Strange Folk Quotes

“Mugwort. Dangerous for pregnant women. Good for bad dreams and insomnia, digestion, irregular periods, bad liver.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“Lee thought it was a special talent to be inscrutable, even to those closest to you. It didn’t have to mean that you were emotionally deficient. It could mean that you were constantly changing, and that you had a rich inner life that was like a world unto itself.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“Redbud and her shadow had been reunited. She would no longer be tormented by her rage and shame made external, out of her control, prowling the hills to torture her. She had accepted it as part of herself.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“Scarcity was a part of the tradition. You made do with what you had.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“cogent”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“It wasn’t that she’d lost her sexual desire. It had never left. But for years it had been relegated to a fantasy compartment of her brain, disconnected from Cooper or any other person.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“It was clear that Meredith was special. Extraordinary, like Redbud had been. A conjurer.
And then there was Cliff. The first seer in the family in five generations. He could see snatches of the future, but also people's emotions and the hidden qualities of things.
They, not Lee, would be the ones to perpetuate the tradition and continue Belva's work. Lee would always be there to support them and to spend a day or a night around the fire. But she didn't want to dedicate her life to it.
Lee had started looking at the counseling graduate program at the university a few hours away. She may not be powerful like her mother or Meredith, but she could roam around a person's internal landscape. She wanted to help people like her mother. She knew how seemingly impossible it was to treat addiction, and that was a challenge she wanted to meet. The quest for knowledge was where she'd thrived all those years ago, and she wanted to return to it. That was where she belonged. And now she would use it to serve her community, as generations of Bucks had done before her.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“She felt sorry for him. His worldview was so limited, and it hadn't necessarily been his fault. He was a victim of his upbringing. "I don't expect you to understand. But you can respect what we want and drop all of this legal stuff. No one cares about it. No one's paying attention to you. It's why Mom hasn't come to court. We have more important things to tend to."
He seemed to realize he'd lost control of the conversation, and he groped around to take it back. "You're still a child, Meredith. You don't get to make these decisions."
"Dad. Is this what you really want? To be in a house alone with me and Cliff? It would be so weird and awkward. You know it. I know it. So please, just let us be happy here. We'll all be so much happier if we admit what we want and allow each other to have it."
Cooper sighed and chewed on the end of his sunglasses. He looked around at the property as if surveying the place, but she knew he was just avoiding eye contact. "Fine. If that's what you and Cliff really want." He put a hand up to the back of his head. "I love you guys, no matter what she's been saying to you. I'm still your father."
Her face softened, and she put her arms out for a hug. "I know, Dad. I love you, too." He put his arms around her, and she could smell his cologne, like spicy, deep-hued oranges. He was such a fragile man at his core, and she started to write a spell in her head for his protection.
Corn silk wrapped around an abandoned turtle shell until you can't see it. Must be kept in breast pocket of coat for storage against the heart. Words said while wrapping, "This man is a soft by-product of insulated privilege. He does not have the armor for this world. Give him this shell and protect him from harm."”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“The nurse looked around at the jars of water in the corner, the dirt scattered on the floor, the iron and dogwood bark that Luann had brought from the cabin crowding the nightstand. She stared at them as if they were nuts, the ones that couldn't be helped. The kind of strange folk you had to give up on.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“She now recognized that like most mountain folk, she possessed a vein of fierce, magical energy inside her that could take many forms--- rage, or a stubborn intelligence, or a thick gray melancholy. It was part inheritance, part product of all that she'd survived.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“A hoarse scream came from somewhere in front of them, and Billy stopped. Lee froze. The scream came again and again, the short repetition of it mad and desperate. She whispered as softly as she could. "Billy, is someone hurt?" But he didn't respond or turn around.
She cautiously joined him and Kimmie at the front, and she saw a bobcat in Billy's lamp light, staring them down as a humanlike wail came from the cat's mouth.
Billy moved slowly toward the animal with his arm outstretched as Lee pleaded for him to come back. When he reached it and offered his hand up to smell, the animal froze with its teeth bared. Lee imagined it mauling him and then moving on to her.
But then the animal rubbed its cheek against his palm like a housecoat, and Lee heard a low rumbling. The creature was purring. He gave it love for a few minutes until the cat got tired of it and loped out of sight.
He let out a breath and chuckled low to himself. "She was just lonely.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“She knew of a flower that grew in the clearing where she performed her rituals. It was the darkest green, so dark that it appeared black to most. She'd never seen it anywhere else, nor could she ever identify it using her numerous botany books. Her grandmother believed it grew out of the ashes of their words and intentions, that their work seeded and fertilized the blooms. If anything could offer transcendence in digestible form, it would be this.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“The jar quickly drained between them, with Kimmie drinking most of it, until only the soaked flower lay at the bottom. Kimmie reached in with her fingers and brought it to Lee's face with mischief glistering in her eyes. She tickled the tip of her nose and trailed it down. Without thinking, Lee closed her eyes and parted her lips. She felt it fill her mouth like a soft spider. The petals were jellied and lush as she bit softly and chewed.
The taste was an overwhelming version of the liquor itself. A phantasm of undiluted shifting flavors: honey, leaves, bubblegum, ash, blood. When she finally swallowed, she lay back on the ground with the force of it.
Her skin tingled like something was coming up through her pores. Thin roots sprouted from every inch of skin that touched the grass: the back of her head, her shoulder blades, her thighs. They probed into the dirt and snaked their way down, farther into the earth, branching and spreading below her. She could feel the roots glowing. An electricity crackled through her, and she knew it was the power of the land. They were connected.
She sensed the groundwater flowing below as it fed the wells of the houses tucked into the mountains. When she focused on the water itself, she could access the memories it held, of every living thing that ever made a home on this land. A dinosaur lapping from a creek with its long tongue. A prehistoric woman peering down into its reflective surface and seeing herself staring back.
She could sense the coal, the natural gas, the zinc, the marble, nestled like treasure deep within the clay and stone.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“As Meredith walked home through the trees, she noticed how her filter on the world had changed. There were slightly different colors, different smells, an altered feeling. The darkness radiated gem-like hues, and she could smell each part of the forest down to the sweet, earthy beetle shells and musky tree nuts. She felt grounded with a good dirt--- the best, most-fertile soil. Solid, clear, awake. Rooted to the earth. The opposite of her old, hazy self.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“Ms. Buck, I feel like a corpse this morning. What do you advise?"
Belva raised an eyebrow. "You might try putting down the bottle one of these nights."
Lee was ready for this. "That might help long term, but I'm looking for something more immediate. As in, right now."
Belva sighed. "I'm not sure you deserve it, but I don't like seeing you in pain." She dipped into the cooler and pulled out a vial of a bright green liquid. Lee had only been joking, but she was drawn to the vial now, her mouth watering. She took it from Belva, uncapped it, and shot it back. The taste was of plants picked too young--- sweet, raw, and nearly fizzing with life.
She waited for something to happen.
Nothing.
Belva watched her intently, and Lee wondered at her curiosity. She'd probably given this hangover remedy thousands of times.
And then Lee felt it. The smell of wet dust and the hum of the fluorescents and the staleness inside of her receded. In its place, the smell of dewy grass and the silent spill of sunshine and the feeling of a new day beginning spread through her.
Like a phoenix, she was resurrected.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“In her loneliness, Lee collected a legion of animals in her room, where she left the window open to let them come and go. There were barn kittens and baby mice and tiny raccoons and little possum. They always grew up and eventually left her, but she was okay with that. Sometimes she'd see them in the woods months or years after, and they'd make eye contact, and an understanding would pass between them. It was the type of memory that she questioned now, skeptical of its plausibility. Yet, she could still remember the feeling of falling asleep with quivering fur against her cheek.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“What can the land power do, exactly? Like, what kind of... work?"
Belva paused. "It helps us in all ways--- with our bodies that move is and the plants that feed us and the weather around us. It helps us love the people who are here, and to stay connected to the people who have moved on. It protects us from people who seek to do us harm. It provides whatever we need, as long as we pay our respects and give back.”
― alli dyer, Strange Folk

“She flipped to the next page with the heading "Love Honey."

1 handful of cotton
2 red clovers
A few drops of honeysuckle nectar
Dash of nutmeg sugar

Put all ingredients inside a copper bee smoker. Light it with a match soaked in rosemary oil and drop it in. Go to a hive you know well at sunrise and say the words while you smoke them:

Come to me, my love
You will find me in the creek swimming you
Or in the kitchen baking you
Or in my bed sleeping you
I will think only of you
And you will think only of me
You will be hungry when you eat
You will be tired when you sleep
Until you come to me
My love ”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“I should have moved on, but I loved it here. I felt like a Romantic poet or Thoreau by his pond. I imagined myself chasing fair maidens barefoot through the trees and drinking from fresh streams. One can build their own life here without feeling the pressures of the outside."
Lee had never seen her hometown through this filter. Mr. Hall seemed to see everything through gossamer, the town's crumbling school and faded American flags shimmering like gasoline in water.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“The greatest heroines all go through trying times. Those are the moments we see what they are truly made of. It is how we know they are great.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“The very fact of being a witch wasn't too impressive in Craw Valley; it was well known but rarely acknowledged that some in the community could get rid of warts with the touch of a hand, or blow out the fire in a burn. But the Bucks were notorious for their special talents and ability to perform powerful mountain magic, and Lee was next in their illustrious line.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk