The story Lern to Dye was first published in 2023 in issue no. 19 of Mystery Tribune, and was later made available through [Barron's Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/c/LairdBarron/posts) on January 24, 2025. The story is about a love triangle between a man named Cray, his wife Bianca and his colleague Gage. The story takes place in the "woodsy neighborhood near Accord". Accord is a town in [[Upstate New York]] just southwest of Kingston. A lot of Barron's stories take place in this general area. Cray owns a bunch of antique weapons that he keeps in good condition using an old whetstone and wheel stone. Among the weapons are a Green River knife, an axe that was used to cut trees on the [[Olympic Peninsula]], a machete from the 1930's and a winged spear that his grandfather used to hunt boar. The Green River knife is a favorite of Laird, also being mentioned in the books [[Black Mountain]] and Worse Angels and in the tale [[Oblivion Mode]]. I guess it doesn't mean anything other than Laird thinks it's a cool knife. In the [[Antiquity]] tales [[The One We Tell Bad Children]] and [[Uncoiling]], the protagonists (an unknown person and [[Isaiah Coleridge]]'s [[Alter Ego]] respectively) also fight using a spear. In the novel Worse Angels, we learn that the real Isaiah Coleridge also owns an old boar spear. In the Antiquity tale [[Bitten by Himself]], protagonist Chick Poe actually utilizes _both a green river knife and a boar spear_! Maybe I should write a separate note about (recurring) weapons specifically. The third [[Isaiah Coleridge Series]] novel [[Worse Angels]] features a character named Badja Adeyemi who lives in a cabin nearby (the probably fictional) Elkhorn Lake. In the final chapter of Worse Angels, Adeyemi tells a story about his uncle Gage. Elkhorn Lake is described as being near New Paltz, which is a twenty minute drive from Accord. All this to say: Gage from Lern to Dye might be related to Adeyemi from Worse Angels. Cray and Bianca's neighbors own a [[Dogs|dog]] that is only described as a [[Black Dog|black dog]]. #Story