A young Juniper leans into her magical heritage.

Fairytaluary, aka my self-imposed monthly challenge to write and/or drawn something fairy tale related for each day of February.

These are the fruits of my labors with my personal favorites to be posted soon after.

Anansi

The Little Mermaid

Sleeping Beauty

Godfather Death

Vasalisa the Beautiful

Biancabella and the Snake

The Juniper Tree

The Billy Goats Gruff

Gary K. Wolfe Reviews

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

November 23, 2020

Gary K. Wolfe

Despite its vampires, assassins, and a viciously conspiratorial patriarchy, the main sensibility I took away from Alix E. Harrow’s spectacular debut, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, was one of celebration – a celebration of portal fantasies, of secret histories, of favorite books and tales, most of all of the protagonists’ capac­ity to find and claim their own stories. Much the same might be said of her new novel The Once and Future Witches. To be sure, the plot, the late 19th-century setting, and the characters are entirely different, but her sometimes playful fascination with history, her not entirely original conviction that outsider groups can gain power from unity, and her celebration of women’s magic will seem familiar. For all this, the novel seems entirely new, including Harrow’s manner of telling the tale, as inventive in its own way as was Ten Thousand Doors. Sometimes she uses folksong-like repetition or anaphora to introduce characters in an intentionally formulaic way; she interpolates cleverly gender-reimagined versions of classic fairy tales and nursery rhymes; she sets the whole thing in a kind of gender-flipped alternate history (the classic fairy tale collectors were the Sisters Grimm, Charlotte Perrault, and Andrea Lang; Homer was translated by Alex­andra Pope; a popular detective writer is Miss Doyle). An African-American character tells a story that converts Anansi to Aunt Nancy. Even historical events are subtly shifted, as when the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist fire becomes the “Square Shirtwaist fire,” Sometimes the narra­tion takes on such an anthem-like voiceover tone that you can almost hear the music swelling:

The rest of the Sisters of Avalon are just maids or mill-workers, dancers or fortune-tellers, mothers or daughters. Everyday sorts of women with everyday sorts of problems, not worth mentioning in any story worth telling.

But tonight, beneath the Rose Moon of June, they are witches. They are crones and maidens, villains and temptresses, and all the stories belong to them.

Tone is crucial in any stories about stories, and pretty soon we’re enjoying this sort of thing as much as Harrow seems to enjoy writing it.

In Harrow’s version of history, the Salem witch trials involved real witches, eventually leading to the destruction of the town – hence the setting of New Salem (which probably has little to do with real villages with that name). The central characters are the three Eastwood sisters who have, separately, escaped an abusive father and who meet up again years later in New Salem, just as the women’s suffrage movement is taking hold in 1893. Harrow initially introduces them with a classic fairy-tale formula, focus­ing on their appearance: James Juniper is “the youngest, with hair as ragged and black as crow feathers”; Agnes is “the middle sister, with hair as shining and black as a hawk’s eye”; Beatrice is “the oldest sister, with hair like owl feathers: soft and dark, and streaked with early gray.” But, like a good teller of oral tradition, Harrow introduces them again from time to time, varying the formula to reflect the women’s growing self-determination and agency. Later in the novel, in a flurry of alliteration, we’re told that James is “the wild sister, fearless as a fox and curious as a crow”; Agnes is “the strong sister, steady as a stone and twice as hard”; Beatrice is “the wise sister, quiet and clever as an owl in the rafters.” How the sisters transform from archetypes into characters makes up a good part of what the first half of the novel is about.

As the story opens, middle sister Agnes is working in a textile-mill sweatshop, the older sister Beatrice is a college librarian, and James Juniper has just arrived in New Salem, penni­less and homeless and wanted for the murder of her nightmare of a father. She is furious with her older sisters for having abandoned her to his abuse years earlier, and she has no intention of rejoining them until they accidentally meet when the “splitting open of the world” briefly reveals a massive black tower in the town square. The tower eventually becomes the focus of an increasingly apocalyptic confrontation. On one side are the sisters, who form a loose organiza­tion of witchy immigrants and factory workers called the Sisters of Avalon (including a delight­ful Russian woman who offers a revisionist Baba Yaga tale), and who find allies in the Daughters of Tituba, led by the African-American journal­ist Cleopatra Polaris Quinn, editor of the New Salem Defender. But the local suffragist group, the New Salem Women’s Association, is leery of having their political goals derailed by associa­tion with witches. They aren’t the real problem, though; that would be an ambitious, hate-mongering local politician named Gideon Hill, who has some ancient supernatural resources of his own, as well as a secret identity we learn of late in the novel. (Witchery, it seems, was never confined to women – they just got blamed for it.) As the stakes grow more dire, the novel takes on a more densely textured, almost epic dimension, raising the question of what sacrifices the sisters may need to make in order for their story – and the world – to survive. Even though the more mundane question of women’s suffrage may be a bit overshadowed by time we reach the spectacular conclusion, The Once and Future Witches, with its adroit balance of narrative playfulness and imminent tragedy, is as fully original and impressive as its predecessor, and is just a hoot to read.

I am emotional about Juniper and Iris becoming elders.

Back in the Anansi household where Logan is about to become a teenager.

Celeste and Emory tie the knot on the same cliffs where Celeste's moms got married sim years ago.

Logan wasn't born with a magic trait, but she's always had the magic inside her.

Logan hates prom, loves acting, and meets a cute boy.

Emory and Celeste get engaged, and their families throw them an adorable engagement party which happens to fall during power conservation day.

Celeste has an adorable childhood and Juniper and Iris bring home baby Logan.

Juniper proposes to Iris in the gardens at the magic realm, and they have a small wedding with their families and friends at the bluffs. The after-party wraps up back at Genesis' house.

Semester Two

I sent five sims to college at the same time thinking it would be a cluster. Here's how it's going.

Honestly a lot of the time is just the sims hanging out and studying.

Juniper and Iris flirted a little last episode, but this semester, on Halloween, they follow up on that and become a couple. I'm super here for it.

Iris and Genesis attend the humor and hijinks festival because Genesis isn't dating anyone, and where else are you going to look for a person besides outside your apartment. They win, but not a lot of luck on the dating front.

Genesis becomes friends with this guy. I don't remember his name but he was definitely previously dating Arowana before she met her husband. They don't start dating though, I guess because Arowana never officially broke up with this dude and he still thinks he's dating her? Sorry, bud, you missed the boat.

Duane overextends himself and collapses after a soccer game.

The kids host thanksgiving in their apartment and everyone's families come over.

Everyone also passed this semester and I am equal parts shocked and annoyed by it.

Apparently if you send too many people on a hike they glitch out and make the world's most boring conga line.

Semester Four

I sent five sims to college at the same time thinking it would be a cluster. But instead it was boring. Here's how it's going.

Again, there's a lot of studying.

Genesis and Aarav (I remembered his name!) finally make out. I'm still hunting for a steady boyfriend for her.

And then everyone graduates!

Here are final grades to prove it.

I thought this experiment would be a complete cluster, but it was actually kind of boring unfortunately.

Semester Three

I sent five sims to college at the same time thinking it would be a cluster. Here's how it's going.

Not much of note happened this semester, because I was pretty focused on trying to get Genesis a significant other, after she started hitting on Father Winter after Christmas dinner. Like I guess he could be her sugar daddy? But also, gross. Also I'm pretty sure he slept with her mom at one point (but who hasn't?).

She met this dude at a festival. I don't remember his name. He seems fine I guess. He's a major hippie and he's nice to her.

Chalet did become the captain of the Gaming team though!

Here's everyone except Duane celebrating New Years at the end of the week. I think he was asleep.

This semester was boring, and I can't believe no one has failed yet. This experiment is turning into kind of a waste.

I thought it would be fun to send five of my newly minted young adult sims to College at the same time. I moved them all into one apartment in San Myshuno. I enrolled them all in university. This can only end badly.

Studying: Biology at Foxbury

Working: Lifeguard - she didn't make the soccer team.

Relationship/ Orientation: none-once hit on Duane but it didn't really go anywhere / ??

Secret Fact: she's been trying to get out of her older half-sister's shadow her whole life. With her mother's unconventional lifestyle behind her, she's finally ready to come into her own.

Studying: Communications at Brichester

Working: at college on an e-sports scholarship, so does not have time for a side job.

Relationship / Orientation: Dating Duane / straight

Secret Fact: turned her Father's soap opera life into a book as a way of coping with his death just a few days ago.

Studying: Communications at Brichester

Working: Retail

Relationship / Orientation: none / ?? Had a flirty moment once with her girl best friend.

Secret Fact: She's never met any of her new roommates, although Genesis is her cousin, and arrived in San Myshuno without a penny to her name. Also she's a witch.

Studying: Drama at Foxbury

Working: Babysitting

Relationship / Orientation: none / ??

Secret Fact: Raised by a single mom, she dreams of stardom, but spends far too much energy trying to convince herself she deserves it.

Studying: Biology at Brichester

Working: Made the soccer team so won't have time for a side job.

Relationship / Orientation: dating Chalet / straight

Secret Fact: Duane is a fish out of water in the middle of the city. He had to buy a shirt just to move here.