“Notjustalternate dimensions. More like, Foggy Hollow folklore in general. How people use stories to understand the world, and how those stories have shifted over time. It’s a topic we’ve been discussing, what with Night of the Howl next weekend.”
She quirks a sparse eyebrow.
“Anyway, we came across this peculiar entry in one of Ezra Vandenberg’s journals, and in it, he briefly mentions this other realm, one beyond our own. Right here, in Foggy Hollow.”
This is a lie.
Ezra Vandenberg never mentioned an alternate dimension in any of his journals. Not even the ones underneath St. Fortuna’s.
“And we were wondering,” I continue, “if this was an actual belief held by people back in the day.”
Maggie props H.G. Wells on her hip. “This has nothing to do with your podcast?”
“Not unless it turns out this alternate dimension is real.”
Twig starts coughing.
Maggie scowls.
She holds out her hand for the rest of the notecards. “Tala’nih.”
“Tala-what?” I ask.
“It’s an indigenous word. It means something like, the place that echoes itself.”
Twig and I exchange a look.
“The indigenous people believed this valley was thin, a boundary between our world and the next. Whether that constitutes as an alternate dimension, I couldn’t say.”
Tala’nih.
The place that echoes itself.
“How have we never heard this before?” I ask.
“You haven’t inquired,” Maggie replies. “And the concept wasn’t a sticky one. It pops up in a few settler accounts. People who believed this valley had something more to it, I suppose.”
“Are those accounts somewhere upstairs?”
“They’ll be in the WPA material, which you’ll find in the corner cabinet on the north wall. Look for the box labeled WPA Project—Randolph County.”
“What’s the WPA?” Twig asks.
“The Works Progress Administration. It was a government program created by President Roosevelt during the Great Depression. A way to provide jobs for unemployed workers. And a good thing, too. Writers and researchers preserved anenormous amount of cultural and historical material that would have otherwise been lost. If you’d like to know more aboutTala’nih, you’ll want the folder on Folklore and Oral Histories. It’s not much of a mention, but I imagine the whole collection will be quite useful for your folklore project.” She says this last bit with a knowing gleam in her eye.
Maggie knows full well Twig and I aren’t working on a folklore project.
We hurry upstairs, locate the box in question, and set it on the long, solitary research table in the center of the musty room. The box is filled with several acid-free folders, each one carefully labeled with a front-facing tab. I shuffle pastMaps & Geography,History & Genealogy,Festivals & Customs,Folk Medicine & Midwiferybefore reaching the one Maggie specified—Folklore & Oral Histories.
The folder is thick, filled with typed transcripts paper-clipped together and notes scrawled in the margins. Each one is a separate interview with a local resident. I take the first half. Twig takes the second. We sit down across from one another at the table and begin our search.
Pages rustle in the quiet, interspersed with the occasional jingle of the doorbell downstairs—customers coming and going. I don’t find anythingaboutTala’nih, but I do find a snippet about the Woman of the Woods, believed to be a witte weiven, and a story about the Hollow Walker.
“I can’t believe we’ve never read through this before,” I say, taking a picture of both entries.
Twig sits ramrod straight in his chair.
“I found a glossary of indigenous terms.” He lifts a single sheet of paper. “Tala’nih. The place that echoes itself. Interview with Mary Two Feathers, 82, of Foggy Hollow, June 12, 1937.”
