranged Cultist is a work of fiction. Please don't put me on any F.B.I. Watch Lists. The Whisperers wouldn't like that.