by C.G. Banks
*
One should remember history is not the sole provenance of man. It lays a gossamer tissue of experience upon the land and bides in seeming disinterest. And because land and time are not human constructs, they are not subject to our whims and petty laws. Therefore patterns can be very subtle, if recognizable at all, and ripple through the ages like a goosefleshed skin across the land. So it had been for the swath of land known currently as Leszno’s Acres. So it has been for every other spot on, above, or under the earth for time out of mind. But the land, like us, its human counterpart, slowly acquires personality and quirks, intent, and finally will. Like the delineations of old scars on a fisherman’s hands or the thin burst veins in an alcoholic’s nose point to deeper, more savage, truths, so too does land acquire a history, a personality of its own. So call it Leszno’s Acres now, but before it had known other more malicious titles: the Hill of Blood, the Flame Trap, Carter’s Demise, Malice Stop and on and on.
The land becomes a magnet for what it has known, and like a child at Christmas, it learns, it eventually burns, to acquire its wishes. No matter how banal, how bizarre, how perverse.
It becomes both Lure and Lair.
Such was Leszno’s Acres.
