Sticks

"Sticks" is a short story by Karl Edward Wagner. The story received first publication in the March 1974 issue of Whispers. It was reprinted in Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, revised edition (Arkham House, 1990).
==Synopsis==
Colin Leverett, an artist specialising in horror artwork, takes a fishing trip into the Adirondack Mountains in New York in the spring of 1942, where he finds an old abandoned house. The ruin has been encircled by weird arrangements of sticks, with bundles tied together in odd patterns. Leverett sketches the patterns before entering the house, where he is attacked by a lich in the basement. He narrowly escapes and flees the area. 
Around 1970, Leverett is contacted by his friend Prescott Brandon, a small-press publisher, who asks him to illustrate a collection of the works of noted horror author H. Kenneth Allard (based on H.P. Lovecraft). Leverett hits upon the idea of using his old sketches of the sticks as the basis of the artwork for the commissioned work. 
The artist is later approached by Allard's nephew, who wants him to do the art for a new volume of Allard's previously unpublished works--featuring all the images of the sticks he has. Accepting the job draws Leverett into a potentially world-ending occult conspiracy.
==Setting==
Mann Brook is a real body of water in upstate New York, located, as in the story, between the towns of Ostelic and DeRuyter.
==Characters==
*Colin Leverett, an artist for pulp magazines "whose fascination for the macabre was evident in his art." He fights in Italy's Appenine Mountains during World War II.
*Prescott Brandon, a friend of Leverett's and the editor/publisher of Gothic House, a small press based in Salem, Massachusetts, that specializes in weird fantasy.
*H. Kenneth Allard, a weird fiction writer. His books include Voices from the Shadow, Unhallowed Places and Dwellers in the Earth. His works feature the mythical Book of Elders of Alorri-Zrokros.
*Dana Allard, Allard's nephew, from Petersham, Massachusetts.
*Dr. Alexander Stefroi, an archaeologist, an "earnest scholar" of the occult history of New England and upstate New York. He lives in Pelham, Massachusetts.
==Behind the Mythos==
It has been suggested that the protagonist is based on Clark Ashton Smith, due to biographical similarities. 
The twig lattices were directly inspired by the artwork of Weird Tales artist Lee Brown Coye. This artist illustrated two Carcosa Press volumes of which Wagner was the editor. 
== Legacy==
"Sticks" has been surprisingly influential, despite its relative current obscurity. The similarities between the weird stick bundles in "Sticks" and those in The Blair Witch Project -- which also features an abandoned house in the woods -- have been repeatedly remarked upon. The first season of the HBO series True Detective also made use of Wagner's sticks motif.
Category:Karl Edward Wagner works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works