Why The Gates Make You Shiver

When you enter Lemuria through the stone gates, a shiver will trace your spine. It happens to everyone; it is supposed to happen; if it doesn’t happen, you better back out quickly, because something is drastically wrong. As you pass under each of two shadows, there will be the barest second of ice water down your back; the hair on the back of your neck will lift. This is magic, of course. You can’t look at the lush, misty green hills of Lemuria, or the stone portals that open toward those hills and not know that there is some sort of magic there. It is not, however, the kind of barrier magic that holds anyone out, nor, for that matter, the kind of prison magic that holds anyone in. What it is, this silent shiver that you can’t escape, is difficult to describe.

It might be called ‘hunger.’ You might call it ‘nostalgia.’ However, neither of these words is really right. You might try ‘longing,’ or ‘desire,’ but these do not describe the subtle magic either. I suppose that possibly ‘yearning’ might be the closest, if you really had to label it with a word; though it still isn’t completely right, it is probably the closest you are going to come with human language.

This is the thing: It is a well known fact that in the past all the lands of Faerie and the human world were once much closer. There was much coming and going between the worlds and all the worlds worked together in much more symmetry and concord. This is where and when our most beloved legends, myths and stories come from.

Since the world of human kind has become cold and drifted off by itself, we feel a yearning and nostalgia for that time of harmony and rapport and anything that reminds us of that time sets off that yearning. That is why passing through any magic portal will always give you a momentary shiver of . . . whatever it is. Even though your mind may not even be conscious of it, for a split second, all the cells in your body are filled with a yearning for a time and a place that is no more; for distant, scarcely remembered dreams; long lost hopes and faraway, half remembered loves. Right on the cellular level, your whole body suffers a split second ache that spreads in a sudden flash to your mind and heart and leaves a whip-lash shiver of wishing which rolls like ice water down your back.

It’s alright. It only lasts a moment and really, some people even think that there is something pleasant about it. Besides, these particular magic portals have a sort of built in back-shock. Does it have to do with the fact that they are attached to Lemuria? I don’t know. But when the shock begins and the cells cry out, “Ah, for all that once was, or might have been!” there is a wee, strong voice that answers back, “Aye! and may well be again!”

Edwina Peterson Cross