The Remarkable lives of Nox Volker

By Dalagar Slangendrager

Her whiskers would brush up into the starry starry night
Seeing and knowing invisible secrets
Things that only cats, and sea monsters would understand
Finding forbidden pathways across dark realities
The shy little girl, so chock full of secrets
The greatest mystery, being her own untapped potential

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dalagar Slangendrager
• Release date: Jun 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201146191

Book preview

Note

This is written in the Oral Tradition. That to me, means that it is meant to be read aloud.

A certain modicum of optimism of the performer is in the very wording.

As such it sports over a thousand words that grammar-checkers want me to toss.

Those along with commas galore, that are there to assist the reader in breathing.

Exhibit one

An excerpt from a wizards grimoire

It all started with this young girl, one who seemed to be sensitive to otherworldly things.

She had moved in with her uncle Sherwin, But because he spent so much time in the forest, we just called him Sherwood.

Something about her past, something about her mom losing her life out on the coast, something tragic about her.

But I just don't remember.

Think her name was Edna, or Ester, or Edsel.

Prob, not the car, probably Edna.

I would see her from time to time in our small town.

~

One day while I was in a rock show in some distant city, I picked up a ghosted quartz crystal. I immediately saw her inside the rock.

Now I am an elemental, not a people person exactly, I converse with things like the wind, the ocean, the earth, and of course flames.

The locals around here just call me Zirdy, because they shortened the wizard part.

I don't exactly care for the name, but they think it is really cute.

Yeah, people, they are hard to have a decent conversation with.

And it made me shy that I thought of her when I touched the crystal.

So I purchased that ghoster quartz for presentation to her, the little girl up the street, the one that the crystal is calling for.

Looking back, that might not have been such a good idea, but the little lady didn't really have a female mentor in magical things, that I could have gifted the stone to.

Thereby allowing me to not be directly involved.

~

But that wasn't the way things were.

So one day while in the public place I singled her out and asked her name. She looked at me as if I were something very ancient and strange, of course, she was exactly right.

I gifted her the crystal, and when she touched it, all of her doubts disappeared.

I have no idea of how she connects with the other side, but the crystal seemed to assuage her somewhat.

~

Things in town were always busy, what with the seasons and the seasonal adjustments required.

We sorta live life in that little town along the Wheel Of The Year.

The planting the weeding, the watering, the culling, and the harvest.

Over the ensuing months, I might have seen Edna once or twice.

She wasn't overtly friendly, and from time to time I would see her giving me a longer look than a mere stranger would expect.

That was ok by me, because I am quite shy with people, especially with impatient teenagers.

~

But then tragedy visited our little town and Edna as well.

At first, it was called an accident, but not in the ordinary sense.

Ol' Sherwood, got himself shot in the forehead.

His body was found nailed to a tree, with a single bolt through his forehead and into the tree.

Now a bolt is a name for an arrow that is used in a crossbow.

And we all knew that Sherwood had a crossbow in the gun rack in the back window of his pickup truck.

He would boast about his bolts, the Palladium-tipped ones.

He said that Palladium is also known as white gold, it is a precious metal and looks a lot like silver but doesn't tarnish.

He said that it is also very much harder than the soft silver bullet.

Now Sherwood loved to hunt, and he loved to look for the crypto hominids.

Sasquatch to the rest of us.

~

Also, it should be disclosed that we that live here in Appalachia, are very well connected with the woods.

Sherwood and Edna were harvesters of the Wild Ginseng that is so sought after by the health nuts.

So it was no surprise that Sherwood was in the woods, that his crossbow was there, the surprise was that the Bolt had entered his forehead and exited the back of his head at the same distance from the ground.

What is tall enough to launch the bolt with the crossbow to impale a 6-foot 2-inch man in the forehead coming directly straight in.

Many folks point out that Sassy, as we call o' Sasquatch is after all 8 feet tall.

But knowing both Sherwood and Sassy, it makes no sense as they were not enemies.

But then they found a whole apple at his feet there in the forest duft.

~

So strange.

The detective was trying to see what to call his death:

Obviously, it wasn't a suicide.

But the apple suggested a William Tell incident.

But who would be the archer?

No one could make any sense of this and it was put down to some freak accident.

Curiously one of Sherwood's Game cameras shows a picture of him running through the woods, carrying a black cat, it looks like he is being chased by something hairy and about 8 feet tall, but what that was, or what it was carrying wasn't clear.

~

The detective, ol' Harv, said to me the other day that in going through Sherwood's stuff looking for a clue there was the picture. He handed me the picture, and It showed a boy and a girl and a black cat. We figured that it was taken of Sherwood and His late sister Lilly many years ago.

But what was curious was the rune that was written on the back of the photo.

It said:

Nox is the gardener

She makes seeds familiar with her

Selecting them all by herself

Planting them, Loving them, and protecting them

She watches them grow to the proper maturity

Just when the time is right

She harvests

~

At the funeral there was Edna, but she was holding a black cat.

Don't remember seeing her with that cat before.

It took about a year for the stories about that death to settle down and things returned to normal.

Edna continued on in this little corner of Appalachia, probably due to her uncanny ability to find the Wild American Ginseng.

Several years after the William Tell incident, there was a bout of bad weather.

~

Heavy snow, followed by melting, had left some significant sheets of ice here and there. We just walked around them, cause they are strangers here and would just go away given a little more time.

Then came the heavy snow - about 6 inches of it.

It only stayed around for a few days, but everything was soaked and dripping.

The businesses downtown just shoveled the snow from the ground, leaving the Ice Sheet there as if it were part of the pavement.

~

So it was that one day walking out of the hardware store I saw Edna pull into a parking spot out in the lot.

She gets out of her car and reaches back in to pick up the black cat.

Walking toward the businesses, I surmise that she is heading for the feed store, to get something for her cat.

A strange curiosity overcame me, overriding my shy nature.

I walked over to the door of the feed store and held it open for the two of them.

Edna, seeing that I was giving her attention, was probably slightly embarrassed.

She hurried up her pace.

Just as she came up to the building, she must have been in too much of a haste, hit one of those patches of Ice, and she slipped.

Landing on her back, facing the sky, she sees the falling icicle coming down.

It was almost 4 feet long!

It impales her in her forehead, killing her instantly.

These old buildings, especially the feed store have very high roofs.

Meanwhile, the back cat seems very interested in her, standing close to her head.

That is when I notice that the tip of the cat's tail is silver.

~

I'm feeling pretty badly about my involvement in her demise, Maybe if I hadn't held the door making her nervous, this disaster could have been avoided.

~

When George the Coroner checked out the body, he found in Edna's purse several things that surprised us.

First was her ID, her name wasn't Edna, it was D'Edna.

When we later checked her birth certificate we saw that her mom actually named her D'Edna.

~

Next, we found a photograph of her as an infant in her mom's arms, and standing there next to them was a black cat with a silver-tipped tail and a faint silver splotch on its forehead.

Lastly, we found a couple of interesting photographs on her phone.

They were of charcoal drawings that she probably drew.

One was of a girl standing on the back of Sassy on all fours, she is holding a crossbow, pointing it, ready to fire.

The second one is of a man standing in front of a tree with an Apple and a Cat on top of his head.

The cat is arching its back to keep its belly away from the apple.

An Airplane arrives at the train depot

Several weeks later, something new came to town, it was a collection of wooden crates that came to the train station.

They were addressed to Billy John, a local handyman.

We all were curious what they meant.

So we asked ol' Billy John what they were.

He said that he had ordered a mail-order airplane.

It was called the VolksPlane, it used a Volkswagen Beetle engine., a bunch of stuff from the kit inside the creates, and more.

We asked Billy John how he heard of such a thing.

He said that his new Cat was watching him flipping through the pages on a mail-order catalog and stopped him with her paw at the page about the airplane.

~

We saw him, always carrying the cat coming into the hardware store and buying all kinds of unusual things.

I remember asking him why a kit would need so many other incidentals like hinges, screws, and cable clamps.

Billy john said he was going to make it better than the original design.

He was really wrapped up in his project, and so I asked him if planes were like boats, having a name given them.

He said, Hmm haven't heard of such a thing, well maybe, those warplanes all had pictures of women on them and names.

Perhaps I will name the plane after my new Cat, she would be pleased.

~

That whole process took about a year before he embarked on his maiden voyage.

All was well, and things moved on as the wheel of time rotated in our little community.

~

Then on a hot summer day, I was driving along the road, and a black cat ran out in front of me and stopped right in the middle of the road.

I braked the car and was about to honk the horn when right in front of me, swoosh came down from the sky, Billy John, airplane and all.

Crash, and it was over for Billy John.

The cat jumped up into the broken cockpit and was there by the mortally wounded pilot with something sticking out of his forehead.

~

Well, that cat had just saved my life.

Looking the wreckage over I saw the word NOX written across both wings.

Nox, hmm is that a name or an abbreviation?

A few days later, upon coming home I saw that my porch swing was swinging, and looking at the trees, no movement of the branches precluded that motion from being caused by wind.

Waking up the steps, I find the cat there on my porch swing.

Now I haven't any real need for a cat, I prefer crystals and things like that.

But I felt certain gratitude for the cat because I would be dead had she not interfered with my journey.

~

Well, she stuck around, and coming onto dinner time, I realized I wasn't sure what she would like to eat.

Within a couple of days, I took her into the feed store to find something for her to eat.

Carrying her along the aisle, we passed a lot of options, she seemingly paying no attention whatsoever.

But near the end when we came to a certain brand, she rustled up her paw and pointed.

I said to her Nox, you have a very strong preference as to what you eat.

She just purred in her knowing way.

Checking around I found that Nox means Companionship by Night in Latin... Now that would be a very old name!

Walking down the street one day we came upon Madame Trelawney, our town mystic.

She touched Nox's head and said This girl has 17 lives left in her, but she could get more.

~

Well, it has been many months, and she is definitely a part of my life now. It feels like she adopted me.

Who would have guessed?

And who would have guessed that I am becoming very interested in scuba diving?

Hmm... Where did that brochure come from anyway?

I have booked a vacation to a scuba diving school, where they teach diving and harpooning.

Leaving tomorrow.

~End of journal~

Harv & George, working the investigation of the disappearance of the wizard.

Zirdy uppen dissapered bout mebbee seven months ago all sudden like, Aint used a scrap o his firewood all winner – TimberJack

Exhibit Two

The Reunion

It was after a day of classroom training that the Scuba Diving went to the Harbor to practice their dive.

That morning when Zirdy went out of the grass hut to go to class, Nox was restless.

She wanted to be sure to be there underwater when the harpoon incident happened so that she could capture Zirdy's life force.

This will require some reconnaissance, thought Nox.

So after Zirdy had left, Nox did her shapeshifting magic.

About 5 minutes after Zirdy left, the door of the grass hut opens to reveal a tall tan woman with sunshine-colored hair standing there.

She walks like royalty to the beach.

As she passes the people there, they immediately admire her greatly. (Think of the song Girl from Ipanema).

Everyone tries to capture her eye or a smile, but she is not giving any of her charms out.

She is the Psychic Vampire, seeing everything, soaking in the praise and life force energies but never releasing any of it to her onlookers.

Just about everyone is gawking at her, their love trapped somewhere Between Mania and Eros. That Prana force, she captures and it improves her looks greatly.

Everyone says Ahh except Zirdy, he is so shy, that he immediately averts his eyes, rather than encounter those feelings that others so much enjoy.

But that is because he isn't a people person he is an elemental. He might gawk at a crystal, or a waterfall, but not a Psychic Vampire, he is somehow immune.

Or it could be said that he is just too shy to look at her.

Nox walks and sums up the entire situation.

She is annoyed by the Scuba Diving Instructor, a vivacious bubbly buxom blonde in a tinsy bikini.

She thinks to herself, Why does that girl bug me?

After several days of reconnaissance and listening to what is said by Zirdy,  she garners the information she needs.

The diving will include the harpoon on the 5th day in the water.

That is when she will be present underwater for the harvest.

So on that fateful day, Nox does her Girl from Ipanema walk again as the class goes aboard the boat to embark on the dive with harpoons.

So Nox does her walk to the beach, and when there she walks out into the water until she is waist-deep, and then she dives in.

The funny thing about mesmerization, not a single person watching her noticed that she never resurfaced.

Nox had become a Selkie.

Long black shining hair trailing behind her as she swam.

So much hair that it was a suitable disguise for her to the underwater folks.

Swimming underwater she stayed near the boat, just out of sight until it reached the place of the dive.

Someone aboard thought they saw a mermaid, but then the idea faded in their mind in a daze.

Watching the divers underwater, she is again annoyed with the Dive Instructor.

This really bothers her.

When the time comes that the wielder of the harpoon is pointing it at Zirdy, and their finger starts to twitch, Nox realizes what is wrong.

This Zirdy guy is so innocent, he is so kind, and he is a wizard after all.

Now she had made him into a familiar so that she could harvest him.

But now her heartstrings are playing a tune that is quite new to her.

It was almost an instinct, when the harpoon was launched, her hand came up almost automatically, and there in the distance, the harpoon veered mid-flight and impaled the Dive Instructor in the forehead.

Taking the life force energy from that person wasn't what I expected to do, and the taste was somewhat yucky.Thought the Selkie.

Thus Nox got another life in her coffers.

But more importantly, she had broken the spell she had with Zirdy her Familiar.

And that meant that he had become equal to her.

Boy was that going to mess up her life.

She could not just abandon him, she must stick with him almost as if she was his familiar.

Karma really sucks.

But even more importantly she was having heartstrings with him.

She smiled to herself, saying Hmm he doesn't look at other women, maybe he really is a treasure.

Noxie arrives

One morning as he woke up Zirdy saw Nox looking out the window.

But she was looking inland.

Then he saw that she was watching a large white butterfly flitting around.

The grace of the butterfly is that she adjusts to the wispy air currents and comes in for a smooth landing regardless.

She makes the random air motion into a lovely dance.

~

Watching the two of them, cat and butterfly created a picture in his mind.

They, the cat and butterfly somehow got him interested to venture out inland.

So after breakfast, they headed away from the ocean and did a little exploring.

They came upon a small airport and went inside the terminal.

Sitting down to watch the landing strip they saw a biplane coming in.

But the air that morning was a little bit wafty.

That biplane was rising and falling and tipping much like the butterfly earlier.

Coming down to touch the ground with her landing gear.

The instant the wheels had purchase on the tarmac, Nox disappears from Zirdy's lap.

Watching the Biplane taxi in and park, to be chained to the ground, Zirdy sees an aviatrix climbing down from the cockpit.

She walks like a cat, taking off her leather helmet, and removing her Aviation goggles with the chain between the large lenses. She walks across the tarmac, to the building, opening the door, she comes into the room.

Walking up to Zirdy, she sits down next to him, and asks Hey Zirdy, what's for lunch.

He sees that she is that woman, so rare, that is ageless, hair a metallic silver color, and a slight blemish on her forehead.

She is neither a flirt nor a snob, just someone he has known for a very long time.

He says, well Noxie there is that steakhouse with the extra rare cooked slab of beef

Noxie just purrs, deep and throaty.

The First Evening

For the first time in her life, Noxie is shy.

She has always been so self-sufficient, growing and harvesting the humans she used as her familiars.

They all were very happy to be part of her plans.

Something like when the gardener talks with her plants, they just thrive better that way.

And having the benevolent gardener, the plants never think of their demise.

Now she was in possession of something quite foreign to her, these heartstrings for the wizard guy.

She needs to have his willing cooperation, not mesmerized cooperation. And he being a gentle sort of person, might be wanting to get away from her as he would probably consider her a horrific monster.

She has never had to consider the ideas of others.

She decides to stay in the Noxie human form for a while.

Only going into the feline form when and if the guy gets uncomfortable.

After all, he is very shy.

But she has put a spell on him that makes him believe that he has known her for many many years.

But using spells to subdue him, she knows that will backfire.

Later that evening back in the grass hut they are eating takeout food.

Her guy is talking with her... Wait, she thinks I just called him MY guy... But it meant something different than yesterday when he was My Human

Possessive has changed from ownership to a wanting to give sort of thing... My how my heart has changed.

And having him talk to me, not at me, as a woman and not a cat.

He is starting to get shy, now that is a good thing, but also a bad thing.

So she asks him, Umm Zirdy, we have an awkward sleeping arrangement just now, so would it be alright if I spent the night as a feline and the days as Noxie the woman. At least until we both feel that other things would be nice?

Seeing the relief on the face of her man, she has a warmth in her heart as she is bending to his needs for the first time.

She thinks to herself You know 'ol girl this love thing, and its submission does fit like a glove, who would have guessed?

The next morning

The next day, over lunch, she chose the menu, and they talk about his existing itinerary.

He says that the Scuba Diving class was canceled due to the tragic accident and that their cost of admission has been refunded.

And that the grass hut they are in is theirs for just one more day.

And then the return ticket to the USA and the appellation mountains is the next day, and she would need to ride in the cat carrier because the ticket was only for one adult.

She says that she would love to stay here in Cancun for at least a few more weeks.

He says that he would run out of money in about one week.

So Noxie, takes in a deep breath sighs, and says: What if I could get you some gold?

Zirdy gets a puzzled look on his face and asks How.

Noxie: Well a ship with some gold sunk out in shallow water about 35 miles from here.

Zirdy: How do you know this, you're a cat?

Noxie: Actually I am more than a cat.

Zirdy: So how do you know about sunken treasure?

Noxie: Welllll I sorta sunk the ship.

Zirdy: What? You SUNK A SHIP! Did people die?

Noxie: Well yes, but it WAS a pirate ship. So killing them actually saved lives.

Zirdy: How did you sink a ship?

Noxie: Well I was a Kraken, and I gave the ship a big hug.

Zirdy: I know I am a wizard, and so see things in a deeper way than ordinary folks, But YOU WERE A KRAKEN?

Noxie: Well you may have noticed that I am a shapeshifter.

Zirdy: But a huge monstrous KRAKEN.

Noxie: Yes.

long pause

Noxie: would you like the gold?

Zirdy: *Putting his hands up above his head* Yes, but.

Noxie: Now that you can Scuba Dive, we can go gather up the gold. I moved it from the wreckage to a place nearby back in 1837, it should still be there. I'm sure any treasure hunters would not have looked where I put it.

We could just get a boat and scuba gear, I could guide you as a Selkie, and help with the recovery as a Kraken.

It would take both of us to get the treasure.

Zirdy: So where did you hide the treasure?

Noxie: In a small cave about 7000 leagues away from the wreckage.

Zirdy: Leagues?

Noxie: Kraken speak... It's not far.

Zirdy: Leagues, Kraken?

Noxie: It is about Afternoon Nap time for little Nox, may I be dismissed for a little while?

Zirdy: Shapeshifting, oh wow, oh really wow.

*Noxie becomes Nox, jumps down from her chair, and leaves the room.*

Hours later Noxie comes back into the room.

Planning the Recovery

Noxie: Hey, are you ok?

Zirdy: So what are you, a cat, a woman, a selkie, a Kraken. which one is the real you?

Noxie: I don't think you will like the answer.

Zirdy: Probably not, so let me guess, are you a cat?

Noxie: I am 100% cat when I am a cat.

Zirdy: Well were you born as a Kraken?

Noxie: Yeah I was, the very minute that I chose to become one.

Zirdy: Is this a riddle?

Noxie: I become 100% everything I shapeshift into, but I was born with a mind of a curious child, a curious human child.

It is just that I seemingly can think beyond the normal limits that most people have. You see Zirdy, you are a wizard, and when it comes to elemental things, you easily talk with them.

Like that Crystal, You saw there with D'Edna's image inside.

Zirdy: How do you know about that?

Noxie: D'Edna, needed a companion because she had abilities beyond the normal, just like you.

Giving her that crystal, provided someone for her to talk to.

You really helped her.

Zirdy: You are scaring me.

Noxie: I know it will be very hard for you to understand, but things just work out in ways that destiny wants them to.

Zirdy: Did you put the image of D'Edna into that crystal?

Noxie: Actually no, but I did urge you to pick up that particular Ghosted Quartz crystal.

Zirdy: So you could see the Ghost of the girl inside?

Noxie: No, but I could see that crystal in her hand.

You see Zirdy we are different in what we see, but the same in THAT we can see.

~

Long silence

Zirdy: So what form do you prefer?

Noxie: Well until yesterday, I preferred the Cat form, mostly because I didn't have to explain myself.

Zirdy: What changed yesterday?

Noxie: Well that Harpoon was headed for your forehead, but I in a strange flare of emotion re-directed it.

I changed destiny, and that rebounded