When my brother moved in I knew I’d have to accept my neat little cottage becoming festooned with Dreamcatchers, crystals, and the occasional fairy sitting in a flower pot. Linus had run out of luck in London and his girlfriend had kicked him out; his dream job of writing for the Fortean Times hadn’t happened, and the owner of the coffee shop where he worked had got tired of having his chakras cleansed. I loved having him home with me; he made me laugh, had a great line in crazy t-shirts, but he had turned my guest bedroom into a woo-woo paradise.
“Don’t call it ‘woo-woo’, Shell, it’s the Unexplained.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Be happy I’m not one of the Flat Earth nutters.”
“Oh, I am thankful for that, Linus.”
“I mean, how could the aliens possibly land on a flat, static planet? And why would they when all the others are spherical? Ridiculous.”
Linus winked at me, grinned, and went back to making another Dreamcatcher. He was hoping to sell a few at local craft fairs to top up his meagre writing income. The piece in Paranormal Magazine on the healing power of pyramids hadn’t come out yet and I was hopeful that once it did Linus would take down the giant structure in our sitting room that he’d taken to meditating under. I wasn’t convinced that a pyramid shape made from paper drinking straws was really channeling the same power as the ancient Egyptian ones. Linus looked up from the twigs he was bending and tying together with rough twine, “Penny for them?”
“I was just wondering when the Pyramid stage gets dismantled in our own front room Glasto festival?”
“Don’t knock it, Shell. I’ve put that broken clock in the centre. I think the pyramid energy will restart it. In fact, I don’t think it, I know it.”
I glanced at the pile of feathers and stones in front of him. Linus tucked his long hair behind one ear and went back to threading dead things onto twine — how they caught dreams was beyond me.
When I got back later from my very dull accountancy job in town, he had made half a dozen Dreamcatchers and seemed to be working on a voodoo doll. “That’s not me, I hope.”
“Oh goodness, no. It’s not what you think it is either. It’s a Worry Doll.”
I must have looked blank because Linus carried on explaining as I took my jacket off and got the vacuum cleaner out — there were feathers everywhere.
“You take this little fella in your pocket and he carries your worries. Some people make pockets for them, actually on the doll, write their worries down and put it in the pocket. It’s out of your head then, see?”
I nodded.
“I’ve already had some orders for some, so it won’t matter if I don’t get paid for my Paranormal piece.”
“Does that mean I’ve got to live with this ridiculous pyramid in here then? Please tell me you’re taking it down. It’s giving me headaches, and we can’t see the TV properly because the straws wobble whenever the news is on.”
“See! That’s the energy it’s producing. It’s working. The news is full of negative energy and the pyramid is trying to counteract it. Imagine what your headaches would be like without it blocking all that Nigel Farage stuff!”
“No. That’s my blood pressure going up from the irritation of having to watch Line of Duty through a triangular window. Take it down. Please.”
“But it works! Look — the broken clock” Linus scooped up the small brass carriage clock that had belonged to our grandmother and had been left to me when she died. It wasn’t a family heirloom — I think carriage clocks, despite their name, were not attached to carriages, but were travelling clocks. Wikipedia had told me Napoleon had one first — presumably to make sure he wasn’t late to Waterloo. Granny got hers in the 1980s from Argos, but it reminded me of her, so I loved it. He waved it in front of me, “Look! It works! The pyramid energy that the ancients understood, was effectively harnessed and now gran’s clock works again.”
“Oh, Linus. That’s because I replaced the battery yesterday.”
His face fell and then he looked puzzled. He stared at the clock. “This is amazing…”
“What, the power of Duracell? I don’t think so.”
“No. I took the batteries out this morning. The clock is running on pure pyramid energy.”
“What? No. That’s not possible. Check the back.”
He glanced up at me, nodded, and solemnly turned the clock around, opened the brass door at the back. Inside there was a square black box and a battery sized gap.
That was just the start of it. Linus began by searching the house for anything that no longer worked, or ran on batteries. Fairy lights now ran along the edges of the pyramid — he’d tried stringing them on the structure itself, but the paper straws wouldn’t support the weight, so now the square centre was like a stage that gradually filled with electric toothbrushes, a garden strimmer, old torches, even older radios, my laptop, and an Airwick perfume spray that filled the room with the scent of Christmas every five minutes. Linus kept giggling, thrilled that his daft idea had been proved right. “Haven’t you got an old broken hairdryer somewhere? Let’s find it and add it!”
“I threw it out and bought a new one, Linus. Why would I keep something broken?”
He tutted at me and muttered something about sustainability and recycling. I went to make tea. When I left the room I noticed how quiet the kitchen was; the pyramid and all its electrical devices gave off a low hum that made my teeth ache, so maybe there was something in this after all.
A couple of days later the neighbours started knocking on the door. I was expecting complaints about the hum and the constant glow from the front window as the fairy lights stayed on all the time. Ernest Brown was the first, he had an old slow-cooker that didn’t heat up any longer, old Mrs Diggory from across the road handed over her ancient mobile phone, Sam from next-door-but-one brought her iPad that had frozen, and Barry appeared with a Spectrum computer from the 1980s as a real test for the pyramid. All of them, after an hour or so, began working again. Linus and Barry plugged the Spectrum into the TV and started playing Manic Miner while they swigged mugs of tea and complained about the lack of beer. I gave up answering the front door and just left it open. Soon the house was buzzing with neighbours and people I didn’t know from streets away, and food began piling up in the kitchen along with bottles of wine as thanks.
I made myself a coffee and went out to the bottom of the back garden for some peace. The leylandii trees that ran along the fence were full of birds roosting, and there was still some warmth in the early evening sun. I perched myself on the picnic table, feet resting on the attached bench seat, hands cupped around the steaming mug, and I looked up at the house, some twenty metres from me at the other end of the garden. Maybe it was the steam coming off the coffee, or perhaps it was my headache, but the house seemed to shimmer in the dying blueish light, waxing and waning with my breath almost. Then someone appeared at the back door, waved, and began striding towards me — a police officer. I sighed, put my coffee down and listened as I was told how and when I could collect Linus from the Folkestone police station.
“…we realise he didn’t mean any harm, but what with the complaint, and the plants…We have to take him there to do all the formalities, but it’ll be a simple court appearance and probably a fine.”
The next morning, on two hours of sleep and a lot of coffee, I set off for work, leaving my brother curled up under his drooping pyramid, “Oi! I want all this gone by the time I’m back later, and all tidied up too.” I shouted as I walked past him to the front door which I slammed for emphasis as I left.
When I got back just after 6pm there was a line of women and children at the door, “What now? What’s he done? They can’t ALL be his kids!”
One of the women, long hair up in a ponytail, wearing tight jeans and a t-shirt questioning Boris Johnson’s parentage, looked me up and down, hitched her three eco-cloth bags higher onto her shoulder and told me to join the queue, but assured me the wait was worth it and nodded knowingly over her glasses.
“It’s my house. He’s my brother. What is he doing? He’s a writer, and a pain in the arse, but I sincerely doubt anything he’s offering you and your kids is worth waiting for.” I pushed past to tuts from the others in the line along the path. The front door was wide open again, and Linus was sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the stairs, head down and busy with twine, sticks, and bits of junk. A blue-black feather was sticking out of his hair, and more feathers were scattered on the floor around him.
“What are you doing?”
Linus didn’t look up, “Making personalised Dreamcatchers as quickly as I can.”
“Why?”
“Because they work more effectively if they’re personalised and made in the presence of the end-user.”
“No. Why are you making them, why in my doorway, and why are all these people here?” I hissed the last bit out because I didn’t want to upset the women, they all looked pretty tired and stressed, exactly as I felt right then.
Linus sighed. “It’s probably a craze, or maybe even a bit of mass hysteria, but all these kids are suffering nightmares and they heard the catchers work. £5 each, too.” He nodded towards a mug that was stuffed with notes. “Dinner’s on me tonight!”
The queues continued the next day, and the next. Each morning as I left for work there were anxious looking parents standing outside with their children on the way to school. I wondered if any children were left in the village, or in the local town who didn’t have one of his bespoke catchers. After two weeks of kids, stressed mums and angry dads I’d had enough. “This can’t go on, Linus. Why do they have to come here? Why can’t they go to a craft fair like normal people?”
“This is a public service, Shell. I have to be ready. I’m helping people.”
“You’re not helping me.”
I was spending more and more time in my bedroom, practically imprisoned and prevented from using my own house because Linus was running relaxation classes for parents during the day in the front room. The pyramid helped, apparently. Monday and Wednesday evenings were dads’ groups, Tuesdays and Thursdays mums. Friday evenings he was considering making available for grandparents.
When I thought I could take no more I decided to give his crackpot ideas a try — fight fire with fire. I took the ‘voodoo’ Worry Doll he’d made weeks ago as it lay unneeded in the corner of the front room just out of the pyramid. Upstairs in my bedroom I dug out a slightly furry biro from the bottom of my handbag, and I found an empty bank envelope. On the back I wrote,
I’ve had enough of Linus and I want him to go back to London and leave me in peace.
It wasn’t a worry, as such, more a wish but I thought if nothing else it would be out of my head so I could start thinking of ways to actually make it happen. It did feel a bit childish to write it down like this and hope it worked, but the parents believed in the Dreamcatchers which were just twigs, twine, and feathers, and I’d seen the pyramid make granny’s clock work without batteries, so why not this? I shoved the doll into my bag and went to bed.
The next morning was still the same with a queue right to the end of the path. I hurried past them and went off to my dull but reliable job like a sensible person. Just after 3pm I got a telephone call from Linus.
“Hi Shell, sorry to call while you’re at work, but Em’s been in touch and she wants to get back together so I’m catching the 5.20 train back to London.”
“Today? But what about your customers? What about the public service you’re providing?” I hoped he’d hear the condescending tone in my voice.
“I’ll do it online, Barry said he could set that up for me, a website and everything.”
And with that, Linus, his Dreamcatchers, and the pyramid were gone.
As summer turned to autumn my life returned to its quiet normality. No more queues outside the front door, in fact no one ventured to my house at all. I watched Line of Duty reruns in peace, went back to just nodding to my neighbours as I put the bins out, and went entire weekends without speaking to another soul.
Be careful what you wish for.
I missed my daft brother with his odd ideas, sketchy career, and love of all things ‘unexplained’. I’m not sure I really missed the pyramid, or the feathers everywhere, but I did miss the company. I raked through my handbag and dug out the Worry Doll. It was made from an old floral summer dress of mine and what looked like his favourite Marillion t-shirt he’d had as a teenager. There in a small pocket on its back was my folded envelope. I took it out and tore it into pieces. Linus, I’m sure would recommend me burning some sage in the garden and blowing the tiny bits of paper onto the fire, but I respect my neighbours, even if I don’t really know them, so I wasn’t starting a bonfire, instead I chucked them in the bin and put it outside on the pavement ready for collection the following morning.
Evidently the bin-men aren’t as effective as a sage fire, so it was two weeks before Linus turned up at my door, “Me and Em are definitely done. She’s decided to join the Young Conservatives because she wants to marry an accountant. Sorry, Shell. I know you’re an accountant, but, you know….”
“Come in. You know you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like, but this time there are ground-rules.” I waved him in and went to make us both a coffee as I explained that I was having no more Woo-Woo stuff running out of my front room, and definitely no ‘exotic’ house plants in his bedroom.
“No need! Barry came up trumps — I’ve got an online shop and it’s making more money than the writing. Paranormal Magazine decided they didn’t like my article, despite me telling them that I had proper evidence now. So I’ve decided I’m going to write a book and run the shop on the side. But, there is another reason I came back here….” Linus looked a bit sheepish. He got the milk out of the fridge — soya for him, I always kept it here, just in case. He topped up our mugs, stirred them once clockwise, once counter-clockwise, tapped the spoon on the side of each mug and put it in the sink, all the time avoiding my gaze.
“Would you possibly…and it’s okay if you can’t, I mean, I do understand you think the Unexplained is a load of rubbish, but….it would really help….and you do keep saying your job is dull…”
“Would I what? Spit it out.”
“Do my books and help me run it?”
And that’s how I ended up ditching my dull accountancy job and taking daily walks through the local woods to find a variety of twigs, leaves, stones, and other bits Linus needs and the forest has freely given up. It’s important, apparently, that the natural items are from here, despite the idea of the catchers being a Native American legend — Linus read a bit of Jung at uni and believes in the collective unconscious and says that nature is nature all the world over and their power comes from the birds and trees. The Dreamcatchers are just one popular line, the Worry Dolls (South American idea, I believe, but worries are another universal…) were an immediate hit and Mrs Diggory helps out sewing them up. Barry comes round most days to handle what he calls the ‘back end’ of the shop, as well as drinking mug after mug of sweet tea. Linus has started researching ancient Anglo Jute myths, legends, and customs, with a bit of Pict and Celt thrown in because the magpies told him this was a better way to go for future sustainability. The groups started up again, but in the village hall, and the local dog walkers are considering working with Linus for a special canine relaxation class. We talk to the neighbours a lot now, and everyone knows Linus and the Woo Woo Shop.
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