Savitri L. Bess

The story of Hickory Stroogle is calligraphed on handmade paper (abaca and cotton linter), illustrated with pulp painting, and put together in individual chapter books (accordion binding and stab stitched)

EXCERPT FROM PROLOGUE:
Hickory awakens to the sound of beaver rustling at the door. Hickory waits; he is old, but not too old to love and remember. He smells the scent of lilac and pine. He imagines. Is she back? No. She is still captive on the neighboring island. No one will warm his bed now. Not until he finds her release.

The sky will lighten soon. Beaver slaps his tail. Hickory pulls himself up to let him in. Now goat bleats, calling. Hickory straddles the three-legged stool while pulling rhythmically on her udder, milk streaming into the birch bucket Lorine made for him at Solstice.

Osprey shimmers through the door when Hickory returns with the milk. Osprey, cheeping, soars towards the cove to fish. High tide waters around the island in the misty archepelego lap against the rocks below the cliffs.


Hickory is an old man now, but not too old to love and remember. Last night he dreamed the ancient creatures again. Yet they do not come.