The Briar Archive

8. Flinterforge

Flinterforge

“May the spark of creation ever light the way.”

Revenir

Ackerly Green’s Guide to Magiq was the first step. It had led me back to the Mountaineers, after all, and from what I could tell, it was the first real anchor that grounded these impossible beliefs in some semblance of reality. There were books that had mysteriously been lost, because one had just been found.

Author CJ Bernstein, whose children found the Guide, had written a new foreword, offering a concise account of the book’s rather ominous history:

In the fall of 2005, the remains of Roosevelt Island’s crumbling insane asylum were demolished to make way for condominiums. In the rubble, a worker found the only known copy of Ackerly Green’s Guide to Magiq. Originally published in 1956, the book had been all but lost to time.

How could a book have completely disappeared from history, save the memories of a handful of people? Collectors, museums, and private libraries vied for “The Lunatic’s Guide,” as the strange book came to be called. But while they fought for possession of it, the Guide was stolen. Stories spread of it crossing the globe, trading hands for almost a decade before disappearing from history for a second time.

Until two children found it on a park bench in New York City, tattered and fading, in the spring of 2013.

As with all things rare and mysterious, the book held an understandable appeal. Reading it at last, I remembered the day it called to me like I was still there. The smell of damp, the shaft of light shining down the spiral staircase, the black butterfly on the stack of books . . . I risked arrest after getting just a glimpse of the Guide. Perhaps its strange pull on those around it, on those called to it, was the real reason it was called “The Lunatic’s Guide.”

Bernstein’s account continued . . .

Unfortunately, after being exposed to the elements for the first time in decades, carried around the world, and finally left outside over a harsh New York winter, the Guide was falling apart. The family who found it was unaware of its significance, and by early 2016 the last known Guide to Magiq was nothing but flecks of paper and dust.

But now, almost sixty years after its publication, the Guide has been faithfully recreated. Ackerly Green’s Guide to Magiq exists again, enchanting new generations with its wonder-filled pages and its assurance that magic is real and waiting for us to find it.

How could the Guide exist now if the only known copy had disintegrated? Thankfully, The Mountaineers offered a timeline that added new information, including how the Guide’s contents were rescued:

The Magiq Guide Timeline:

(some dates are estimated)

Ackerly Green’s Guide to Magiq

July 3, 1956

Originally published in some version of 1956 by Ackerly Green Publishing as part of a series only vaguely remembered as the “briar books.”

Ackerly Green Shutters

April 20, 1961

Ackerly Green Publishing files for bankruptcy, selling off their remaining library of titles to several larger publishers. There are no mentions of the Magiq Guide or the other briar books in the Ackerly Green records.

The Mountaineers

February 4, 1994

A small group of people who remember the books create an online forum to discuss and research them. Inspired by a handwritten occult pamphlet called Monarch’s Mountain, they name themselves “The Mountaineers” and to this day are responsible for all major strides to find what they call the Lost Collection.

Sullivan Green

March 17, 1997

Sullivan Green, the last living child of Warner Green, cofounder of Ackerly Green Publishing, is found living penniless in New York City. He claims to have no memory of the Lost Collection. Seemingly afraid for his life, he disappears. Further efforts to find him prove fruitless.

The Mandela Effect

November 4, 2001

The term “Mandela Effect” is coined for instances where small groups of seemingly unconnected people remember historical events differently than the general population. Named for some people’s memory of Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the mid-80s instead of being freed in the 90s.

The New York City Lunatic Asylum

September 12, 2005

The last Magiq Guide in existence is discovered by a demolition crew at the site of the New York City Lunatic Asylum. The Guide is delivered to the Morgan Library, where it is digitally scanned, and a preservation is attempted.

The Morgan Library

October 1, 2005

Efforts to preserve or restore the Guide prove impossible. The Guide is stolen from the Morgan Library’s Thaw Conservation Center before the Mountaineers can negotiate visitation, and the scans previously made of the Guide are found to be corrupted.

Journey of the Guide

January 1, 2006

Many claim to have been in possession of the Guide at various points between the years of 2006 and 2013. The myth of the Guide only grows over the ensuing decade. Some believe the deliberate sequence of words in the Guide have an almost hypnotic, suggestive effect. Others believe the Guide is cursed.

The Bernsteins

April 3, 2013

Author CJ Bernstein’s children find the Guide in a public park near their school. Fascinated with the book, they take it home, unaware of its long history.

Acquisition

January 11, 2016

The Mountaineers meet with the Bernsteins to acquire what remains of the Guide. They discover that the Guide has finally disintegrated, but not before one of the children had made a hand-drawn copy. The Mountaineers begin the painstaking process of reproducing the Guide based on the rough copy and their fragmented memories of its content and illustrations.

The Death of Sullivan Green

July 1, 2016

Sullivan Green’s body is found in Central Park. His estate documents reveal he had millions in investments but chose to live life as a vagrant. The documents also reveal he had one living heir.

The Book of Briars

July 17, 2016

Several Mountaineers receive an automated email from a domain called The Book of Briars. The email requests that they try and unlock the site to learn the truth about what really happened to Ackerly Green and the Lost Collection.

Magiq Guide

July 26, 2016

The Mountaineers publish the Guide online. Their hope is that others will see it, read it, share it, and use it to help solve not only the mystery of the Book of Briars website, but ultimately the mystery of the books themselves.

Several things jumped out at me as I read the timeline. First was the Mandela Effect. The phenomenon instantly reminded me of my encounter in the library decades before—the day I was confronted by my false memory of the Berenstain Bears. Over the years, I’d spoken to many people who swore they remembered, as I had, the books from their childhood as the Berenstein Bears.

Another noteworthy detail was that Sullivan Green had died a poor vagrant despite millions in investments. As a journalist, I was following a small lead about a cabal of unknown moneyed elites who funneled public funds into the private accounts of the politicians they kept in their pockets. Ever since my limited exposure to the Low back in the 90s, I had been interested in secret gatherings, especially those of obscenely wealthy people. In addition to the ever-present corruption angle of the story, I’d heard rumblings of magic and the occult being aspects of these highly private affairs. Was it possible that Sullivan Green had been involved? Chances were slim, but when a rich man dies the way he did, there’s usually something nefarious going on.

Sadly, the final part of Bernstein’s foreword didn’t offer any answers to that question:

The book is a folly. A fascination. By following the winding paths inside its pages you are able to discover, not only what school of magic you belong to, but also the level and focus of your “magimystical” aptitude.

Myth and mystery have surrounded the Guide, its history, and its true purpose for decades. What do you think? More important, what do you believe? Are you ready to open Ackerly Green’s Guide to Magiq?

I was. More than anything. I knew there wouldn’t be a spell inside to undo what had been done to Sebastian, but I also knew that the Guide could be the trailhead that led me to the truth.

Below that fateful question on the screen was an image of the Guide’s cover followed by a yellow square containing a single word in nondescript white letters: Begin.

I clicked the link and was taken to the contents of the Guide itself. I can’t begin to recount the exact contents of the Guide. It was a kind of exam, one whose questions led the reader on a winding and bespoke path to one of six magical guilds. These questions were odd, at times nonsensical, and seemed to require knowledge of a subject completely lost to humanity. But the Guide also insisted that the reader answer truthfully, answer as the person you are in that moment and not as the person you wished to be in the future. “Woe betide those who cross the Magiq Guide.”

After reading the mystical disclaimer, I was hesitant to proceed. Ever since the day with Sebastian in the library, I inhabited a perpetual state of willful ignorance when it came to my own nature. I had little interest in self-examination, even if such an examination would prove beneficial, and feared the Guide would shine a light on my shortcomings. I wanted answers, not judgment. Judgment is something I could do on my own.

I was being foolish, of course, and was soon answering the Guide’s questions honestly. Or at least as honestly as anyone could when answering such bizarre questions. It was similar to taking a Myers-Briggs personality test, only instead of answering whether I was almost always late for appointments, I was asked instead how I would choose to spend my life as a book following a wayward verbafuge spell.

The questions, though entertaining, seemed pointedly random and esoteric. But the longer I examined them, the more I had a sense for what the book was truly trying to divine. It wasn’t looking for my faults as a person. Rather it wanted to show me the best of who I was in that moment. An honest assessment of my qualities.

I wasn’t exactly ready for that, either. But at a time when it felt as if we were all daily blanketed with humanity’s myriad failings, with nowhere to turn but to the children masquerading as our leaders and the entertainers masquerading as our watchmen, it was a relief to experience something that looked for the best in us. I can’t fully explain it, but the Guide was Balm of Gilead on my heartsick soul.

Once I had finished the test, the Guide revealed the magic guild with which I had the greatest affinity: Flinterforge.

A day spent without soiled hands is a day wasted. You’ve never been one to shy away from big ideas or the hard work required to make those ideas manifest.

I continued to read the Guide’s assessment and couldn't help but nod my head in agreement. The Guide had seen things in me that I never saw in myself, yet I somehow knew were there. I only needed the Guide to shine its light on them. Much in the way “A Love Supreme” and the Lost Collection revealed the existence of hidden memories, the Guide’s insights revealed hidden qualities. It even revealed qualities I never knew were possible:

MAGIC AFFINITY

Artificer’s Whim

Alchemical Tranfigurations

Undo

Multimystics

Assembling Runes

Many Hands

Breath of Creation

I wasn’t sure what any of these affinities meant, but I wondered if I, in fact, had magic potential. If magic was indeed real, would I, through study and determination, be able to wield the power of Many Hands or even Multimystics? What were “Multimystics” anyway?

There were six schools of magic altogether: Balimora, Flinterforge, Thornmouth, Ebenguard, Gossmere, and Weatherwatch. Six guilds. Just like the previous Mountaineers’ six houses.

According to the Guide, it wasn’t uncommon for a person to find their guild affinities changing from day to day, but after I had taken the test several times, often answering questions differently each time, the Guide always showed me the road to Flinterforge.

Having found the school of magic I belonged to, I headed to the final page of the Guide, where I was greeted with a message:

What If . . .

What if there was a time when all of this was true?

What if you could’ve joined your chosen guild and learned arcane arts with other magimystics?

What if unknown forces changed everything, history itself, so we couldn't remember the truth—that there once was magic right here, in our world?

If we believe and work together, we can uncover what they want to hide from us and unravel the greatest mystery of our age: What happened to the Briar books?

That longing you have for something else—your belief that there is something more, something bigger than just this world—there’s a reason for it.

You’ve been called.

Find us.

–The Mountaineers