As the youngest of my family I, of course, had more freedom than my elder siblings. Because I was the third child my parents felt they had enough experience with children and basically decided to say “Screw the rules. We know what we’re doing!” Interestingly enough, I am the most ‘wild’ of my siblings. I choose to boldly sit in the family room where anybody could talk to me while my siblings hid away in their bedrooms or the took comfort in the seclusion of the basement. Whatever my parents did, they either did something very right or very very wrong.

However, though I was afforded a little more freedom than my brother and sister, it came at a cost. Many of the childhood memories they can fondly look back on exist because I was born. Much of what my brother and sister got to experience stopped by the time I was old enough to actually start remembering things. They also got to meet people I never will. This isn’t to say my birth was some prophesied event that would bring the downfall of an evil king, and I doubt my birth had any relation to anybody’s death. It was merely coincidence that my maternal grandfather died when I was only a year old; however, if I find out at some point in my life my Grandpa Charlie was an evil king who was trying to enslave all of America then I get bragging rights that my birth was his downfall.

But the moral alignment of my grandfather is neither here nor there. What are important are those special, intimate family moments I have no recollection of. I’d argue, for the sake of arguing, that my desire to be a storyteller can be traced back to these moments I can’t recall. Specifically, to my father and the stories he would to tell us.

I learned that my father was a storyteller, like me, rather recently. My mother had divulged this tidbit to me the summer after I had graduated high school, and we were driving back home from a weekend road trip. My father was with us, and given that it was almost six hours until we were back home in Illinois, we got a lot of talking done in that little, white car. My parents had been sharing with me stories about when my brother and sister were little, and at some point my mother looked back in the rear view mirror and asked me, “Do you remember when dad would tell you, Alison, and Kevin stories?”

I had no memories of him ever doing this. He had stopped by the time I would actually be able to remember. “No, but I do remember when I was little he would sing Kum bay ya until I fell asleep.”

That’s when I learned that my dad was so much more than the hard-working, computer-building, star trek loving person I know today. My dad spoke up then, “Oh yeah. It started when Alison was born. It was a story about a little red-haired princess, and when Kevin was born it was a story about a little red-haired princess and a little red-haired prince.” Of course, I was born and couldn’t let my parents be three for three in red-haired children and it became a story about a red-haired princess, a red-haired prince, and a blonde-haired princess. My parents dropped into a minor argument after this. They couldn’t remember some of the names. We lived in Crystal Lake on Lilac Drive, so was it the Crystal Kingdom with the Palace of Lilac or was it the Crystal Palace in the Kingdom of Lilac?

We settled on Palace of Lilac in the Crystal Kingdom, or at least I did. I liked the sound of it more, and I still do.

Names aside, my dad apparently always told stories about the adventures these three children would have. Eventually the three children were joined by an animal companion, a friendly little deer by the name of Waddle who lived in the forest.

I imagine Waddle is a gentle soul tucked far away where no one can touch him. He must have been over 10 feet tall in my mind. Massive antlers that barely kissed the underside of the equally tall trees.

“I still remember how he was introduced.” My dad said, adjusting in his seat, “It all started off with a horrible-”

Scritch… Scritch… Scritch…

“What was that?” The youngest of the three royals asked. She clung to the hands of her older siblings, not wanting to be separated. A blonde-haired, imaginative girl by the name of Kaitlyn. “It’s getting dark. I’m scared of the dark.” Her foot caught on an outstretched root.

“I’ll protect you. I promise,” her older brother said. He helped her to stand, checking the torn, mud-caked cloth of her pants for injuries. A red-haired, brave boy by the name of Kevin. “Nothing’s going to hurt us. Not while I’m around.” He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Remember what mom and dad said?” her older sister said, a sword in hand as she carved out the path ahead of them. A red-haired, intelligent girl by the name of Alison. “This forest is our friend. It will protect us.”

Scritch… Scritch… Scritch…

A path had seemed to appear before them, “That wasn’t here before, was it?” Alison asked, looking back. The others shrugged, unsure.

Scritch… Scritch… Scritch…

The noise was steadily growing louder. “We must be nearing the source.” Kevin said, adjusting Kaitlyn on his back. She was fully awake now. Her eyes wide in wonder as she stared at the forest around them. Alison brought them to a stop, for there, up ahead, was the source of the noise.

Scritch… Scritch… Scritch…

The trees shook with the force of it. There, in front of them, stood a massive deer. Antlers brushing the underside of the trees, sending leaves pouring down to the ground with every movement. The deer toward above them, rubbing his back against the rough bark of the tree producing a horrendous scritch… scritch… scritch…

Finally, he stopped, and noticed the three children frozen in front of him. He moved with a slow stride towards the trio. Low hanging branches snapping easily on his sides, but he continued to move, undisturbed. With each step the forest would pulse, light up around him. He stopped, silent, in front of them and tilted his head ever so to stare, his eyes gentle.

“Are you lost?” A deep voice comes from him, and the children can only stare in wonder.

“We are; can you help us?” Alison asks.

“Your home is far away. The Palace of Lilac in the Crystal Kingdom,” He turns to the side, gracefully kneeling down beside the children. “Climb on my back, and rest. In the morning you will see your home once more.” The three climbed onto his back, marveling at the soft fur as he stood.

“What should we call you?” Kevin asked, holding Kaitlyn against him as she fell asleep with ease.

“My true name has long been forgotten, but you may call me Waddle.”

It is after this meeting that all three children would begin to embark on adventures with Waddle. Somehow, we would always find him. Or would he find us? When I told my mother this vision of Waddle in the car she shook her head. “Waddle was just an ordinary deer who could talk.” She would say to me. Whatever mom. My Waddle is way cooler.

An ancient, kind soul. A god and protector of his forest. I wonder if Waddle would ever tire of these silly children running around his home?

It was after this my mother confessed to me something important. “I wish I had written them down. I always thought they should be children’s books, but now I can’t remember anything from those stories.” She said in the car, my dad agreeing that he didn’t remember much else besides the children and the deer first meeting.

I grinned in the backseat, settling in with thoughts stirring in my mind. I said, “I can see these being full length novels.” I knew my mother had always wanted to be an author, even before she told me this desire about writing down the Waddle Tales. She had said she’d always wanted to be a children’s book author, but now I saw why. She wanted to be an author because she thought these Waddle Tales, as I am now dubbing them, were something that had to be shared. My mother was more than the stay-at-home parent I knew her as. She was somebody filled with secrecy, who wanted better for her children than she had done for herself.

Once again my mother shook her head, emphasizing her wish for them to be children’s books. Tucked away in the backseat I smiled and replied, “Both. I’ll write both.”

The more that I think about it I realize my desire to be a storyteller comes from both my mother and my father. While I was always encouraged to read, I don’t think I would have such an obsessive love of fantasy and adventure without the stories from my dad, and I don’t think I would have any desire to be an author if it weren’t for my mother. Without her wish to be an author, and actively encouraging me to continue to write whenever I shared with her some horrendous work of fiction I had produced at a young age, I don’t think I’d be the same.

My dad no longer tells us stories, and my siblings have moved on with their lives, but we still have our moments. They’re never tales of talking deer and enchanted woods, but simpler things. My mother reflects on her day of work, telling me about her favorite students she interacted with. My brother grins and recounts some interesting fact he learned to make us all laugh. My father quietly tells us of something he heard in the news. I, of course, prattle on about all the gossip and drama going on, and though my sister is long gone from our kitchen table at dinner, working away at some research facility in North Carolina, she still manages to call, like clockwork, at 6 PM and shares her latest developments.

Actually deciding to be a storyteller though is an entirely different tale. I decided that in sixth grade. My elementary and middle school always had writing assignments and assessments of all shapes and sizes. I remember vividly the one I wrote that made me decide I wanted to be an author. I had, for all intents and purposes, written a short, three-chapter story. It was about six pages and I had been so proud of it, and despite how terrible I know it is, I’m still strangely proud of it. It featured three of my friends at that time and myself.

It was a warm spring day, and I had gathered my closest friends in my backyard. There was a gentle breeze, mussing our hair but keeping us cool under the heat of the sun. I had to tell them. I couldn’t wait any longer. It wasn’t fair to them. “We aren’t from here.” I said, arms crossed as I stared at my friends. Sam, Taryn, and Charlotte stared at me. Obviously confused. “This world? Earth? We aren’t from it.”

“What do you mean. ‘Not from this world’. Are we from Jupiter or something?” Charlotte asked, hands on her hips.

“That’s not what I mean at all. We aren’t from another planet, we’re from another dimension. A book. We came from a book.”

At this revelation they laugh, “That’s impossible!” Taryn says, wiping away the tears. “We can’t come from a book, Katie! That just isn’t possible!”

“But it is.” I tell them, walking closer to them. “We came from a book. Our villain’s dark magic forced us from the pages. She figured out how to leave and forced us, and herself, out. She killed our author right in front of us so the story wouldn’t ever be completed. So she wouldn’t be destroyed.”

“Alright. I’ll bite.” Sam says, obviously humoring me. “If we are actually from a book, then what proof do you have?”

“Proof?”

“If you want us to believe you then you have to have proof. You have to admit Katie; this does seem a little ridiculous.” Proof. Of course they wanted proof! But what proof did I have besides my word?

“Well…” Then it hit me. I had proof. Proof so much stronger than flimsy words. “Wait here.” I told them, darting back into my house, leaving them confused in my backyard. I threw open the door to my bedroom, digging through my closet for it. Tossing clothes and shoes over my shoulders until I found it. “A-ha!”

I tossed a book towards Sam. “Here. Proof. Open it up.”

“A book?”

“Not just any book. Our book. Look at the character’s names. It’s all of us.” I stand beside her, flipping to the second half of the book. “Look. Blank pages. The book was never finished because we aren’t in it anymore.”

“Alright.” Sam says, staring at me with a serious look in her eyes. “What are we going to do?”

I had an easy solution to Sam’s question. We had to become masters of hand-to-hand combat! Or something! And this wasn’t even something to worry about because we already were masters of hand-to-hand combat! Because preteens can be masters of hand-to-hand combat in this fictional universe apparently!

This book had ended with us all ‘reawakening’ our expertise in fighting by me conducting a five-minute fighting session in my backyard. Clearly, basic rules of life like practicing and being actually taught hand-to-hand combat didn’t apply to sixth grade me. If I wanted to be a master of fighting with my friends, then damn it I was going to be one!

I miss not caring about basic logic. It made writing so much easier, and so much more broken. But alas, I can’t play God in my writing. I can only dictate each and everything my character does and the consequences of their actions and their backstory. I can only, basically, play God! Such restriction.

With the story finished I turned it in and eagerly awaited feedback from my teacher. With a few days’ time and no story returned I slowly grew embarrassed of what I had wrote. What if my teacher didn’t understand something? What if she thought it was weird? Then finally, the following week, it was returned to me and I looked through all of her comments. And there, at the end of my work, was the comment. I was practically vibrating with accomplishment, waiting for the end of the day to tell my mother what was on my paper. There, at the end of the story, in pink pen:

“I really enjoyed this! I can’t wait to read more of this!”

I realized years later, in an English class in high school, my sixth grade teacher had probably said this out of kindness. She didn’t want to squash the creativity and imagination of a young girl who wrote about a silly adventure with her friends. But her comment locked into place my desire to tell stories. It’s the reason I doze off in class, day dreaming about perilous quests and terrifying monsters. It’s the reason I spent high school study halls writing down the beginnings of stories that would never see the light of day.

I never did finish that adventure with my friends. When it came time for the next writing assignment I could barely remember anything that had happened, and I had no ideas on where to take that little story. However, in the end, I’m sure we would’ve beaten our villain.

But this comment is not the sole reason that, to this day, I continue to write. I’ll admit that my desire to be a storyteller is rather selfish now. I have always wished to go on some grand, mythic adventure that is only ever read about in fiction. An adventure that would, in any real life instance, kill me within the first five minutes, but, since I am the main character of this adventure, I have at least three whole books to get through before I could be killed off. My life wasn’t dull or awful, but the worlds I read about in stories seemed much more interesting. A world of monsters and magic and objects so powerful and ancient. A grand adventure where against all odds I come out on top surrounded by fame and fortune!

Alright, I admit. I’m greedy in my dreams. Fame and fortune would be too much to ask for when I’m sure my main prayer would be staying alive. But, it is because of this dream that I push forward in my quest to be a storyteller. So at least some piece of me, no matter how small, can go on that adventure with those characters I create.

I began to write without abandon. Constantly starting, and stopping, various projects that I promised to my future self I would make full-fledged books. Thinking of them with bursts of energy and inspiration, but fizzling to a dead stop when I had nowhere to go or nothing to help continue it. Story after story, project after project. All of them abandoned, unfinished in old note books and documents. Waiting to be finished, to be something.

Then it arrived, my senior year, and in a class called Creative writing we were given our first major assignment. We were assigned to write a short story. We had complete creative control. It could be about anything we wanted, as long as it was school appropriate and at least eight pages.

Obviously it would be fantasy. That was the genre I wanted to write in as a professional, so why wouldn’t the short story be fantasy? But I couldn’t just go about this like I had for any other story I had tried to write. I had to take my time. I had to actually plan this one. So I did. I sat down, spiral notebook in hand, and slowly plotted the story I wanted to tell. In all, the outline ended at around 11 pages, and I was ecstatic. I began to write, and that eight-page short story turned to 12 pages, to 17 pages, to 21 pages. I did the only thing I could do after that. I turned it in, and waited.

My teacher loved it, or at least I think she did. That’s what, at most, I could discern from the red ‘Amazing!’ left at the end of the story. Incredibly vague, I agree. But by then her reaction was nothing for me. I’d had a revelation. This was it. The magnum opus of my high school career. My short story was my first book. I sat in study hall, staring at my outline, and grinned to myself. I had the starting point, so I pressed on and transferred that paper outline to my laptop so it would always be with me.

But children who were once lost in forests grow up to rule kingdoms, and friends who save the world from an ambiguous villain grow apart. Little girls who dreamed of adventure never get to go. The inspiration for this story, like all the ones before it, began to extinguish as graduation grew closer. I became bogged down by essays and readings and AP tests. I transferred it, but never touched it again for nearly seven months. I would think about it on the occasion, of course, but never did anything. It wasn’t until the day before I left for college I recalled something about writing.

Renowned author George R. R. Martin believes that there are two types of writers. Gardeners, and architects. Gardeners take an idea and let it run, never knowing what will happen or how it will end. Architects plan every detail, construct a story carefully, know everything that has happened and will happen. He argues that every person is a mixture of both, and that personally he is more gardener than architect. I saw that my father was a gardener in a family of architects, and I realized the issue with my writing. I was living as a gardener, letting the story take me wherever it wanted, but I wasn’t a very good gardener. I was letting it die before it even had a chance to bud. I was an architect. I needed to plan every single detail otherwise the story would never be told, but I had to leave notes for myself. Other options, other dialogues, other plot points. I had to let the ivy grow over the bricks of my bridge.

I sat at my kitchen counter, the day before I left, and opened the document that contained my outline. My issue was that I never forced myself to continue, always making promises to a future me. I sat there, and stared pensively at the white screen of Google Doc. I was at the tail end of eleven pages. I placed my hands down on the keyboard and hit enter to the 12^th page. Slowly, that outline grew. It went from 12 pages, to 25 pages, to 32, 47, 66, and finally 75 pages. Still incomplete, but moving. Ever nagging in the back of my mind to be something, to be finished.

It is easy to decide to be a storyteller. You merely need to open the nearest window and shout ‘I’m a storyteller!’ at whoever is walking by. It is a process to be a storyteller. Just as it is a process to be anything else. Why I am a storyteller is a story that shall forever be incomplete, but in the mean time I have other, more important, projects to be working on.

The wind caught the chimes hanging on the clinic’s door. A sweet tinkling sound emanating from them. Even from this distance Chaos heard them. Incredibly faint, almost nonexistent from the ruckus of the market, but still there.