Theodora Goss's Blog, page 64

The Conference

There was a tree growing out of the dining room table.

It was only an illusion, of course. An oak tree, its trunk thick with years. Its branches reached up to the sky, its roots were covered with moss. On its branches were both leaves and acorns. So wherever the tree was, it was autumn. It must have been a hundred years old, at least.

We could see through all those layers, to the man sleeping inside.

Seeing it there, in Mrs. Moth's dining room, filled me with a sense of despair. It was so close that I could reach out and touch it, and yet what I touched would be – nothing at all, not the bark, not the bole, not the man. And even the illusion of it – you could feel how strong the magic must have been, that was keeping the strongest magician inside a tree. His own magic. Why?

"Thea, how did you learn he was trapped?" asked Mrs. Moth.

"I got a text message," I said. "Here, let me find it."

I went to Saved Messages on my cell phone. "Here."

Thea: No idea how he did it, Merlin trapped himself inside a tree for a thousand years. Go figure. Any idea how to get him out? Morgan

There were text messages after that, most of them from Morgan. Most of them in the same tone. He was her brother, she was used to him getting into trouble of various sorts. Being put in prison in ancient Rome, guillotined in the French Revolution, that sort of thing.

"The problem," said Mrs. Moth, "is that he's disappeared entirely. As Hyacinth has told us, he's not anywhere in the timeline. If the spell is supposed to last for a thousand years, we have no evidence that he ever comes out."

"What could have made him trap himself in a tree like that?" I asked.

"Perhaps someone was threatening him," said Miss Gray.

"The Merlin I know would have fought back," I said. "He fights back even when he knows he's going to lose. He's just like that." And he was. I'd seen some of his bruises. The worst were from gladiatorial games, especially those involving bears. Or the sorts of contests that make magicians have to regenerate body parts.

"Maybe he was protecting someone," said Hyacinth.

"Protecting them by trapping himself in a tree?" I asked.

She shrugged.

"I think we need more information," said Mrs. Moth. "Hyacinth, where is Morgan now?"

"I think she's at the Castle in the Lake," said Hyacinth. "Do you want me to text her?"

"Yes, make sure she's there," said Mrs. Moth. "But I think you'd better talk to her in person. You know how she is. She's going to say it's just him, always getting into trouble. But if he's gone, truly gone, we need to find him. We can't just wait for him to get himself out."

"Can I go with you?" I asked.

"Oh!" said Hyacinth. "To the Castle in the Lake? I don't know." She looked at Mrs. Moth and Miss Gray. "Can she?"

Miss Gray put her head to one said and looked at me, as though I were an interesting specimen in one of her magical botany classes. "Now that's an interesting question. Can Thea go?"

"Why, is it difficult to get there?" I asked.

"That's not the issue," said Miss Gray. "Do you know what the Castle in the Lake is, Thea?"

"I've heard of it," I said. "Isn't it where the Lady of the Lake lives?"

"Not just the Lady of the Lake," she replied. "I'll have to think about this." She looked at Mrs. Moth. "Give me time. I need to do some research."

"Think about what? Time for what?" I asked. But they were already getting up, leaving the dining room.

"Just try not to think about it, Thea," said Hyacinth before she too left. They all had things to do, no doubt. A universe to keep going. I was the only one for whom this was personal.

I couldn't not think about it, of course. I thought about it all the time. But I needed to do something. So I got out the bicycle and rode into Shadow. I went to the public library and checked out some books that had nothing to do with magic or trees. Or love.

I rode back slowly, looking at all the shops: the baker's, the antiques shop, the pub where some of the local farmers were already sitting and telling stories. And for a few minutes at least, I wished that my life could be ordinary.

In the Gardens

Surrounding Mrs. Moth's house are gardens. A series of gardens, all different. When I walk among them, I sometimes forget which one leads into another. Or maybe they move around? I think they move around, sometimes. Just so as not to get bored.

I went out the kitchen door, turned left, and was immediately in the rose walk. In summer, the rose walk is covered with roses, wild ones, small and white. It's like walking through stars. There were no roses now. (There are no roses in this picture either, but if you are clever, and I'm sure you are, you'll see that I'm showing you photographs from my last trip to Mrs. Moth's house, in autumn. Then, the roses had all fallen, their petals scattered like white rags on the ground, until they were washed away by the rains. Now, the walk was just a mass of canes beginning to bud.)

If you go down the walk and turn right, you will see the kitchen garden. Mrs. Moth grows all sorts of vegetables there. My favorite are the peas. Have you ever tried fresh peas? They taste nothing like the frozen ones, and even less like the dried ones. You can eat them right out of the pod. They are sweet, like candy. My second favorite are the tomatoes. How I miss real, ripe tomatoes, right off the vine, in Boston!

If you go to the end of the kitchen garden, you will come to a set of stairs between two hedges. I like stairs in gardens. They always make the gardens seem more mysterious.

Go down them, and you will come out in the orchard. In the orchard there are apple, pears, peaches, those old European plums that taste nothing like the ones we usually get in the grocery stores, cherries. The cherries are my favorite. In Boston they cost so much that I rarely eat them. Imagine having a cherry tree and picking your own, eating as many as you want! Hyacinth and I used to hang the double ones from our ears.

At the bottom of the stairs, you will see an alley, with a wall on one side and a hedge on the other.  Are you starting to get a sense of Mrs. Moth's gardens?  Of how many there are, and how easy it is to get lost in them?

If you turn right and go to the end of the alley, you will come to the secret garden. Unless it's moved, in which case go back and turn left. That may take you there. Or not. But here is the secret garden. It has two fountains. One of them has plants growing in it.

The other has the head of a satyr, with moss growing out of its mouth. It must have been growing for a long time.  Sometimes, to be honest, I don't quite like looking at it.

But this post isn't really about the gardens. The gardens are a way to avoid talking about loss and grief. Because as soon as I got out into the gardens, he was walking by my side: the ghost.

"It's nice today, isn't it?" he said. I was shivering, despite my sweater. I was very glad that Hyacinth had packed my winter clothes.

"Yes, it's nice," I said. I wasn't in the mood to talk to a facsimile, just then.

"I know a riddle," he said. "What has eyes but does not see? What has ears but does not hear? What has hands but cannot touch? What has a mouth, but cannot speak?"

"I have no idea," I said. "What?"

"I don't know," he answered. "I was hoping you could tell me."

If I'd been able to hit him, I would have. Sometimes I had felt that frustration with his original as well. Honestly, a man who disappears at a moment's notice, even if it is to set the universe to rights. That's frustrating, you know?

I had said that he'd never spoken to me as anything other than a friend, but that was not quite true. Once, I had received a letter – one of many letters, this time from the eleventh century, written with a quill pen on vellum. I had a whole collection of them: chiseled into stone, printed on a dot-matrix printer, etched into iridescent metal. At the end of this letter, after a description of the Battle of Hastings, he had written, "By the way, you may be my fate." It had been followed by a smiley face, so I had paid it no attention. After all, he was – well, him. That may have been the sort of thing he said to, I don't know, Marie Antoinette. Or Eleanor of Aquitaine. But I remembered one day we had been walking across the Common, after a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, when he had said to me, "Anthony and Cleopatra were a mess. Still – what would it be like, to have one of the great loves?" Suddenly, I wondered what it would be like to have one of those. Messy, probably. Still –

Where had the ghost gone? While I had been lost in thought, he had disappeared. It was only then that I remembered his riddle: eyes that can't see, ears that can't hear, hands that can't touch, a mouth that can't speak. The man in the tree. Had he found a way to speak, after all? Was this some cryptic effort to communicate? I had no idea. Perhaps Mrs. Moth could tell me.

I looked around me, at the two fountains, the hedges that surrounded the secret garden and that had always made me feel so hidden, so protected there.  Not this time. I shivered, and not because of the cold.

(Just in case you were wondering, here is the difference between Thea and Dora. The first photograph is of Thea, last autumn in one of Mrs. Moth's gardens.

The second photograph is of Dora, in Virginia.

You see? They really are quite different. And what has Dora been doing all this time? She has been working on revising the third chapter, which is due at the end of this month. Despite a truly horrible, heartbreaking week. Sometimes I think her powers of concentration are superhuman.)

What Hyacinth Said

When I got back to Mrs. Moth's house, it was almost dark. I had not meant to spend so long in town.

In the front hall, I saw my suitcases.

"We thought you might like your own clothes," said Mrs. Moth.

"You look pretty funny in mine," said Hyacinth. I gave her a long hug. Hyacinth is one of my favorite people. Although she's not particularly easy to hug. She's so slender that there isn't much there to hold on to, and you're always careful anyway because she seems so delicate.

"Where were you?" I asked her.

"Dinner in half an hour!" said Mrs. Moth, disappearing into the kitchen.

"I'll help you with your suitcases," said Hyacinth.

We walked up the stairs, me following her, both of us lugging suitcases.

"How long are you all expecting me to stay?" I asked.

"As long as it takes," she said.

Up in the tower room, we sat on the four-poster bed, Hyacinth with her legs crossed and me leaning back against the pillows.

"I tried to find him," she said. "I looked everywhere I could think of, in the timestream. Places where we knew he had been."

"And?" It was as though my heart had stopped beating. As though I couldn't breathe.

"He wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere. It's as though he's disappeared into that tree, every version of him."

I didn't know what to say. I had been hoping that if he really was the only one who could get himself out, there would be another one of him, somewhen. I could feel the tears welling up. It would be embarrassing to cry in front of Hyacinth, so cool and proper.

"Thea, tell me what happened," she said. "You were the last to see him."

"But I only saw him go," I said. "We were having breakfast." In my apartment in Boston, where he had come to visit me, for only the second time. What were we to each other? Friends, certainly. Beyond that? I did not know. He had not spoken to me as anything other than a friend, since that kiss in the Other Country. But there had been letters, long telephone calls, telling me about his adventures in other times. The telephone would ring and he would say, "Hello from the fourteenth century, Thea. It's a good thing you're not here. There's a famine, and we've eaten all the horses." Or "I'm hanging out with Marie Antoinette," which I have to admit would make me jealous.

He had shown up the previous night, said "I'm taking you out for a burger. Do you know I haven't had a burger for a hundred years?" and then fallen asleep on the sofa. I had sat watching him for a while: the pale, lean face, the green eyes closed, the mouth open. Snoring slightly.

"We were having breakfast and he got a text message. He said he had to go."

"Sorry, Thea," he had said. "I'll be back before the coffee gets cold." That was the advantage of time travel. It didn't much matter how long anything took. You could be back almost before you had left.

"Did he say who it was?"

"No, he didn't say."

Hyacinth sat silent, with her hands clasped in front of her. "I don't know, Thea. No one knows how he got himself into that tree, or why. What they do know is that he put himself there, and he's the only one strong enough to get himself out. Except Mother Night, and you know she never interferes."

"Not even for him? He's her son."

"Especially not for him."

"Then I'll never see him again," I said. The sense of despair that filled me was – like nothing I had ever felt, like an enormous emptiness inside me. As though I had been hollowed out. I remembered the card Madame Violette had laid down: Night. Except that Night had been filled with stars, and there were no stars in me, only darkness.

"What will I do?" I lay back and looked up at the canopy, which was made of the same burgundy brocade as the curtains.

"I promise we'll think of something," she said. "I promise, Thea." She put her hand on my leg, as though to reassure me. But it didn't. "Listen, let's go down to dinner, all right? We'll talk about it, me and Mrs. Moth and Miss Gray. I'm sure we'll think of something."

At any other time, it would have been such a treat – being at Mrs. Moth's house. After my cold apartment in Boston, being in a place with blazing fires, where breakfast appeared beside your bed each morning, where there were endless paths to walk along over hills, through fields. Even now, I was glad to have such a place to go. It felt more like home than any house I had ever lived in. But how I wished the circumstances could have been different.

"Dinner!" came the call from downstairs.

And so we went down, and I tried to pretend, as I had been pretending for the last week, that the world had not been turned completely upside down.

(For those of you who are curious about what Mrs. Moth's house looks like, I'm including a photograph of a house that looks very much like it. Here it is:

Except of course that Mrs. Moth's house is surrounded by gardens, and an orchard, and fields. And in case you want to now what Thea looks like, here she is, writing in her Boston apartment:

She looks like Dora, except younger. And like she gets more sleep.)

The Man in the Tree

On the way back to Mrs. Moth's house, or rather a short detour from it, there is a sort of waste. What I mean by a waste is land that is no good for farming. It's in the foothills of the mountains, and there are large stones. You can see them sticking out of the ground. Around those stones are the sorts of plants I would call weeds if they weren't so interesting: milkweeds that let their brown seeds fly on white tufts in the autumn, chickory that would be dusky blue when summer came, canes of blackberries that I had to avoid because I did not want to rip Hyacinth's jeans. In autumn I would come back with a bucket to pick them for eating and pie. But now there were no seeds on the wind, no flowers, no berries. The crab apple trees, small and gnarled, that grew here and there had buds on them, that was all. (Mrs. Moth makes the best crab apple jam.)

Now there was nothing but earth, brown stems, brown canes with thorns for me to avoid. Buds on the canes that showed where there would eventually be small white flowers. And stones.

I sat on one of the stones. The waste was higher up than the rest of the country, so I could see all around: on one side down to Shadow, on the other down in the direction of Mrs. Moths' house. I could see all the farms, the neatly plowed earth ready for seeds, the straight hedges. But up on the waste, nothing was straight, nothing was neat. It was all wild and tangled. The wind began to tangle my hair as well.

"Do you like it here?"

He was a pale ghost-version of himself, sitting on the rock beside me. I could see the sky through him.

"I do. I like it a lot. It's peaceful."

"Not pretty."

"It doesn't need to be pretty. I think I like the places that aren't pretty best, anyway."

He was silent for a while, then said, "You seem sad."

"I am," I said. "I am sad. I came here because I lost something."

"What did you lose?" he asked.

"Oh, a friend." I surreptitiously wiped my eyes. I didn't want him to see that.

He began to wave his hands, as though he were conducting an invisible symphony. In front of him, in the air, an image formed: a man, eyes closed. With the living tree around him, the layers of bole and bark. He was so pale, as though dead although I knew he was not dead.

"Is that your friend?" he said. "The one you're sad about?  I found him in your head."

"Yes, that's my friend." I looked at him, so pleased with himself. And then at the man in the tree, his double down to the slant of the cheekbones.

"What's his name?"

"That I can't tell you," I said.

"Because you don't know it?" Oh, I knew it. How well I knew it. As well as I knew my own name. "Maybe I can guess. Is it Rumplestiltskin?"

"No." I smiled, expecting a whole litany of guesses, but that seemed to be the limit of his ingenuity. He was a ghost in more ways than one: ghost of the man, of the intellect.

"Why is your friend sleeping in a tree?" he asked next.

I picked a milkweed pod from the previous autumn that still has some seeds in it. I set them sailing on their white tufts. "He became trapped. He's been trapped for a long time." That's the problem with time travel. You become trapped in the past and live on into the present. It helps to be immortal.

"Why can't you get him out?"

"He's the only one who can get himself out. He got himself in, you see." I'm sure he had very good reasons. He always seemed to have good reasons for what he did. But there he was, in consequence: trapped in the bole of a tree for a thousand years. "He could get himself out if he could just remember who he is. But no one can tell him, he has to discover it for himself."

"Who is he?" asked the ghost. I reached over, tried to touch his translucent hand, felt only the stone underneath. Not even to be able to touch . . .

"He's the greatest magician who was ever born. Only he can break his own spell."

"Oh, I see." But he didn't. He never did, never would. He was just a projection, the shallowest recollection of the man in the tree, some charm, some parlor tricks. All I had left of what had once been. I looked at the man who seemed dead but was not. How would he ever get out? How would he ever remember what he was, the power he had? His own name? The magic he wielded?

I blew on the image of the man in the tree and it vanished. As I walked away from the waste, glad to have spent a while even with his ghost, I looked back once: the ghost was still there, sitting on the stone, watching a line of ants. You once moved galaxies, I wanted to tell him.

But what was the use? He would be amused, would not understand. I got back on the bicycle and headed toward Mrs. Moth's house. It was getting cold, and I knew there was dinner waiting.

What the Cards Said

Next morning, I helped Miss Gray in the garden. We cut away the canes that had died over the winter, leaving the strong canes and fresh new growth. The roses would be splendid in June. I always think the names of roses are like an incantation: Cuisse de Nymphe, Cardinal de Richelieu, Comte de Chambord, Madam Hardy. We also cut back some of the clematis.

Then, I took the bicycle and headed into town. Hyacinth was somewhere or other ("You know, on Mother Night's business," said Mrs. Moth), so I borrowed a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt to wear under my cardigan. Miss Gray lent me a jacket.

I rode along, ringing the bell whenever I felt like it until I got into town, and then left the bicycle outside the café. Even in Shadow, there is a café. (The town is called Shadow. The countryside around it is called the Shadowlands. I'm not sure how far the Shadowlands extend. Sometimes I think they are everywhere.)

I had a cappuccino and a biscuit, and then I went to the bookstore and looked at the books.

There, you see? That's my cappuccino and biscuit. In the bookstore I bought a notebook, because I had not brought one with me, and what is a writer without a notebook? I thought, perhaps later I will write some poetry. About roses, or cappuccino, or something.

When I looked out the window of the bookstore, I saw the sign: Madame Violette, Fortuneteller.

Of course I went over to the store front, looked in to see the necklaces with their astrological signs and saw mine, the swan. (These were astrological signs based on the stars of the Other Country. There are other stars, other constellations there.) There were incense sticks, books on divination and vegetarian cooking, small statues of Mother Night (which did not look much like her). I had not seen the store before; it had not been there the last time I visited the Shadowlands.

I went in. The girl behind the counter (really a girl, only about fifteen, hiding behind her long black hair) said "Can I help you?"

"Is Madame Violette in?" I asked. "I'd like to have my fortune told."

"In the back," she said, nodding toward a door toward the back of the store, behind a rack of dresses that looked as though they were made of various things: peacock feathers, tree bark, snow. (Just patterns, as I saw when I passed them and put out my hand to feel. But so realistic.)

I opened the door. I had been opening a lot of doors lately: the door to Mrs. Moth's house, the door to the café, the door to the bookstore, all of which had wonderful things behind them. What would this door have behind it?

A small room, with a round table at the center. It looked perfectly ordinary and pleasant. There were shelves filled with books, and on top of one shelf a brass vase with peacock feathers in it. A woman was sitting at the table. She looked perfectly ordinary and pleasant as well: in a white cotton blouse with a sweater, looking rather like a librarian. She wore spectacles, with a chain to keep them around her neck when she took them off.

"Hello, dear," she said. "Shuffle the cards."

There was a deck of cards on the table.

"I'd like my fortune told," I said. "How much will it cost?"

"Oh, the fortune-telling is free. Of course we hope you'll buy something in the shop afterward. My daughter will be happy to help you."

So the girl hiding behind her black hair was Madame Violette's daughter. They did look somewhat alike, at least around the nose (which was almost all I could see of the girl). It was a sharp nose, and Madame Violette's spectacles were perched halfway down it.

I sat on one of the chairs and shuffled, then put the deck back on the table.

Madame Violette pulled a card from the top of the deck.

"This is where you are now: the Tree."

And another.

"This is what you are leaving behind: Night. This is where you are going: the Moon. This is what will help you: the Cat. This is what will hinder you: the Snake. This is what you will need to find: the Book."

She laid all the cards in front of me. A tree, rather like a oak, growing up to the sky. When I looked closely, I could see a small person climbing through the branches. Really climbing: the picture on the card moved. The Night card, dark although with stars. The Moon card, pale in the daylight but with all the craters articulated. The Cat card, on which the cat was washing itself. It looked like Cordelia. The Snake card, on which the snake looked green and poisonous. It reared back to strike, but of course it could not, being cardboard. The Book card. It was open to a page that started "I opened the door. I had been opening a lot of doors lately . . ."

"And this is your card, the card that represents you: the Singer."

"Well, that's ironic," I said, "since I don't know how to sing."

"It's not that kind of singer," said Madame Violette.

When I looked closely, I noticed that the singer had red hair. She looked like me, except that she was carrying a harp. And I wouldn't know what to do with a harp.

"It's symbolic," said Madame Violette, as though she had read my thoughts.

"What do they all mean?" I asked.

"I lay out the cards," she said. "I don't tell you what they mean. You need to find the meanings for yourself."

Isn't that always the way it is? In life. You always have to find the meanings for yourself. Sometimes I hate that.

I did buy something in the store: the necklace with the swan on it. The girl behind the counter gave me change without coming out from behind her hair.

"Thanks," I said. And then, impulsively, "I'm Thea. I'm staying in town for a while. Well, outside town. With Mrs. Moth."

She looked at me for a moment, then said, "I'm Violet. We just moved here."

"Do you like it?" I asked her.

"Not particularly," she said. And then she looked down and began rearranging the necklaces on the tray.

"Well, I hope you have a good day," I said. She did not answer, so I took my package and went out into the sunlight. The Tree, Night, the Moon, the Cat, the Snake, the Book, the Singer. I had no idea what they meant. I put the notebook and necklace I had bought into the bicycle basket, bought some bread Mrs. Moth has asked for and a bouquet of daffodils, and headed out of town and back to Mrs. Moth's house.

A Sudden Trip

The train station says Shadowlands.

That's where I get off. I'm the only one. I'm wearing a gray wool coat that looks a little like a cape, and a shawl that Mrs. Moth knitted for me. A gray skirt and cardigan, black tights, and my black leather boots that tie up the front. They look almost like work boots. I'm carrying a basket that had my lunch in it, and still has a novel. I didn't read the novel. I just stared out the window as we came through the mountains. They look rather like the mountains in Switzerland. You don't realize how tall they are when you're among them. And then you come out into the valley, and there you are, at the small train station that says Shadowlands.

There's no one to meet me. I didn't tell them I was coming. (I didn't know myself until this morning.)

But here I am, and there's a long walk ahead of me. At least it's spring. Well, the beginning of spring, which means that it's actually cold, although I can see the green tips of crocuses pushing out of the ground. And buds on the forsythias by the train station.

I walk through the town, and it's getting late so the shops are starting to close. I walk into the baker's and buy a loaf of bread, hearty, filled with raisins. He gives it to me for half price, since it's the end of the day. I eat it as I walk along the road I know so well, although usually I'm in a car or riding a bicycle. Once I'm past the town, and it doesn't take long to get through it, it's all country. There are farms in the distance, and the road is lined with trees that hang over it, with gray and silver bark. I wish I knew what they were. I should have brought a book on trees, I think, rather than a murder mystery.

It's almost dark by the time I get there. I turn into the drive. The house is large, stone, just the way I remember. With a fountain out front, in the middle of the circular end of the drive. It's not working now, it's just a sort of stone pool. But I go say hello to the fish. Cordelia is sitting on the other side of the pool, and she stares at me for a minute, then finally says, "You're back."

"I decided to visit," I say.

"You didn't tell anyone," she says accusingly.

"No, I didn't," I say. "I just decided this morning."

She does not say anything else, just looks at me disdainfully. But that's what she usually does.

I walk up to the front door and knock.

It is a door that has always opened for me, although sometimes it will not open unless you know the secret word, or have brought an appropriate gift, or know magic. (I know magic. But don't tell, all right?)

And it opens, and Mrs. Moth say, "I'm in the middle of knitting you another scarf. I hope you like green, with brown bits in it. Have you had tea?"

And I say "Yes, very much, brown bits," and I sit in front of the fire and tea is brought for me, and Mrs. Moth and Miss Gray sit on either end of the sofa, the first knitting my scarf, the second embroidering something impossibly delicate, like white work on a linen handkerchief, and the first says "All right, out with it," and the second says, "Leave the girl alone, Nemesis."

And I say, "I just felt as though I needed to come, that's all."

And a few minutes later I say, "It's all impossible, isn't it?" and Miss Gray says "What is, dear?" and I say "Life," and Mrs. Moth says "Of course it is, if it weren't it wouldn't be life," and Miss Gray says "That makes no sense at all."

And I pull my feet up (yes, I have taken off my boots) and curl up in the armchair, and I finish my tea.

Later there will be a hot bath and a cotton nightgown which will be too long for me (I didn't even bring clothes, and Hyacinth is taller than I am), and I will curl up in the large four-poster in the tower room that always seems to be kept for me, no matter when I come. And I will read whatever I find, which will probably be some of the books I read as a schoolgirl, about other girls who are detectives or witches or both. And Mrs. Moth will look in and say, "It's impossible in many ways, you know. Impossibly beautiful as well. Impossibly difficult, which means we have to be impossibly brave. And sometimes impossibly kind to those it loves."

"Does life love me?" I ask her.

"It does, Thea," she tells me. "You are one of those whom life loves. And sometimes that makes what seems impossible possible for you. Now go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a sunny day, and Emily needs help in the garden."

I know what that means: pruning. But that's all right, I've always liked pruning, especially roses. Getting the garden ready for spring.

So I fall asleep, curled up in that large bed, among feather pillows, and dream of impossible adventures. Except that in my dreams, they are possible after all.

Why Go to Conventions?

I was asking myself the above question, coming back from ICFA. There are certainly plenty of reasons not to go to conventions. The main one is of course expense: I usually budget about $600 for a convention, with airfare, a hotel room, and food. That's a lot of money. And of course there's always an investment of time as well. I asked that question in particular after ICFA because usually I'm working much harder at conventions. At Boskone, for example, I was on six panels and did a reading. At ICFA I did a reading, that's all I was officially scheduled for. And then I also participated in a podcast for Locus. I spent a lot of time just sitting and talking to people. So what did I actually get out of the convention?

I'm going to list these as they come to me, so not in any particular order. But I met Peter Straub and was able to tell him how much I liked the issue of Conjunctions he had edited. I was also able to meet Rachel Swirsky for the first time. And I had a chance to sit down and talk with Jeff Ford, who is usually difficult to catch because he's so busy at conventions himself. So I was able to meet and talk with people I had not met before or don't see all that often. I had a chance to talk with Veronica Schanoes and Helen Pilinovsky, who are both wonderful scholars of the fantastic, and remind them that I was now editing Folkroots, so if they had ideas for columns, they should contact me. I talked to Brian Attebery about my dissertation. He reminded me about the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts and encouraged me to submit a scholarly article. I had brought ten books for the book room, all of which sold by the second day, so I ended up signing those books and a bunch of other things I had written. I also delivered a contract and received a check. I've been told I can tell you about that project, so here it is:

It's an anthology called Kafkaesque: Stories After Kafka, and it's going to be edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel, and published by Tachyon Books. It's going to include stories about Kafka or that show Kafka's influence in some way, and Jim and John are going to include my story "The Rapid Advance of Sorrow." I've seen the table of contents, and although I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to reveal that yet, it's going to be a wonderful book.

Based on my conversations with them about Kafkaesque, I came up with an anthology idea of my own and started discussing it with people in the anthology business. This one I won't talk about, because it's just an idea. But that's certainly one reason to go to conventions: ideas start bouncing around, and before you know it, you have an anthology project to work on.

There were other smaller things, like meeting Connie Willis for the first time (smaller only because I didn't actually get to talk to her, but certainly important), catching up with people like Andy Duncan, Paul Park, Ted Chiang, Gary Wolfe, Farah Mendelsohn, and generally getting a sense for what was going on in the writing world. And also, and this really is significant to me personally, meeting students in MFA programs and young writers in general who told me they read and liked my work. That means a lot, and it's one of the things that motivates me on days when I don't have as much motivation as I should.

So, I'm not sure I can do a cost-benefit analysis. The $600 was worth it to me, not because of the things I was scheduled to do, or even the unscheduled but relatively official things like the Locus podcast. It was worth it because of all the unscheduled, unofficial things. Because of the connections I made or renewed.

Why go to conventions? I would always argue for doing as much as you can at each convention. Take the panels, take the opportunities to moderate. But I think the only answer to the question I posed is: because you never know what will happen, what you will get out of it. You might get to meet someone, get a story idea, get a stronger or perhaps different sense of yourself as a writer. That's why I would go.

This morning I boarded a plane at 6:00 a.m., and although I did get some sleep after arriving in Lexington, I'm still very tired. And I've come back to a significant amount of work, waiting to be done. There's something magical about a convention, about being with so many people working on projects, discussing ideas. It's an intensely creative space, and while you're in it, you feel more alive. So there's always a feeling you get – or at least I get, when I come back. It's a sense of deflation, that I'm back to ordinary life now. It always makes me feel a little sad. So I just need to make sure that my ordinary life has that creativity, that magic, in it as well. Even if it doesn't have a lake, or a sign that says not to feed the alligators, or incredibly smart people sitting around and talking about their work.

The Banquet

I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to, and the ones I took didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, because there was just so much to do. I was banqueting rather than being a photographer. And I didn't really get the dresses after all, because there just wasn't time.

But here are my final pictures from ICFA.

So first of all we have the dress, in all its – well, simplicity, because there really isn't much to it. I actually wore it to the Wiscon banquet last year, so I really should have given some other dress a turn. But at Wiscon, I didn't have the particular pair of shoes I wore tonight, and I did want to wear those. (As so often in life, it was all about the shoes.)

Here is the dress as it looked in the hotel room mirror. And, you know, here is me. Looking yellow.

And here are me and Veronica Schanoes and Helen Pilinovsky and Richard Butner. (Veronica's and Helen's dresses were amazing.)

First there was a reception, where I got a glass of wine and took pictures of Christopher Rowe, John Kessel, Barbara Gilly, Gary Wolfe, Ellen Klages, and Farah Mendelsohn.

Then we went into the banquet (you can see a general banquet picture on the left, below). I sat with some amazing people: Marie Brennan, Veronica, Helen, Helen's husband Jonas Oxgaard, Nisi Shawl, Karen Lord (who had won the Crawford), and Siobhan Carroll.

We were right next to the tables with most of the Dell Award finalists. Some were sitting with Sheila Williams, some with Ted Chiang.

I took pictures of some of the people on the podium: Farah, Andrea Hairston, Sydney Duncan, Terry Bisson, Paul Park, Connie Willis, and Gary, with James Patrick Kelly fomenting rebellion as usual.

Afterward, there were drinks by the pool. This vilanous lot is me with Jim and John.  What evil plans were they coming up with, do you think?

I went up to my room fairly early, around midnight. And, as you can see, collapsed into a heap.

Tomorrow I fly back to Boston. I will miss ICFA, but next year the theme is the monstrous fantastic, and I will most definitely be back for that!

More from ICFA

When we left our heroine, she was feeling sick and going to bed. After a good night's sleep, she felt ready to return to her usual daytime activity (conquering the world). Well, almost ready. Her eyes still felt tired. But she knew there was a reading at 10:30 a.m. with Jeff Ford, Richard Butner, and Connie Willis, and she did not want to miss it.

Here is our heroine, feeling sick last night, and up and about this morning:

Why, oh why, do I post photographs of myself on this blog, when about half the time they show me in states of disrepair? With green goop on my face, or first thing in the morning before I've even showered? It's partly because when I read someone's blog, I like knowing what that person looks like. There is something disturbing about not seeing someone's face. It's as though you're not quite sure whom you're talking to. The other reason comes, believe it or not, from Oprah and her ilk, women who have their own magazines and are always on the covers. Now, I am not Oprah, nor was meant to be, but there's something important, I think, in making that gesture. It's easy to dismiss as self-aggrandizement, but I don't think that's what it is. Rather, it's a way of taking responsibility. It's a way of saying, this is my magazine, and I am responsible for its contents. And this is the way I look, on good days and on bad days. (Of course, I have a lot more bad days, and significantly fewer makeup artists, than Oprah.)

Having written that, I do not actually walk through conventions as though I'm posing for magazine covers, so here are some more realistic pictures of me from this morning. Sitting in Hotel Room Dora, and Going Downstairs to the Convention Dora. No, I don't know what happened to my eyes. Pollen?

Our intrepid heroine bought her yogurt and made her reading. Here are Sydney Duncan making introductions and Jeff Ford directly after his reading, sitting in the audience next to John Kessel:

And here are Richard Butner and Connie Willis reading:

And here are Richard, Connie, and Jeff answering questions. What an enthusiastic audience (Cecilia Holland, Barbara Gilly, Christopher Rowe, and Gwenda Bond)!

After the reading, we all went out to the pool for the Locus photograph, which will be in the next Locus, and then I went to meet Karen Burnham, Eileen Gunn, Paul Park, and Cecelia Holland. We went upstairs and participated in a Locus podcast, which should be available in about a week. (I'll link to it, of course.) By that point, I was starving about a quarter of the way to death (well, I don't want to exaggerate too much), so I bought a sandwich and went out to eat on the dock by the lake.

There, I met my lizard friend. Afterward, our heroine was particularly intrepid and went upstairs to put on her swimsuit, despite the fact that she does not remember the last time she exercised (but it's been weeks) and she feels as though she is in terrible shape. Nevertheless, she went to the pool (which you see here through the palm trees) and swam with the Dell/Alpha contingent. (To the male friend who asked if she was going to post a picture of herself in her swimsuit, she says, "You're joking, right?")

And that's it for now. The reason I'm posting early today is that later tonight there will be a banquet, and everyone will be dressed up, and I want to get pictures of all the dresses. And I'll be posting those separately. I figure, conventions and conferences need fashion photographers too. Officially, Locus fills that role. But why can't I be one of those fashion bloggers – for the science fiction and fantasy community? After all, not all of us dress like Princess Leia. (Yes, I mean the Jabba the Hut scene, and no, I'm not dressing like that. And yes, this comment is meant for the same male friend who asked about the swimsuit.  Seriously, dude.) We're fashionable too, as you'll see later. In an individualistic and sometimes nerdy sort of way. (Nerdy being one of my highest compliments.)

That's all I have for now. Our heroine is tired and will probably lie down for a while. After all, she anticipates being up until – well, tomorrow, actually.

Signing off,

Worn Out

I did it. I wore myself out.

I've been rushing around so much in the last few days. Well, you know. You're on this journey with me. You saw me writing feverishly, finishing a project before I left for ICFA. You saw me pack, get on the plane, fly to Florida. Even when I was sitting by the lake, I was talking and talking, making connections with friends. Which is important, so important for me. But.

(I forgot to tell you, before I left Boston I was on my Blackberry because this year Wiscon had snuck up on me, and I realized that I not only did not have a reading arranged, but no room to sleep in. So I emailed friends, and by the time I landed in Orlando I had a reading, and by the time I got to the hotel I had a room. What would I do without you, beloved Blackberry? And beloved friends? Not in that order. But still, I am worn out.)

Today I woke up at 7 a.m. to get ready for a reading at 8:30. I decided to wear a skirt.

I took some pictures before the reading started. There were more people in the audience than you see here, but still, it was an 8:30 a.m. reading. This is what they look like. You probably remember who I was reading with: James Patrick Kelly and Rachel Swirsky.

But on the side of the room you don't see were John Kessel, Paul Park, and Andy Duncan. I would read just for those three, any day. What you do see above is the contingent of Dell Award winners and Alpha students, who are some of my favorite people.

After the reading, I sat and signed with Jim and Rachel. Bernie Goodman brought – well, probably everything I've ever published, for me to sign.

I took a couple more pictures, of the hallway and Jim signing.

Then, I went to the book room because the five books I had initially given them had sold almost immediately. So I gave them the last five. No books to take home!

Then I went to the Guest Scholar's Luncheon, where Andrea Hairston gave an absolutely wonderful talk about – well, it covered so many things, but it was about District Nine and African cultures and colonialism. I hope it's published soon, because I know it's the sort of article that will interest people both in the academic and writer communities. Among other things, Andrea praised the work of Nnedi Okorafor, who was one of my Clarion classmates and has become a wonderful, and truly significant, writer of science fiction and fantasy that often touches on issues of race and culture. I'm very proud to have been at Clarion with her! I sat at a table with the Dell/Alpha contingent. Have I mentioned that they are some of my favorite people? And some of them are my former students!

Their success is the best advertisement for the Alpha Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Workshop for Young Writers.

But by that point I was starting to feel tired and ill. No matter what I did, I couldn't seem to get warm. So I went up to my room, changed into my pajama pants, and crawled into bed. And I slept.

I'm still not feeling well, but at least I'm up, and later I think I'll try to get some dinner. This happens, when I drive myself too hard. And I have been driving myself hard lately. I feel almost as though I can't lose a moment.

While reading Hecate's blog post "Synchronicity: Wherever You Go, There It Is," I came across some lines from Mary Oliver's poem "The Summer Day":

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?"

I think I've been trying to answer that question by doing and doing. And honestly, that's my best answer right now. But at some points I think I have to rest too, or I'll end up as I am, sitting in front of this computer in a t-shirt, sweater (because so cold, although I've set the thermostat at 80), and pajama pants, with messy hair. Thinking I'll have to get dressed at some point, go down and get dinner for myself. But I think I'll spend the rest of the evening up here, just by myself, in the silence. Maybe reading. After all, I need that too.