Welcome To The Goblin's Reliquary

"Away we go, into the forest dark and deep, to fill our hearts, and never sleep!"

Please. Allow me to open The Goblin's Reliquary for you. And thus, I light the candle that will hold you in the safe embrace of warm firelight while we spin the threads of story.

Welcome. I am Silvatiicus Riddle. My pronouns are He/They. I am a Dark Fantasy and Speculative Fiction Writer and Poet, currently residing on the borderlands of New York City. Originally hailing from Long Island, I was raised in an otherwise unassuming place that is steeped in urban legends, local folklore, general tales of mystery, and sometimes, even horror. Every small town or suburb has their stories, sometimes you have to dig for them. And sometimes they are right there, shimmering just near the surface. It were these local legends, along with a healthy dose of neurodivergence, various books, television and film influences, and maybe definitely a bit of very real faerie energy that began to stir the cauldron that would become the strange boy relaying this odd missive to you now.

You see, I have been telling stories for my entire life. As far back as I can remember, I've always been the imaginative sort, only recently discovering the concept of hyperphantasia, or having an imagination that is so vivid, it might be a rather normal thing to slip in and out of fantastic or terrible daydreams and have them be as tactile and real as the room in which you're reading this right now. It serves me well these days, when I harness such to convey a feeling, an image, a moment with my words. But, it did not always serve my best interest when it came to blending with rigid social structures. Naturally, this has always been a drawback in my schooling. Every grade that I entered, I passed through with marks that ranged from low-average to near-failing. I grew up believing that I was stupid, and that the excessive bullying I endured in elementary school was just “having fun”. I learned much later that is was not fun, and that I was not allowed in on the joke. Even amongst close relatives, I stood out. While my cousins fought each other and played sports and talked about girls, I wanted to play in the woods, and did! Alone or not! Or maybe I would climb through the neighbor's trees and bushes and befriend the spiders and squirrels and fireflies and gather white clovers for a wedding to the faerie queen! Or maybe I would trace the roots of an old oak with my fingers, and there I go––sliding down the largest of the roots like it was the banister of a staircase only to land in a mud puddle-turned-lake and swim with the snails and beetles and maybe never go home again, never ever go home again, because they don't get me in that world anyway, who would ever dream of going home?

Four years ago I found out that the many collected features that set me apart has a name in this world. I was diagnosed, for the first time, as being on the Autism Spectrum. Despite the struggles I had in growing up, I never regret a moment of expressing and embodying the unique and radiant spirit that I was. In time, this is what I have learned: gentleness is a rare, but necessary element that is so needed by the earth, that sometimes people are born into the world because there isn't anyone else that could touch a leaf so sweetly, whisper a word so truly, or behold a flower so softly. I also learned that the heart cracks into key holes. And every tragedy is a key, to further unlock the inner doors to deeper magic.

This newsletter will serve as a gathering place of many things, as one might expect to find inside the reliquary kept by a goblin:

It will be an open letter to you, a gentle hand to guide or validate your perception toward the ways in which magic, wonder, and awe function within the quickly-changing world around us. It will serve as a teacher, to both you and I, as a means to keep those precious child-like commodities alive.

It will be a place to tend to the wavering inner starlight in each of us that knows only creation, and further hungers for creative divine paroxysm*––an explosion splintering into all things, great and small. It is my hope to do this through the exploration of words, specifically within essays, stories, poetry, interviews, and allowing a stage for the art that I have gathered, collected daily as a means to inspire and intrigue. We are meant to be a village in the human experience, and together I want us to ponder the numinous.

In addition, it will surely be a memorandum of my latest works-in-progress and recent publications, of which I have some exciting things in the works to share with you over the course of the next year.

Most importantly, these words will serve as a tool––a dagger pressed to the rib of entropy, to push back against “The Nothing”, which is the loss of hope, infamed-so in the incomparable classic book and film known as “The Neverending Story”. A theme I will be exploring next time in “The Goblin's Reliquary”.

For now, I leave you with a bit of cozy poetic fantasy, cloaked in the veil of intrigue and folk tale. Enjoy, and don't you worry, I'll leave the candle burning for you.

“Walking The September Rim” by Silvatiicus Riddle

The liminal comes slowly,

then all at once,

tumbling from the hollow

of rusted leaves that curl

like a hand around

golden, summer light.

It arrives on eventide,

walking the September rim,

stretching its back

against the brushed, pink clouds,

climbing in through a window set ajar

like a familiar, old house cat just returned

from a long journey through the year.

The lucent burrs

of hearth fire and cinnamon

cling to its plush coat of smoky grey

and erupt in patchwork plumes

of warm amber and resinous spice.

It follows the fading light

as it moves through each room,

purring an autumnal wind

that paints each window

with a dusting of frost

in the color of fog;

O soft and goodly ghost, I welcome you,

I welcome you, small and ardent leader,

the first at the helm

in the long parade of night.

I descend upon my chair,

call the creature by name:

“Darkness, old friend, stay awhile,

and tell it right––what dreams you gathered

in long summer sleep,

what yarns will you spin

for the days to come?”

It moves in me, curls twice

about the spindles of my spine,

before settling like a familiar tale,

to rest, sun-weary, upon my tired heart.

* Word of the Day: Paroxysm (n.) - An intense expression of a particular emotion or activity.

† Word of the Night: Silvatiicus (pronounced: SILL-VAH-TIH-KIS). An old, Latin word meaning Forest, Wild, or Savage. Some people have a hard time pronouncing my name. If you ever see me in person (rare for a ghostly cryptid, though it does happen) I also answer to Silvio. Names are sacred words of power. Names are spells. Always do your best to honor someone’s name.

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