Wood to Glass

By Tantz Aerine

To escape an arranged marriage against which her whole existence rebels, Dawn decides to take her life in her own hands. Having no choice she defies superstition and primordial fears of soul devouring monsters dwelling in the eerie, threatening forest and willingly takes the path not taken.

In so doing she begins a journey in an ominous, threatening world of magic and power-struggle where coincidence is impossible. She soon realizes that much more than her own fate lies in her hands and her personal decisions may well shape the future of a changing, unstable world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantz Aerine
• Release date: May 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9789606616365

Tantz Aerine

Born in Montreal, Canada, of Greek background and Russian descent, Tantz Aerine, influenced by the Greek, English and North American cultures, draws connections and blurs her three fields of discipline, Literature, Psychology and Education, in an innovative and creative way. She currently lives and works in Athens, Greece.

Book preview

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WOOD TO GLASS 

Published in Greece

Smashwords edition

2005, 2013 © Copyright to Tantz Aerine and MindPower Publishing

ISBN: 879-960-6616-36-5

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. No part of this publication may be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

For information regarding permission write to: 

MindPower Publishing

55, Il. Apostolou st. 14121 Athens, Greece

http://www.mindpower.gr

http://www.tantzaerine.com

e-mail: [e-mail] and [e-mail]

mindpowergraysmall

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Dedications

In loving memory of my High School Professor Ioannis Paschalidis who taught us that adversity is yet another teacher, acknowledging ignorance is wisdom and awareness of it all is the Path that is almost never taken.

Thanks to:

God, for the inspiration and stamina He granted for me to write it

Dr. Mary Economou, for encouraging me to go ahead and take the plunge

and

The MindPower Team, for taking the plunge

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Prologue

Born in Montreal, Canada, and of Greek background, Tantz Aerine, influenced by both the Greek, English and North American cultures (instilled in her during her high school and College years at the American College of Greece) draws connections and blurs her two fields of discipline (English and Psychology) in an innovative and creative way.  While her story Fingers was written when she was eighteen, the story Wood to Glass is a more recent work.

In Fingers, through the main character Mary, Aerine expresses and exposes certain fears and anxieties associated with childhood experience.  Portrayed as a creative, sensitive, intuitive and intelligent child, Mary imagines and envisions fingers of a monster hiding under her bed, ready at any moment to pounce and devour her; the monster thus is a manifestation of her inner fear of rejection and deep desire for acceptance and love by both her parents and her school environment.  Her ultimate success at the examinations for entrance to the best schools is what vanquishes her fear of failure and thus the monster.  By the end of the story, Mary’s newfound confidence and security allows her to fulfill the desire for acceptance and love.

In the story Wood to Glass, Aerine intermingles and blurs genres such as fairy tale, psychological thriller, adventure and aetiological myth in a creative and interesting way, and her narrative pervades with archetypes and symbols.  In typical fairy tale fashion, the story begins with a female protagonist escaping from an oppressive marriage to a miller!  There is a touch of humour here, as Aerine’s mention of the miller contains echoes of the repulsive Chaucerian millers.

Like Little Red Riding Hood, Dawn, her name symbolizing her association with light and new beginnings, enters the dark, gloomy forest with fear and apprehension.  There she meets the dark figure of a man with a staff who saves her from the wolf.  Yet this is not the friendly Little Red Riding Hood woodsman but a figure that evokes ambivalent feelings in her– gratitude yet increased fear.  Her second dangerous encounter involves an attempted rape, and once again she is saved by this man Reil, his name denoting his ‘reality’ within this violent, nightmarish experience.  As in the Kore/Persephone and Hades myth, Reil’s offer of drink and food draws and enmeshes her into the world of magic, of the fantastical, and she learns that it was her own unleashed powers that vanquished the would-be rapists.

The third menacing man that Dawn confronts is, as in fairy tale fashion, the most dangerous, powerful and malevolent – in fact, he (Oni) would appear to be the epitome of evil, for he attempts to possess her in every way – body, mind and soul.  Once again, Dawn is saved from evil, this time through the sacrifice of Reil and by Oni’s sister and positive counterpart, Ariel, whose name evokes the spirit in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with all her ethereal qualities and good intentions.  While she is strict and rather secretive, she is yet nurturing, and is instrumental in teaching Dawn about magic used for good purpose, magic that heals.  Again we see glimpses of fairy tale elements as Dawn’s absent mother mentioned at the beginning of the story is replaced by this magical and supportive fairy godmother.

The dreamlike, or rather nightmarish quality of the narrative, with the pervading light/dark imagery reaches a climax when Dawn’s disobedience leads to Reil’s death. Ironically, however, it is the death of Reil that forces Dawn to reach maturity, and to develop a greater sense of empathy, compassion and selfless love.  It is only at this point in her development that Ariel feels that she is able to explain what Dawn, and we readers, have been waiting to hear – the connection amongst Oni, Ariel, Reil, and Dawn; the relationship between light/dark, good/evil.  With hints of Edgar Allan Poe’s concept of the double that we see in so many of his short stories, Dawn must defeat the evil sibling and vanquish the shadow of evil, and true to her name, restore light to the village.  While the dark ‘shadowy’ Oni had, originally with good intentions, attempted to create a utopia, the ultimate result was devastation and destruction.  As Ariel explains to Dawn, Anything enforced loses its benevolent quality and becomes oppression, with the potential to evolve to something truly evil .

In keeping with her Shakespearean name, associated as she is with the spirit and the upper spheres, Ariel’s death marks her metamorphosis into stars. Though for a moment we hold our breaths as Dawn now stands facing Oni alone, and we worry that the reassuring happy ending (which no matter what our age Bruno Bettelheim suggests we crave) may not occur, Dawn, motivated as she is by love, sacrifices her powers, thus destroying both her light/shadow selves and defeating the evil Oni from devouring her.  Ultimately, though order is restored to mortals and Dawn merges with the universe to a nirvana state, we are left with a sad sense of loss at this vanished magical world; yet simultaneously, Aerine provides us with the hopeful note that the magic left on earth is that of love.

Dr Mary Economou Bailey

Assistant Professor

The American College of Greece                                                                  Athens, 2005

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WOOD TO GLASS

1

She'd run away and she was not going back. She knew that she was being irrational, and in the least foolish. She couldn't believe herself that she had actually gone against her family's wishes and refused to marry that man. She cringed even in the thought of that miller. She would die first than let that man be her husband. It wasn't the cohabitation that would bother her, but rather the nights-- even when he'd just touched her hand when she was announced how she would become his wife, she had felt her whole skin crawl. No. She couldn't pass a lifetime of disgust, no matter what her stepfather said.

She jogged fast, clutching her few belongings in her little sack, and headed for the woods. She knew she would be hunted down; her marriage would be a very good business transaction, but they wouldn't look in the woods that easily even if they actually knew that that was where she would be going. The woods were considered cursed, inhabited by a monster that would suck the soul of people. It was the border of their world, of that little town.

She couldn't deny to herself that she felt a little apprehensive and afraid as she entered the forest. The trees were dark and tall, looming over her like a huge natural canopy, and didn't let the moon's light filter all the way down. There were all sorts of little sounds of the night that she had enjoyed listening from her open window but not now that she was among them, surrounded by them. Her excitement and fear as well as the rather recent tales she had been hearing for half her lifetime made her senses more acute to the environment. However she didn't take turning back as a choice. She could be stubborn and bull-headed when she chose to, and this was one of those moments. 'Just how terrible can a bunch of sounds and some fairy tales about a monster be?' she tried to ease her fear.

Further inside the forest she