But not the kind you might think of as spellcasters or monsters, nor even those who dabble in the occult. I am talking about them as liminal figures. Those who make their home at the threshold.
In Jackson, Faye Thorne is the prime example of that. Or should I say, Fiona Voss. So instead of ending with a Mirror Shard, I am going to talk about her throughout this post.
Neither One Thing Nor the Other
You will hear the term liminal bandied about these days to put a name to an empty mall or a hotel corridor, some place that feels oddly in between. The older definition is more expansive. A liminal space is a boundary, a doorway. It is where a thing has ceased to be what it was but has not yet transitioned to what it will be. Dawn and dusk are liminal. So is the shoreline, a crossroads, adolescence, and the Equinox. Witches have always been found there.
They occupy the space at the edge of the village or the forest. Between the living and the dead. Between healer and hexer. And in the case of the Thornes of Jackson, they are exactly what you would expect.
The Witches Outside of Town
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| Faye Thorne |
Of course, "Thorne" is a ruse. The authies are, in reality, the Blackthorne Hags.
And the Blackthorne Hags have been at work on Faye. Not in the way one might imagine; they did not haul her into a circle to make a monster of her overnight. They have done something far worse by selling off her soul in small increments. A little of her soul here and there, through small compromises and bargains. The kind of losses that do not seem to matter until you look back and see what has been taken. Faye herself barely noticed until she did, but then so much of her was already gone.
It has left its mark. Her hair was originally black; now it is stark white. To the Blackthornes, she is the Thorn Child, the dangerous element among the pretty things. Prepared to become one of them. That is the intention anyway.
The Thorn Child
I really like the image of it. The sharp thing concealed under the beauty of a flower. But there is more to it. A thorn is part of the plant. It belongs.
Faye is being made to understand that the Blackthornes are her family, that their nature and magic are her own. That to join them is not so much a choice as the next logical step. It is how she will grow up. She is in a liminal space of her own, or more to the point, theirs. She is still a girl, still human. But something is being eroded, and something else is being put in its stead. She is not a hag yet, but she is no longer beyond their reach. There is a particular danger in a threshold when another is the one forcing you into it or over it.
Stephanie and Larina
Here is where you have to consider Stephanie and Larina.
They are not going to "fix" Faye by telling her who she ought to be. One could argue that would be no different from the Blackthornes' methods. No, they help her out of it. They show her there is an option she had not considered and, in doing so, allow her to take back what the Aunties have been chipping away at.
Choice.
I find that of more value than any spell in their repertoire. The true measure of victory has nothing to do with vanquishing the Blackthorne hags; it is Faye making the decision that she is not theirs. In time she will do something else entirely: she will take back her original name.
But there is a reason that in High School Faye is always in the middle of Larina and Stephanie. They protect her until she can choose.
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| Stephanie, Faye, and Larina |
Fiona Voss
When Faye Thorne later becomes (or reclaims) Fiona Voss, do not mistake it for a disguise or an alias provided by someone else. It is reclamation. "Thorne" was put on her by the women set on turning her into something else, as was the Blackthorne destiny they had in mind for her. Fiona Voss is hers.
Of course, it does not undo what has been done. Her hair will not go from white to black, and the things the Blackthornes have taken are not going to regrow simply because she has made her escape. There are marks left by the threshold, and that is as it should be. We are fond of our transformation tales where one crosses over and is made new, but actual change is a messier business. You may escape, but you will not be exactly the same as before. Those bits of her soul are still gone. Fiona has Faye with her and the Thorn Child too, but she will not let the Blackthornes put a meaning on either.
But Faye, and then later Fiona, discovers that "gone" doesn't always mean "gone forever."
When she joins the coven with her childhood friend Stephanie and new girl Larina, she sees something. Three long black hairs where there had been only one before.
Maybe that is the real gift from Stephanie and Larina to Faye/Fiona. Not just choice, but the room to recognize that she has a choice.
I don't need to speculate what would have happened to Faye if she had never met Larina or reconnected with Stephanie. I have my Carbon Vale setting to explore that if I wish. But I also have Yog where Faye is the Thorne Witch. She is what happens to Faye if her aunties got what they wanted. She dies the same night as the Ash Witch. In fact, she dies first. I know from these two examples that life for a soulless Faye is not a kind one to her. And the worst part? She is too far gone to even know that it could have been better.
Witches and Boundaries
Folklore puts witches at the boundaries for good reason. The rules are less certain there. The forest is not the village, the night is not the day. The crossroads are both the roads, and neither. Yet they touch. That is the witch’s domain.
There is a difference, however, between standing at the boundary and being consumed by it. The Blackthornes know how to exploit a line, to turn one thing into another. Faye has a steeper lesson to learn: how to remain at the threshold and not let anyone else determine what she is to become.
High School Is a Liminal Place
Faye is well suited to this for another reason: high school is a liminal environment. At that age, one is neither child nor adult, just in the process of becoming. And everyone is being told what they are by the whole apparatus of parents, coaches, cliques, boyfriends/girlfriends, churches, and social systems.
You are the jock, the nerd, the horse girl, the good girl, or the bad one. The freak. The witch. The monster. High school abounds with people eager to put a label on you. What Faye faces is the supernatural extreme of that. Her Aunties are not content to tell her what she is; they make it so, unless she puts a stop to them.
I have discussed this before: how the high school years are a perfect metaphor for dealing with the supernatural. OR is that the supernatural is the perfect metaphor for high school years and adolescence?
The Witch in the Doorway
I am reminded of a certain picture of the witch (but could not find it for the life of me; I might be misremembering). She is in a doorway, with one world behind her and another ahead, belonging to neither and therefore able to see both. It is a position of power, if not also of some fear.
The Blackthorne hags have put themselves apart from ordinary life, living beyond the last streetlight like the dangerous sort of woman from old stories that children are steered clear of. Near the "far unlit unknown," as the great bards have told us.
Fiona is of a different order. She will cross the line and return. That is the distinction between the hag and the witch: the hag wants to have you swallowed by the threshold, while the witch knows the way home.
The Equinox
Which is why I think of the Autumn Equinox. For a time light and dark are in balance as summer gives way to autumn and the world is in a state of flux. Then the balance is broken. Not a tragedy in itself. Change is not loss, and getting older does not mean you have to give in to whoever says they know what you should be.
Faye Thorne was at that boundary, and the Blackthornes had a word for what lay on the other side: the Thorn Child. But with Larina and Stephanie to point the way, she found she could pick a different course. And a different name. Fiona Voss.
Witchcraft is a threshold, as is adolescence. The peril is not in standing between worlds but in allowing another to choose your side for you. The choice, though, must be made. Unlike that witch of my memory, or my imagining (I have mentioned how funny memory is), you can't stand in a doorway forever. To quote the great bards again, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
The equinox comes. But so does winter right after that. "Changes are not permanent. But change is."
And standing there is the witch.
