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The Turn of The Story, Part Two

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

Today is the day that Team Human, the book I wrote with Justine Larbalestier, is out in paperback. For them who like paperbacks, and fun stories.

I also thought that meant it might be a good day to give you the next part of The Present, a story about going to a magical land and being a total git about everything in it, including the lack of indoor plumbing. The first part of the story can be found here.

The Turn of the Story, Part II

Thirteen

It wasn’t that Luke caused all the terrible things at the Border camp to happen. It was mostly just that he was the one who told Elliot about them, and so it seemed like they were all his fault.

Elliot chose to blame Luke anyway.

“What is the point of parents’ day?” he demanded at yet another Bad News Lunchtime.

“Men are naturally attached to their homes,” Serene said sympathetically. “I believe that parents are allowed to visit to ease their hearts and assure them of their familial affection. I have been going on hunting expeditions away from home since I was a squire, of course, so a visit from my parents will not be required. Are your parents not capable of crossing the Border?”

“Nope,” said Elliot, whose father believed he was at military school and who he would never have dreamed of asking anyway.

“My parents are coming,” said Luke.

“Okay.”

“So’s my sister Louise.”

“Good for you,” said Elliot.

“Serene’s going to come with us,” Luke said. “We’re going to have a picnic.”

“This is a very boring story, loser,” said Elliot, instead of saying ‘Quit rubbing it in.’ “Did it sound different in your head?”

“You can come if you like,” said Luke. “Since nobody else is going to ask you, and everyone should have something to do on parents’ day.”

“That’s all right,” said Elliot. “I actually can’t imagine anything worse than having to attend an all Sunborns, all the time parade.”

On parents’ day he went to the library, because it was amazing in the library and he loved it there, and today he had promised himself a special treat: he was going to read a contemporary account of the great harpies battle over the Forest of the Suicides.

He had to put on special gloves and turn the pages carefully, under Bright Eyes the librarian’s watchful gaze.

It was a really enjoyable half hour until Luke showed up.

“So sorry,” said Elliot politely to Bright Eyes. “Are you lost?”

Luke was giving the library his usual look of unhappy mistrust. In fact, now Elliot was paying attention, he looked more downcast than usual: it probably could not all be attributed to the library. Possibly someone had made fun of his hair.

“You have to come to the picnic,” he said.

“Why?” Elliot snapped.

“My parents are expecting you,” Luke said reluctantly, as if each word was a tooth that had to be pulled.

“Why?” Elliot repeated, inflexibly.

“I don’t know why, Elliot!” Luke snapped back. “I didn’t tell them you were coming. But they asked where you were, and I said you were in the library, and they said to go fetch you, then.”

“How did you know I was in the library?”

“Oh, come on,” said Luke.

The whole thing seemed very mysterious to Elliot, but he trailed after Luke out to the fields—oh, lovely, Elliot could never get enough of fields. Even if Luke had not known where he was going, it would have been easy to spot the Sunborns: every one of them was tall and the kind of person you looked at, with golden hair that shone in the sun as if a whole host of tiny suns had congregated on a picnic blanket. Serene sat among them looking very dark and pale and solemn indeed, but if you knew her you could tell she was happy to be there.

There was a man who had to be Luke’s father with shoulders basically the size of a mountain range, they should probably have a name, and the girl Serene was sitting beside who Elliot assumed was Louise. She was very grown-up looking—she was eighteen, Luke had said—and her hair was all done up in a coronet of braids, and she was about the most beautiful person Elliot had ever seen. Weird magic land might not have electricity, but he had to admit it was full of hotties.

The other woman stood up, her bright hair flying like a flag, as they approached.

“Well here the boys are at last,” she said, and gave Elliot a hug.

“Oh my God,” said Elliot, somewhat muffled, into Luke’s mother’s bosom. It was not entirely covered, and she was wearing a very large, very ornate golden necklace. Elliot was not sure if he should be worried about being suffocated or having his eyes put out by one of the jewels.

“I’m Rachel Sunborn,” said Luke’s mother. “You must be little Elliot.”

She released him and Elliot reeled back, breathing in deep grateful lungfuls of air.

“I may be slightly below average height at present, but I am the same age as Luke,” said Elliot. “I’m very sorry for being late. I didn’t realize you were expecting me. I think Luke must have confused the issue somehow. His command of the English language is not all it could be. Well, you must have noticed that for yourself.”

“Nice command of the English language you have there, genius,” said Luke. “Very appropriate way to talk when you’re a guest.”

Elliot took a deep breath. Rachel Sunborn laughed.

“You are just like I thought you would be from Luke’s letters,” she said. “Come sit by me, Elliot, and tell me how you got Luke to actually learn facts about ancient history.”

“Mum!” said Luke.

“And he knows his way to the library and everything!” said Rachel Sunborn, rumpling Luke’s sunny hair as he went by her on a quest for consolation and sandwiches. “My little man. It’s a miracle.”

She patted the place beside her. Elliot cautiously went over to it, and sat beside her. She ruffled his hair, too, and pulled him in occasionally for another suffocating hug. She asked him to tell her the story about the throwing knives in his own words and laughed when he did.

Elliot got the impression, due to all the laughter, that she didn’t take him particularly seriously. But she was a very lovely lady, he decided after a while. It must be nice, to have a mother like that.

“And you don’t have to worry about your safety if the camp is attacked,” Louise Sunborn added, with a lazy stretch like a lioness. “We’ll all protect you. None of us have ever missed a target with a knife. Except Luke.”

“I was six!” said Luke.

Louise laughed and they had a casual wrestling match, there on the picnic blanket, which was only interrupted by Michael Sunborn asking about Luke’s Trigon games. Elliot bore nobly with this boring subject and was relieved when it turned to the fact that Luke and Serene were going to be sent on their first mission, accompanying a new captain and a band of the third and fourth years to witness the signing of peace treaties between a small village and the nymphs who lived in a wood near them.

“You’re going into the forest?” Elliot asked. “To talk to nymphs? I want to go!”

“Right, Elliot, but you can’t,” Luke explained. “Because only those in war training go on missions, since they are the ones who can protect themselves. Those in council training stay where it’s safe in camp, and go over the papers.”

“All we want is your safety,” Serene contributed.

“Do you hear what I’m saying, Elliot?” asked Luke. He sounded anxious. Elliot thought that was very wise.

“I do, Luke,” he said, so earnestly that it made Rachel Sunborn laugh again. “I do hear what you’re saying.”

He didn’t know why Serene and Luke had to act so surprised when they uncovered the supplies wagon on their mission and found that he had stowed away in it. He understood everyone else wandering around saying that they couldn’t believe his behaviour, but he’d hoped they were coming to know him better than that.

He forgot that disappointment, and stopped paying attention to the lecture Captain Whiteleaf—who seemed a dull and unimaginative man—was giving him, when he looked around at the woods.

This far from the Border, there were harpies in the skies, like lion-sized eagles pinwheeling in the sky. He could hear water trickling somewhere, and if he followed the sound he might find mermaids. There was light brimming around and wind rushing through the leaves of the trees, and as the leaves rustled together Elliot heard a few words in the wind, and knew it was not his imagination. He knew it was nymphs.

Elliot forgot about the wonder of the woods when they bullied him into helping with the tents, despite his protests that he’d left Boy Scouts at their first meeting, within the first five minutes, when they had told him that he had to make his bed every day.

Elliot spent a good deal of his time on the mission explaining that these living conditions were too horrible to be borne, and speculating on who would die of a chill first because nobody had proper medical care available in the otherlands.

Eventually they gave him the treaties between the nymphs of the Aegle Wood and the nearby village to shut him up, with the air of people offering a toy to a child. ‘See, council course people like papers,’ the captain might as well have said. ‘Lovely papers!’

Then Captain Whiteleaf went off to hunt rabbits with the rest of the mission. Serene always brought home more than the captain or any of the others did: the older boys, Elliot noted, had grown more and more polite the more they saw her use her bow.

Elliot was huddled by the fire when he saw them coming back, reading the papers over and over.

“Something’s very wrong,” he announced as Serene and Luke sat down.

“You’re not going to die of a chill,” said Luke. “I will give you my cloak if you promise to shut up.”

“I may well die of a chill, I refuse to shut up, and I’ll take your cloak,” said Elliot. “But this isn’t about that. Look at these papers.”

Serene drew close to him and began to read them with some interest. Luke stared blankly.

“They’re the treaties for the nymphs and villagers to sign,” he said. “There’s one treaty, and there’s the other. What’s your point?”

“Sometimes people like to do this cool thing with words called ‘reading them,’” Elliot explained. “These treaties say different things.”

He looked toward Serene, who he had faith would understand, and saw the pin-scratch line of a frown between her dark eyebrows. “Considerably different,” she observed.

“There are all sorts of restrictions in the nymphs’ contracts,” said Elliot. “Conditions for this peace, ceding territory to the villagers, agreeing to stay off the villagers’ paths while the villagers can go into their woods and chop down their trees.”

“Well,” said Luke. “Naturally they’re going to be a bit different. The villagers are human, and the nymphs aren’t. I mean—it’s not like the elves, who are practically human—”

“Speak for yourself,” muttered Serene.

“The nymphs are our allies, of course,” Luke said hastily. “And they’re not like—like the beast kind, like mermaids and harpies, they’re good mostly, but they’re a bit… well, different, you know?”

“They’d better be really different,” said Elliot. “If someone gave me this treaty to sign, I wouldn’t do it. I’d be insulted.”

“You are insulted by people saying ‘good morning,’” Luke pointed out.

Elliot paid no attention to this slander, thought for a few more minutes, and climbed to his feet. “I’m going to talk to the captain.”

Serene got up silently to join him, and Luke said: “Oh no, no you are not.”

“I am simply going to reason with him,” said Elliot, extremely reasonably.

“You chose to come on this mission, so you’re a soldier. You cannot disobey your commanding officer on a mission.”

“I’m not a soldier,” said Elliot. “Not ever.”

He looked around the woods, listened to the snap and crackle of the fire and the rustle of leaves that were nymphs talking just beyond the cusp of human hearing. He let the magic calm him, and then he spoke again.

“I’m just going to talk to him and point out a few things that may have escaped his notice,” he said. “There’s no harm in that.”

“Fine,” said Luke. “Then I’m going with you two, to make sure that’s all you do. This is no time for your stupid games. I mean it.”

Elliot started to wonder whether they were brainwashing everyone in the war training course to think alike when Captain Whiteleaf listened to Elliot’s description of what was wrong with the two treaties and said: “Why do you think this is a good time for your stupid games?”

Elliot stood in the centre of the captain’s tent, which he had set up to look like a miniature version of Commander Rayburn’s office complete with desk and candle, and stared.

“We want peace between these two peoples,” he said. “A peace achieved like this won’t hold.”

“And how would you know?” the captain asked. “You’re a child.”

“I know because it’s… really obvious?” said Elliot, and Luke gave the cough which was a signal for ‘Too insubordinate! Back up!’ “Look, one person chops down the wrong tree, and they’re at war again,” Elliot tried.

“Then they will break a peace negotiated by the Border guard,” said Captain Whiteleaf. “And the guard will march back to deal with them.”

“Right, okay,” said Elliot. “But then people will die.”

Captain Whiteleaf said: “So?”

Elliot stared some more. The captain was talking about how the guard kept the peace through their willingness to defend it with blades, and about how battle was a regrettable but necessary consequence of disobedience. Luke was coughing as if he actually had caught a chill. A beautiful peace was descending on Elliot: he knew precisely what he had to do.

He looked back at Serene, who was standing at the mouth of the tent. She met his eyes with her own tranquil gaze, drew her bow, and fitted an arrow to it.

“What are you doing?” Captain Whiteleaf snapped.

“If you call for someone to help stop him,” Serene explained apologetically, “I will shoot them. In the leg, of course. I do not wish to murder any of my comrades.”

“Stop what?” the captain demanded.

Elliot stepped forward and shoved the two treaties into the candle flame. The fire caught the parchment, curling it up with a rich thick crackle, and the flame leaped to show the sudden fury in the captain’s eyes.

“You little brat,” the captain breathed, raising his fist, and Elliot lifted his chin.

Luke drew his sword. The sharp edge glittered in the light of the burning papers, pointed across the desk at the captain. “Don’t touch him.”

Elliot took a deep shaky breath, relieved not to be hit and annoyed at how relieved he was.

“You pack of stupid, traitorous children—” Captain Whiteleaf began, and then he cut himself off and just glared at them, as if he was memorizing their faces and thinking of punishments to visit upon them.

Elliot knew what he saw. Serene at the tent with moonlight in her dark hair and her bow steady in her hands, Luke and his sword glinting in the candlelight, and Elliot. Elliot held firm. The treaties were ashes in his hands by now.

“Listen to me,” said Elliot. “You don’t bring councillors on your missions. So you don’t have anyone who can write up a new treaty. Either you go back, admit you’ve failed in your mission, disappoint the people who are expecting you to come bring them peace, or you let me and Serene write up new treaties. We can do it.”

“Elves remember everything that they read, down to the framework of the sentences to insure that treaties are binding,” Serene observed. “Elliot tells me that is a helpful skill.”

Captain Whiteleaf stared at the ashes, and then at Serene, and at Elliot.

Matters might have gone very differently, but this was the captain’s first mission. He let them write out the treaties. The villagers signed theirs, and seemed to think the restrictions about not cutting down certain trees perfectly fair.

The nymphs were beautiful, green-gleaming wraiths of women who leaned out of their trees like gorgeous women leaning casually out of windows. Elliot could not stop staring at them, or the way their leader smiled when she read the words he had written. She had not been smiling before: it was like sunlight dissolving mist when she did.

“We expected something quite different,” she said. “I would be happy to sign this.”

“You’re still a pack of impossible brats,” said Captain Whiteleaf, on the ride home. “But I suppose you meant it for the best. This once, I will not report your wild behaviour to the commander.”

He spurred his horse and rode to the front of the company.

“ ‘Oh, thank you for saving my first mission,’ “ said Elliot. “ ‘No, no, Captain Whiteleaf, it was my pleasure, please do not mention it, all this fulsome gratitude is so embarrassing!’ “

“Shut up. That was really good of him,” said Luke. “And the mission would have been fine if you hadn’t destroyed the treaties like a maniac.”

“Oh, would it?”

“I’m not saying—” said Luke. “You did the best you know how. You did a good thing. But they’re just bits of paper, in the end. The Border guard enforcing peace is what will keep people safe. Either way, the mission would have been successful.”

Elliot looked to Serene for help, but her expression did not betray anything. Least of all who she really agreed with, when it came right down to it.

“I’m glad we’re not expelled,” she said.

Elliot did not have long to brood about how misunderstood and undervalued he was. As soon as they were back at the camp, everyone was panicking about exams, even Serene and Luke who should really have known better. Elliot had to forcibly shepherd them to the library and make piles of what he’d decided was the assigned reading.

“Now, loser, let’s start with the basics,” Elliot added kindly once he was done telling them the list. “This is a book. You open it like this, see? Not along the spine. That’s very important.”

They all did extremely well in their exams, and Elliot was happy until he heard Serene making plans to come stay at Luke’s over the summer holiday.

“You can come too, if you want,” said Luke. “My mum will probably be expecting you. I don’t know why.”

“I guess if Serene’s going to be there,” said Elliot. “And since the year’s not up yet, the truce isn’t quite over.”

First, though, he had to go home. Captain Woodsinger escorted Elliot and the very few other kids from the human world who had stayed back through the hole in the wall. She left them to walk down the steps on their own, down and down, until they reached the real world.

Elliot lifted his eyes to a line of tall buildings standing against the sky, all metal and glass. He realized he had become rather used to the endless fields.

At home every day was the same, just as it had always been. His dad would come home late, when the day was already getting dark and cold, and put his briefcase down neatly on the table in the hall. They would sit at either ends of the polished rectangular table, and eat dinner. Conversations would stop and start, escaping from Elliot’s hands like a balloon in the wind. That was what conversations with his father made him feel like: as if he was a little kid, surprised every time at the loss and later seeing the empty shreds of a balloon in a ditch or hanging from a tree, all that had been bright and buoyant lost.

Elliot had become all kinds of dumb and unguarded at the Border camp, though, because one day when his father went and poured himself his first glass Elliot did not go away to his room and read a book.

It wasn’t that his father ever got angry, or ever hit him. It was just that it was like sitting in a room where all the air was escaping, to stay in a room with a man who was grimly, methodically drinking: to know that he had once been happy, and never would be again.

“What was Mum like?” asked Elliot, who had truly grown stupid at the camp if he was asking that.

His father looked out the window, where gray shadows were snatching away the very last of the light.

“She was the first thing I saw when I walked into a room,” he said at last. “And once I saw her, I never wanted to look anywhere else. She would speak, and whatever she said was brilliant and startling. She was like that, a constant bright surprise. She was always talking, always laughing, always dancing, and she was never what I expected. I was even surprised when she left.” He looked over at Elliot, who was sitting with his hands clenched tight around his knees. “You’re not like her,” he added. “You’re like me. Nobody will ever love you enough to stay.”

His father was very thin. Even his hair was thin, gray strands so fine that it seemed as if it had been worn away, as the grooves in his face seemed to have been worn in. Elliot wasn’t sure, sometimes, if he was like his father: the patient, desperate ghost who had waited until all hope was worn out. He couldn’t imagine his father going to school and antagonizing everyone in sight, being too short, too smart, too awkward, too unguarded, too wildly unused to company, until it was easier eventually to antagonize people on purpose.

His mother had stayed with his dad for ages. She’d left pretty soon after Elliot had arrived. Elliot could do the maths.

He supposed it didn’t matter if someone left because you weren’t good enough or left because you actually drove them away. The result was the same.

He left the room quietly, went and sat on the stairs, pressed his hot face against the cool banister. He could see through the staircase at this angle, could see the front door, flanked by windows that shone with gray light. He sat and looked at the door as if someone was coming home.

Nothing changed, not permanently. Elliot had known that even when the miracle happened, and he was taken away to somewhere fantastical: every bit of reality in the fantasy reminded him that miracles were not for him.

Even if you found yourself in a magical story, there were no guarantees that you were the hero, or that you would get of the things you dreamed of. Elliot knew no way, being who he was, to deserve that.

*

No questions were raised about him going to the Sunborns’ house, and Elliot found directions for how to get there on a rolled up parchment that was wedged between the hinges of his door. Magic’s postal system was sneaky.

In the midst of gardens and woodland was a tower, in the same brief, round style as the towers at the Border camp, looking like nothing so much as the rooks in the chess set his father had gathering dust in a cabinet. There was ivy climbing up it, in cascading green profusion over places where the stone was jagged and worn. Elliot climbed the broad, flat steps.

From within the Sunborns’ tower came the loud sound of swearing. Elliot ran.

The swearing was coming from a cavernous kitchen, where Rachel Sunborn was wrestling a stewpot. Half the stew was already on the wall.

“Um, let me help you with that,” said Elliot, and grabbed the other handle. The pot tipped dangerously down to Elliot’s level, but they got it on the ground.

“Thank you, Elliot,” said Rachel. “I bloody hate cooking, but Michael’s on campaign, and what are you going to do? Welcome, by the way.”

“If Mr Sunborn is gone, aren’t we going to be a lot of trouble?” Elliot asked apprehensively.

“Oh no,” said Rachel. “We all go on campaigns, and the one on leave gets the kids. We always have Louise’s friends over, and this summer we have my sister’s boys Adam and Neal staying too. You guys can all distract each other. And frankly, it’s my turn for a houseful of kids: Michael had Luke at the Northmark fortress from when he was nine to when he got sent off to camp, I was on an expedition to traverse the entire otherlands. It was meant to be a two-year mission but it ran long.”

“The Dewitt mission,” said Elliot. “The one that improved all the maps! How was finding an entire lagoon full of mermaids? I wish I could meet a mermaid.”

“Kid, they drown people.”

Elliot waved this off. “Is it true that the river mermaids have a common tongue but the mermaids who live in lakes have all entirely separate languages, though they can usually speak the language of the people who live near the lakes, and the salt-water mermaids seem to only speak the languages most common to sailors? Do you think the sea mermaids do have their own language but only use it in the deep? Because that’s what I think.”

Rachel threw back her head and laughed. “How would I know, funnyface? But I can harpoon a mermaid at a hundred paces from a moving boat. Not bad for an old lady, eh?”

“How old are Adam and Neal?” asked Elliot.

Rachel frowned in thought. The expression was not made for her face: it slid off the golden surface like water. “Close to your age,” she said. “A year and two years older, about.” Elliot must have made a face without meaning to—he’d been hoping for as old as Louise, which was old enough to not bother with Elliot much—because Rachel laughed at it. “Don’t worry, you’ll like them!” she said. “They’re just like Luke.”

“Oh,” said Elliot, in a hollow voice. “That’s fantastic.”

“Bit more outgoing than my shy boy, but that’s all to the good,” said Rachel. “I think it’s nice for Luke to have his own friends here. You’re all going to have fun! Don’t let anyone dare you to jump off a tower, though.”

“Don’t worry,” said Elliot. “… Luke’s not shy. Everyone likes Luke.” ‘Except me,’ he would have added, but it seemed rude when he was a guest.

Rachel frowned again, this time more deeply, a woman even less used to explaining herself than frowning. “Maybe that was the wrong word,” she said. “But you know how he is. My point is, Neal and Adam are lovely lads. I’m sure you’ll all get on. And Serene, when she gets here. Luke’s crazy about Serene.”

“Serene’s not here?” Elliot asked. “Where’s Serene?!”

“Oh, her mother took her on a hunting party for a magical stag that ran long, or somesuch.”

This was a complete disaster. Elliot wondered if he could claim that he’d left the oven on at home and make his escape.

This fragile, beautiful hope was crushed when Luke barreled into the house, calling for his mother and attended by vicious animals.

“Mum!” said Luke. “When do you think he’ll get—oh. Hi.”

“Hi,” said Elliot. He should probably, as a guest, not insult Luke in front of Luke’s mother.

“Why are you wearing those clothes?” Luke asked. “They’re weird. The Border camp gave you proper clothes.”

“Because, A: these are my clothes,” Elliot said. “B: the Border camp gave me ridiculous clothes and C: I cannot believe that you, a loser who I have literally never seen wear anything but leather, are setting yourself up to be some sort of fashion expert and critiquing jeans and a hoodie. Worst host ever!” He glanced over at Rachel. “Not you, you’re a very charming hostess,” he added hastily.

“Thank you, Elliot,” Rachel told him.

The two wild beasts Luke had brought in with him—into the house, in fact into the area of the house were food was prepared–wandered over to Elliot. Their long, plumy tails waved cautiously: their long, sharp teeth were bared.

“I haven’t had my rabies shot,” said Elliot, circling. The dogs circled after him in what he considered was a menacing fashion.

“How can you be scared of the puppies?” Rachel asked.

“I am not scared of them,” Elliot replied with dignity. “I am just not accustomed to them, so I do not trust them.”

He had to admit that the dogs did not seem currently interested in devouring him whole. However, this might change at any moment.

“Cavall, Culaine,” said Luke, and the dogs backed off a little. “You like mermaids and centaurs and stuff, though.”

“They’re not animals,” said Elliot. “I can talk with them, so they’re people. I enjoy intelligent conversation. You know, the polysyllabic kind. I realize you’re still at monosyllables, but I have faith you’ll get there one day.”

“Uh-huh,” said Luke, not doing anything to justify said faith.

Elliot regarded the dogs with suspicion, and then glanced up at Luke, who was looking at him. It was a shared moment of mutual embarrassment: they were not used to being without Serene, and yet they should obviously pretend to be friends, or Luke’s mother would wonder why Elliot was here.

“The thing is,” Elliot announced. “I think I left the oven on in—”

“Mum,” said Luke, rudely interrupting. “Can we have the key to the library?”

“The library?” Elliot asked, diverted from his purpose.

“My Great-Uncle Theodore was wounded in the wars and couldn’t fight again, so he spent his whole life collecting books,” Rachel said. “Poor old boy. Don’t let the dogs in with you, Luke.”

She took a ring, heavy with keys, off the wide belt slung around her hips, and tossed it to Luke, who caught it easily, and Elliot followed him as he went out of the kitchen and round and round and round the stairs to the very top of the tower, where they stopped at a large oak door.

The library was as big as the one at school, but quieter, with the air of long disuse. Sun streamed through half-closed curtains, and the air was thick with sunlight and silence, with gold and dust. Books rose to the ceiling, which rose to a point, with ladders that leaned against the walls.

“Is it OK to touch the books without gloves?”

“Why would you need gloves to touch a book?” Luke asked, looking mildly alarmed. Elliot decided that meant yes.

He climbed one of the ladders to get to one glinting embossed spine, to see if it could possibly be what he hoped it was going to be. It was.

He climbed down the ladder to display his prize to Luke.

“One Thousand Leagues Across A Sea of Blood,” Luke said. “That’s a good title.”

The subtitle was ‘Seamonsters Demanding Sacrifice, Fanged Octopi & Murderous Mermaids I Have Known.’

“It’s the account of a famous exploring party told by Maximilian Wavechaser. This voyage is how his family got their name,” Elliot explained, going over to the window and pulling the curtains open. He climbed onto the broad wooden windowseat built into the window, which was many-paned and rose to a point like a window in church. Luke climbed up to sit on the other side, and Elliot turned the pages until he found some of the drawings of the great naval battle four hundred years ago, made out in cerulean and gold, which he thought Luke would like.

In return Luke said that he did think it was possible that the mermaids of the deep sea communicated through hand gestures rather than speech, and asked Elliot to read the awful bit about battle tactics again. It was a long and fascinating book, and Elliot was surprised when Luke said that he had to set the table for dinner.

“Have you boys been in the library all day?” Rachel asked, amazed. She ruffled Luke’s hair as he went by with the cutlery. “Who are you?”

“Elliot found a good book,” Luke said, shrugging.

“I didn’t miraculously find the only book in there that was good,” Elliot argued.

Luke gave a tiny shrug. “I don’t know that. I’ve looked at other books in that library and they’re boring.”

“You don’t know anything,” Elliot told him severely. “Statistically, you have to see that book being the only good one is not at all likely. The problem is you don’t get books. You tend to be an auditory or kinesthetic learner.”

“Hey!” said Luke.

Elliot was going to tell him that it wasn’t an insult, but then he decided it would be more hilarious not to. “I wish I had a radio,” he said. “They do readings of the classics on Sunday afternoons.”

“What’s a radio?” asked Rachel, while Luke sulked about being called a kinesthetic learner.

Elliot gave some thought about how to describe it. “It’s a magic box that says stuff and plays songs.”

“A music box?” Luke asked, scornfully. “We have music boxes.”

“No!” said Elliot. “It plays quite different songs.” He thought about the classic hits he listened to at home, filling his whole empty house with song, something that a mother might like, and sang a few lines of ‘When I’m Sixty-Four.’ Rachel beat time on the lid of her pot.

“You have a nice voice, kid,” she said. “You could be a minstrel.”

“Oh, thank God, there are other jobs for people besides being a weird conscripted soldier on the Border camp,” Elliot said. “Logically there had to be, someone has to make the food, the world would be stupid and make no sense otherwise. But I was terrified it was all dumb killing people in the face.”

“Excuse you?” said a voice from the door. “Being a soldier is the noblest profession in the world.”

“Killing people in the face is a downside,” Elliot said. “You have to admit that. I’m Elliot Schafer, by the way.”

“Adam Sunborn,” said the boy, marching in. “And this is my brother Neal.”

The two boys clattered in, big and walking as if they owned the room and possibly the world. They were Sunborns, clear as day and about as bright: big and blond and blue-eyed. They looked like rough sketches of Luke, before the artist had got him quite right. They spent all of dinnertime talking about how they hadn’t gone to the Border camp because they had been born and raised to fight, and Luke shouldn’t have either but should have come to serve in one of the lesser fortresses with them and learned through action.

“He could have been our comrade in arms,” said Neal.

“I’ve got one,” said Luke. “Her name’s Serene.”

“A girl?” Adam sneered.

“I think you should meet her,” said Luke, deceptively mild.

“I don’t think you need any more of this delicious stew, Adam,” said Rachel.

“I deplore violence in all its forms,” said Elliot. “But she’d kick your ass.”

“Why wait until Serene’s here?” inquired Louise, coming in late and mussed with her dark-haired friend, who would have been very pretty standing beside anyone but Louise. “I’ll kick both the brats off the tower as soon as dinner’s over.”

Louise spoke with friendly menace, and Rachel hit Adam’s hand when he reached for more food with a spoon. Neal and Adam didn’t pursue an argument, but Elliot saw their darkling look at him when he spoke, and knew they did not like him.

He hadn’t expected them to.

*

The next day Elliot figured that Luke would probably like to do one of the awful things he enjoyed, something outside involving weaponry, and so like an excellent and considerate guest he decided to entertain himself.

Since he was pretty sure Luke would expect him to be in the library, Elliot acquired a book and cunningly hid out of doors. He wandered around the woods for a little while until he found a tree that he thought looked appropriate and comfortable, then carefully stowed his chosen book into his hoodie and climbed up into it.

He was reading peacefully for an hour or so in the green-glowing quiet, until he heard the sound of twigs snapping underfoot and bodies shoving through the undergrowth. He looked down and saw the glint of two blond heads, and Adam Sunborn looking up at him.

“Well, well,” he said. “Look, Neal. There’s a snotty little bird up in a tree.”

“That’s not a terribly good insult,” said Elliot. “The mixed metaphors, with the bird and the snotty thing, it doesn’t work. Maybe if you’d just called me obnoxious. Wait, I’m sorry, should I define obnoxious for you?”

He was not terribly surprised when Adam grabbed one of the lower-hanging branches. He expected him to climb up, but instead Adam shook it violently, Elliot clutched his book protectively, and Elliot fell out of the tree.

Falling out of the tree was extremely unpleasant. A branch bashed him on the face on his way down, he hit his head, and his whole body felt jarred by the stupid ground. Elliot levered himself up on one elbow.

“Wow,” he said, tasting blood in his mouth. “That was a witty retort. I certainly have learned the error of my ways, and that I should hold you in far higher regard!”

Adam strode towards him, and Elliot was just considering whether he was going to get punched or kicked when Luke emerged from the trees and knocked Adam off course.

“Where have you been?” Elliot demanded.

“Looking for you!” Luke snapped back. “How was I supposed to know you were off hiding in trees, you lunatic?”

“Don’t be rude to me when you’re rescuing me, loser,” Elliot told him. “That’s terrible manners. You’re the worst.”

Luke made an incoherent sound of rage, which for some reason seemed to encourage Adam Sunborn, who moved toward Elliot. Luke held up a hand.

“You’re not doing it!” said Luke. “Where’s the honour in hurting someone who’s not as strong as you? What does that prove?”

“It might stop him being such a brat,” Adam suggested.

“Doesn’t,” Elliot contributed. “This is not the first time somebody’s ever wanted to punch me in the face.”

Luke frowned for some reason, but supported him by saying: “That is obviously true. He’s extremely annoying.”

“See, you two are not original souls. Kids at my old school used to hit me all the time, I have collected the data on this subject, and I am in the perfect position to tell you that it has no useful results whatsoever. It just means I’m bleeding as well as annoying.”

“Also, the value of someone does not rely on their ability to hurt others,” said Luke. “You guys aren’t proving you’re better than him if you knock him out of a tree.”

Neal’s lip curled as he looked down at the ground where Elliot was still lying. It didn’t seem a great idea to get up, when the two Sunborn cousins were obviously dying to knock him down again, plus his head and his face hurt. Elliot touched his mouth, and his fingers came away red.

Neal said: “What value does he have, exactly?”

Luke had to give it some thought, which Elliot found offensive. Eventually, he said: “He’s clever about some things. And he makes up songs.”

“No I don’t,” said Elliot, even more vastly offended.

“Yes you do,” said Luke. “You sang the song to me and Mum.”

“That was not my song,” said Elliot. “That song belongs to the Beatles.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Elliot, beetles do not write songs.”

“Uh, do you guys mind?” Adam demanded.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are we not paying enough attention to you loathsome weasel bullies?” Elliot inquired. “Do you feel your dignity as someone who pushes little kids out of trees is somehow being slighted?”

“You’re not a little kid, Elliot,” said Luke.

“I’m considerably below average height!” Elliot snapped.

“Oh my God, what a little snot,” exclaimed Adam, and surged forward. Luke was suddenly in his way, pushing him back with a small shove that obviously made Adam more mad.

Violence was like that, Elliot had noticed. One move toward it and all at once everything was allowed: anyone could be hurt, out of a mix of pride and anger and stupid disregard for the fact that you could be hurt just as easily as someone else.

“You think you can take both of us?” Adam asked.

A corner of Luke’s mouth kicked up. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I really think I can.”

Neal started forward, and then stopped abruptly because the end of a whip had sailed out from among the trees, and curled itself around his wrist.

“I do not like to hit a gentleman,” Serene said, emerging from behind a screen of leaves, “but since you are responsible for shedding the blood of the defenceless, I am prepared to make an exception.”

“Serene!” Elliot exclaimed. “You’re here! And you’re my hero!”

“You’re the elf girl, then?” asked Neal Sunborn.

“I am Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle. Keep a civil tongue in your head or lose it.”

Neal and Adam stared at her.

“Are you going to make your name known to me, knaves?” Serene asked dangerously.

“Neal Sunborn,” said Neal, getting a look that Elliot had seen before on the faces of boys in the war training course about to be soundly beaten by Serene: both hunted and smitten. “This is my brother Adam.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Elliot said conversationally to Luke. “If they’re your mum’s sister’s kids, how are they Sunborns too?”

Serene frowned. “It makes perfect sense. Of course the children bear their mother’s name. The woman is the strong one, who bears the child and begins the family. You can’t be sure who any child’s father is.”

Elliot considered. “That’s a good point, actually. It’s why the Egyptians married their sisters.”

“I don’t know that family,” Serene said, “But that does not seem to me like a good solution.”

Adam and Neal looked defeated by the whole situation—having to fight a girl who was looking pityingly down on them, and the way people kept having conversations without including them. When Luke began to explain that while actually a lot of men took the Sunborn name when they married Sunborn women—having met Rachel and Louise, Elliot thought he understood—his mother and father were both born Sunborns, from different branches of the family, because the Sunborns were a vast clan and long might their glory shine so on et cetera. Which made Serene start talking about the house of Chaos. At which point Adam and Neal gave up and simply slunk away.

*

The rest of the stay at Luke’s house, graced with Serene’s shining presence, was rather nice. There was sunlight and the woods and Rachel Sunborn and the dogs proved to be all right after all—Culaine was Elliot’s favorite. Sometimes everybody would get together and play terrible games, like throwing knives at trees who had done nobody any wrong. Elliot would fetch a book at those times, but he was obscurely gratified to see that either Luke or Serene always won.

The only real problem came at the end of the holiday, when Rachel and Louise Sunborn had to ride away with a border patrol in order to deal with a gang of brigands who were waylaying people on the northern roads.

She and her men were gone all day, and still gone when it was time for bed.

Elliot finished his book in bed and pondered going to get another one. He only had so much time left, and he had so many books to get through. He slipped out of bed, and as he was making his way to the library he stopped to investigate the fact that a candle was still burning in Luke’s room.

“What are you doing here,” said Luke in a flat voice, who was staring at the ceiling. Elliot didn’t see why he needed a candle to look at the ceiling. It wasn’t going anywhere.

Elliot came to a decision. “I’ve come to bother you.”

“Isn’t it enough to bother me every day, all day? Do you have to bother me through the night as well?”

“Yes. You shouldn’t sleep with animals, I’m sure it’s unsanitary. Come here, Culaine,” said Elliot, and when both dogs shuffled over across the bedclothes to be patted Elliot pushed Cavall gently away. “Not you. Culaine’s my favorite.”

Luke sat up. His blond hair was sticking straight up: he looked like an offended dandelion. “They’re both good dogs. You can’t have a favorite.”

“Of course I can, loser,” said Elliot. “I’m very judgemental.”

The door creaked open and Serene stood it it, looking severe and beautiful in her sensible black pajamas. “Oh good, you’re here,” she said to Elliot. “You can administer manly sympathies and sweet comfort.”

“I could,” said Elliot haughtily, “but I have no intention of doing so.”

“I was worried that you would be fretting, Luke,” Serene continued. “I know how boys do.”

“Get out of my room, both of you,” said Luke, and put a pillow over his own face.

Serene climbed up on the bed as well, and entered into an argument with Elliot about which was the finer dog. Serene thought Cavall was the best at hunting: Elliot was firm in his conviction that he did not care.

When the riders came home from battle it was so late the darkness was turning to light again, as if the moon had dissolved in the sky and flooded it with pale radiance. They rode home victorious, and Serene and Luke ran downstairs with the rest of the household.

Elliot stood at Luke’s window and saw the torchlight falling on triumphant, desperate and grieving faces alike, saw Luke, Neal and Adam in a cluster of children relieved their parents were safe. He saw Rachel Sunborn with her gold-ringed fist raised in triumph, and saw the empty saddles of those who had not come home.

He said, aloud into the night wind and with no-one to hear: “I find war very annoying.”

Everyone else seemed to think that the whole situation was perfectly all right, just because the Sunborns had prevailed. It put Elliot into a terrible mood.

When it was time to go back home, Rachel talked cheerfully about how much she was sure they would enjoy the second year of camp at the Border: more swordplay, larger bows. Piles of weapons, which was about as enticing a prospect to Elliot as piles of cat poop.

“And are you looking forward to it?” Rachel asked Elliot, beaming but vague. Elliot suspected she had no idea what went on in the council training course at all.

“Sure,” said Elliot, and when Rachel was no longer paying attention but Luke still was, he added: “Truce is over then. I’ll finally have peace and quiet.”

Hope you enjoyed! In the next part… this is very exciting… everybody gets to be FOURTEEN!

May Day: The May Snippet, & The Untold Contest!

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

The time has come, my friends, to talk of many things: snippets of suffering, and the giveaway of four advance copies of Untold!

Every generation suffers in Untold, I like to think…

Kami heard the creak of the front door opening, and instantly afterward the loud sound of her father’s voice.

He sounded furious in the same frightening way he had before.

“You just wanted to protect me, and protect our children, and protect the town.”

“Yes,” said Mum.

“So you told lie after lie, all for the best, until you had told so many lies you didn’t know how to begin telling the truth.”

“Yes,” Mum said again, desperately.

“I could have forgiven you for any of those lies,” Dad said, though he didn’t sound forgiving. “But there were so many of them. You didn’t know how to begin telling the truth? I don’t know how to begin trusting you again. There was no time in our lives when you weren’t lying to me. There’s nothing to go back to.”

Kami could see their shadows, black against the yellow wall, and how far apart they stood.

“There was nothing you could have done,” Mum said, low. “I did wrong, but I did it because I love you and I love the kids.”

“It wasn’t your choice to make!” Dad said. “They’re not just your kids. They’re our kids. That’s what it meant when we got married, that we promised to make those choices together, and I always have.”

“I know you gave up a lot to come back to Sorry-in-the- Vale when I told you I was going to have Kami,” Mum told him unsteadily. “And you never threw it in my face, until now.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I wanted to make it up to you, I wanted to make things right for you,” said Mum, her voice changing, becoming more like her usual voice, trying to be calm, trying to explain matters. “So I did a spell, and it hurt Kami. After that I was sure I could never tell you any of it. I was sure you would never forgive me.”

“Well then,” Dad told her. His voice had changed too: it was very soft. “At last we find something we can agree on.”

They went into the kitchen. Kami heard the clatter of their movement, the absence of noise that was their furious silence. Her hand was still locked around the banister, gripping the wood as if there might be some comfort there. As if wood and stone were what her home was made of. She thought of Aurimere House, where Angela had said people were going to Lillian, where there might be answers.

Angela had said Jared was there too.

No. She wasn’t going to do it. She was going to go back to bed and sleep, and in the morning she would be in control of herself. In the morning she would fix this.

So what must one do to win all this suffering?

(Also, the font of the cover was based on the polkadots on my dress in this picture. Check skirt and font. True story!)

So. Four books. Four challenges. No waiting.

1. Art Challenge. Drawing, manipped photo, tumblr gif with hilarious words on, anything Unspoken-related visual and artistic, and I shall give the most artistic artiste a prize!

2. Words Challenge. Song, poem, story: anything Unspoken-related under a thousand words. We wordsmiths must stick together.

3. Picture Challenge. Take a picture of yourself reading Unspoken somewhere–the weirder somewhere it is, the better.

4. Surprise Me. Everyone tends to be better at this than me, so if you think up something that doesn’t fit in the three categories, by all means–hit me! (Street/library posters. Pictures of people mildly concussed by Unspoken. Cosplay as the unicorn princess. Anything. Hit me! (DO NOT LITERALLY HIT ME.))

I will post the books to anywhere in the world. The contest will end at the end of this beauteous month of May. Just put links to your entries in the comments to this blog post, or its mirror on livejournal. I am looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with!

All Manner of News

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

So on Wednesday I fly away off to America (again! good lord is the woman never at home!). To Kansas City, actually, for the Romantic Times convention, where I can wander about and talk romance novels and young adult fiction and books books books with everyone in sight.

http://www.rtconvention.com/

THE TIMES WHEN YOU CAN FIND ME (and my Untold chapter ones!)

THURSDAY May 2

The Professional Liar Panel

Moderator: Kelley Armstrong

Panelist(s): Sarah Rees Brennan, Rachel Caine, Leanna Renee Hieber, Colleen Houck, Jeri Smith-Ready, Rachel Vincent

Location: Ballroom Level

Room: Chicago A

(We give away prizes if you can tell we’re lying! Also, reveal awful secrets about our lives. I believe that nobody will ever think I’m lying because whatever terrible thing I’m accused of will seem pretty plausible.)

FRIDAY May 3

Stop Wasting My Time

‘We had such a resounding demand for another marketing panel that we’re once again tackling the ever-shifting publishing landscape for YA authors. From e-books and anthologies to group tours and conventions, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of some of these options, as well as the more traditional library and store signings.’

Moderator: Kelley Armstrong

Panelist(s): Sarah Rees Brennan, Heather Brewer, Rachel Caine, Sophie Jordan

Location: Mezzanine Level

Room: Chouteau B

(Other brilliant authors talk about strategy. I will also share my strategies. I will perhaps at some point be quietly smothered by the rest of the panel, for my own good and the good of others.)

And on Saturday May 4, I will be sitting in the Teen Alley hoping people come chat to me, and at the Teen Day Partay!

But I shall not be in America long. I am in fact going to be in London very soon.

On Tuesday the 14 May, at Foyle’s in Charing Cross at 6:30, to be precise!

I am lucky enough to be emceeing for the lovely and talented Rachel Caine, and I shall also be happy to answer any questions and sign any books for me. (And I shall have prizes there also. )

http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Events/Detail.aspx?eventId=1908



Also, the first of The Bane Chronicles, the series of e-short stories starring Cassandra Clare’s (powerful, immortal, bisexual and snarky) Magnus Bane, is out. What Really Happened In Peru, by Cassandra Clare and, well, me.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bane-Chronicles-Happened-ebook/dp/B00C9ZHZOS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367264361&sr=8-1&keywords=what+really+happened+in+peru

Not only is it out, but it hit number four on the New York Times bestseller list.

I have said this elsewhere, but know not what else to say: I am so humbled and grateful, I feel like there should be another word for it. Gratebled. Humbful. ANYWAY. Cassie and Maureen have been fancily bestselling before, for they are beautimously fancy ladies, but this is my very first time on the New York Times list. It is awe-inspiring. Cassie called me to tell me and I screamed down the phone: I maybe took all her hair off with my screech.

I know that I owe this to all the loyal fans of Magnus, and to my lovely Cassie and Maureen.

Moreover, the audiobook of What Really Happened In Peru was read by Cabin In The Woods star Jesse Williams, who did an absolutely fabumazing job, and the audiobook of The Runaway Queen, written by Maureen and Cassie and out in May, is going to be read by Les Miserables and Vikings star George Blagden, who we met at Wondercon and who is a dote.

Who can even cope with all these things? I just put my head down and try to finish Tell The Wind and Fire in a timely fashion, but I did want to say that for all those who come to see me and read my writing, I am truly thankful.

And of course if you have any questions about any of this, I am here.

Covers, Blurbs & Boobs

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

So the time has finally come to reveal to you guys the new covers for the Lynburn Legacy series! I hope you liiiike them.

And the cover of Untold…

Here is also a little more about Untold…

‘Free from bonds, but not each other

It’s time to choose sides… On the surface, Sorry-in-the-Vale is a sleepy English town. But Kami Glass knows the truth. Sorry-in-the-Vale is full of magic. In the old days, the Lynburn family ruled with fear, terrifying the people into submission in order to kill for blood and power. Now the Lynburns are back, and Rob Lynburn is gathering sorcerers so that the town can return to the old ways.

But Rob and his followers aren’t the only sorcerers in town. A decision must be made: pay the blood sacrifice, or fight. For Kami, this means more than just choosing between good and evil. With her link to Jared Lynburn severed, she’s now free to love anyone she chooses. But who should that be?’

Untold comes out September 24th.

The Booksmugglers very kindly hosted the reveal and are currently doing a giveaway of Unspoken> http://thebooksmugglers.com/2013/04/t...

And now, A Note On Kami’s Boobs on Unspoken. For posterity.

The boobs are my fault.

We knew we wanted a silhouette cover, to go with the old Unspoken cover and Gothicness theeeeematically. Silhouette pictures are hard to find, and posed professional pictures of people who are not super skinny are hard to find, because Society.

This girl is thinner than Kami in my head—but she does look like she’s got some badonkadonk going on, and I liked that. It would have felt very wrong to have the silhouette of Kami slimmed down.

LOVELY EDITOR: I was thinking we might, er, bring the boobs down a notch. (Just because they are prominent!)

SARAH: I BEG THAT YOU DO NO SUCH THING.

SARAH: *sends textual evidence of Kami being a well-fleshed young lady.*

EDITOR, PROJECT MANAGER, COVER DESIGNER: Others send us messages about the themes and colors… and Sarah has just sent us a giant email all about boobs.

I had lunch with my Random House peeps in March, and we were discussin’ the covers, and this happened…

SARAH: I was wondering if you could change the color for the Untold font.

LOVELY PROJECT MANAGER: Let’s put that on it. *gestures to front of Sarah’s dress*

SARAH: My… boobs?

SARAH: … I mean you can if you want…

PROJECT MANAGER: Um, no. The turquoise polka dots on your dress.

SARAH: Oh that makes more sense.

PROJECT MANAGER: It’s always boobs with you, Rees Brennan.

Welp, my petals, let me know what you think. And now that you’ve seen the covers of Untold, soon it will be time to set up the competition for the Advance Readers’ Copies…

Wanna Chat Thursday?

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

So, as you may or may not know, the first instalment of the Bane Chronicles is coming out on Tuesday! What Really Happened In Peru by Cassie and I, featuring cranky warlock roadtrips, the magic of song, and piracy.

Maureen, Cassie and I got started on writing the Bane Chronicles through chatting to each other, and we thought it might be fun to have a chat about the Bane Chronicles after the release of each story.

So… you want to talk to me, Cassie and Maureen on Thursday at 6 PM EDT? We are around, my lovelies, and here is the link to where we will be:

The Cassie, Maureen and Sarah Chat

Hope to see you there!

Untold April Snippet

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

So recently I’ve had a few people tell me, on twitter and the like, that they’re reading the Untold snippets without having read Unspoken. I was puzzled because I couldn’t figure out why people would know who the characters were or care about what was happening to them!

Obviously, I want people to read my books, because that is what keeps me in cheese and electricity and the more people who read my books the sooner the better for me and it makes me feel all sad and useless when people do not, but I also think that probably it’s a better experience to read the snippets when you know the characters and with luck care about them, and where they are in their story. Plus snippets are there to be dramatique, and you’ll be missing out on the casual and funny bits and the bits that only make sense in context, and those are my own favourite bits to read. When reading. Other books, that is.

So it would be my expert opinion that it’s better to read Unspoken and then the Untold snippets. HOWEVER, I am not the boss of anybody, this is the internet which is Freedom Central, do as you wish!

I did think to myself, maybe time to take a break from being a princess of evil, though, just in case there are those who did read Unspoken (hi guys love you!) and yet who are worried there may be no casual or funny or SLEUTH-y bits in Untold. For there will be!

So I thought I would ask on twitter which character people would like to see happy.

SARAH: So I thought I’d put up a happy snippet–

TWITTER: WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH SARAH REES BRENNAN?

TWITTER: What evil game are you playing now, wanton mistress of the night?

TWITTER: Back devil, we know your tricks!

TWITTER: Is this some kind of cruel joke?!

SARAH: Whoa, who hurt you guys so you’re all so afraid and untrust…

SARAH: Sorry, no, I remember now, it was totally me.

… Eventually it emerged that people wanted Jared to be happy. I presume this was for the novelty value. So here is a short piece in which Our Heroes steal stuff from evil sorcerers. Enjoy, m’dears. Evil princessing will re-commence in 3… 2…

Kami herself was turning loitering into a fine art at the post office.

“I always wondered what it would be like to work behind the counter here,” she told Mrs. Jeffries, being energetically charming while keeping one eye out the door. “I want to write an article about it, in fact.”

Mrs. Jeffries patted her dark hair. “I do like that paper of yours.”

“I would call it . . . ‘The Secret Lives of Postmistresses,’ ” Kami said.

“I don’t know about that,” Mrs. Jeffries told her doubtfully. “Sounds a little saucy to me.”

“Oh no,” Kami assured her. “Mine is a worthy publication. Completely lacking in sauce.” She spotted her quarry coming down the High Street, letters in hand, and texted a group message requesting immediate assistance. “So could I possibly come behind the counter?” she asked.

“Weeeeeell,” said Mrs. Jeffries.

Kami jiggled the gate invitingly, and Mrs. Jeffries swung it open. At the precise moment Kami slipped inside, the phone in the back rang. Mrs. Jeffries gave Kami a questioning glance, and Kami nodded encouragement.

Mrs. Jeffries went to answer the phone, while Kami spared a moment to hope Holly could keep her occupied long enough. Then the door of the post office swung open, and the stranger came in. She was tall, with hair so red it was almost vermilion. She had clear green eyes and Kami decided as soon as she saw her that her name must be Carmen or Veronica. Some classic evil name.

Carmen/Veronica gave Kami a skeptical look. Kami drew herself up and tried to look like a youthful but dedicated postmistress. “New here, are you? Welcome to Sorry- in-the-Vale,” Kami said. “I’m Mabel Jeffries.”

“Indeed?” said Carmen or Veronica.

“And you are?”

“Ruth Sherman,” said the woman, handing over her letters. Kami was tempted to keep them, but Ruth Sherman—shame about the name, possibly her evil sorceress title was Ruth the Ruthless—had propped her handbag up on the counter and was watching her carefully.

Kami stuck on stamps and deposited the letters in the postbag with an innocent smile, resolving to fetch them out when Ruth was gone. The door jangled and Kami was relieved to see Jared burst into the room. Ruth turned at the sound, and obviously recognized Jared. Or rather, recognized a Lynburn when she saw one.

“Staying with friends, are we?” Kami asked loudly, to attract her attention. “Enjoying yourself?”

Jared sidled up. He was not very good at sidling; he was more of a loomer.

“I plan to,” said Ruth.

Kami gave up on conveying messages to Jared with her eyebrows at the same time Jared gave up on subtlety. Instead he just knocked Ruth’s handbag onto the floor.

“Oh no,” he exclaimed. “Clumsy me.”

Kami clicked her tongue against her teeth. “I am so sorry,” she said. “What must you think of us? Those stamps are on the house. I mean the post office.” She spoke very fast, because she’d just heard the click of Mrs. Jeffries hanging up the phone. Jared rapidly stuffed the contents of Ruth’s bag back inside and thrust the bag into her arms.

Then they both stared at her intently and expectantly.

Ruth Sherman raised her eyebrows at them and backed out of the post office.

“Who was that?” Mrs. Jeffries asked, bustling out from the back just as the door swung shut after Ruth Sherman. She started at the sight of Jared, still crouched on the floor. Then she did a rapid scan of her post office. She instantly caught sight of the lone lipstick rolling on the floor.

“The poor lady must have dropped that,” she said, and undid the gate, stepping out to get it.

Jared put his hand on it. “No.”

Mrs. Jeffries stared down at him. “What do you mean . . . no?”

Jared and Mrs. Jeffries stared at each other, neither breaking eye contact, in a perfect deadlock.

Then Jared smiled at her. “I mean,” he said with conviction, “it’s mine.”

“It’s what?”

Jared stood up, pocketing the lipstick. “I know,” he responded. “Everyone tells me I’m more of a summer.”

Mrs. Jeffries continued to stare.

Jared continued to speak. “I’m going to go now. Me . . . and my lipstick.”

Since the gate was already open, Kami seized her chance to escape. “I too will leave. I have soaked up so much post office ambiance today already!”

Mrs. Jeffries visibly gave up on the youth of today with their random comings and goings, and even more random cosmetics.

Kami and Jared escaped out into the chilly brightness of the wintry air, sunlight pouring on them clear and cold as if through a crystal.

“Good save,” Kami told him. “I mean, it’s going to be all over town by nightfall, your reputation is ruined, but it was a noble sacrifice.”

“That’s me,” said Jared, and tossed her the lipstick. Kami caught it in both hands. “Chivalrous.”

“Oh, chivalry,” Kami said. “You get it from those old books of yours. Alice Duer Miller said chivalry was ‘treating a woman politely / As long as she isn’t a fright / It’s guarding the girls who act rightly / If you can be judge of what’s right.’”

“You be the judge of what’s right,” Jared said. “If you like. I wouldn’t know.”

Kami glanced over at him. “You do okay.”

“However, you’re not allowed to judge my books,” said Jared. “I am not the one who has actually read a book actually called The Bride of the Cursed Emerald.”

“Quality literature,” Kami told him, used to defending her mystery novels. “Turned out the butler did it. With the cursed emerald as a murder weapon. But the bride still loved it. The emerald, I mean, not the butler. Nobody loves a butler.”

It was ridiculous how simple it was to talk to him now they had something to laugh about and an adventure behind them. It was such a relief to have him with her, and not to hurt any longer.

sarahtales @ 2013-03-21T18:26:00

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

I am so sorry this is late! I know I promised it on the 19th, but the internet on Cassie Clare’s Fancy Tour Bus has been dodgy–though it is extremely worth it to be on a beauteous bus with my beauteous friends, being taken from event to event. Getting to meet some of you guys!

(Worth it even though Maureen Johnson says the desert around us is snake country…)

I have been extremely flattered by the many messages I have received reminding me to send it along. I sometimes worry I am too cruel to you guys. But I see now, you enjoy it.

I hope you enjoy this. I made Holly Black pick this, because I felt that her pick last month went well…

Ash closed the piano lid with a flourish, crossed the floor, and held out his hand to her. Kami looked down at her tap- ping fingers as if they had betrayed her, and realized she was standing in the exact place Jared had, the night he said he wanted nothing to do with her.

“I can’t actually dance,” Kami objected, suddenly shy. “I mean, I’ve done it. But people tell me . . . that I shouldn’t.”

“What do they know?” Ash asked, his hand still out. After a moment more of hesitation, Kami put hers in his, and Ash pulled her away from the bookcase into his arms.

Ash could dance as well he could play the piano. He moved in gentle circles across the floor, navigating sofas and chairs with effortless grace. Kami just had to follow his lead. He’d been trained for this sort of thing, she supposed, being the young prince in the castle. Being a fairy-tale prince who could waltz any girl around a room, him all gold and the room all arched stone, the moment perfect no matter who the girl happened to be.

Ash twirled Kami and pulled her back in against his chest. When he dipped her, she had a moment of unease because she couldn’t stand up by herself and would have fallen without his arm supporting her. But she looked up into his eyes, soft and sparkling with laughter, and smiled up at him instead.

Ash bent and kissed her. The kiss went through Kami like summer sunlight.

Just then the door opened with a creak.

“Sorry,” said Jared. “Aunt Lillian was looking for Ash.”

They all stayed still for a little too long. Kami and Ash did not drop each other’s hands, and Jared was standing braced as if waiting to be hit.

“Great,” Kami said at last, the word falling like a drop of rain into a pool, absorbed into the silence. She tugged her hands out of Ash’s and took a step toward Jared; he took a step back, still not looking up. “We’ve found out a lot of stuff we need to tell Lillian.”

“She’s in the drawing room,” Jared said, backing up, and they both followed him. When he got there, he opened the door for them.

When Kami gestured for Ash to go in ahead of her, he touched Kami’s arm. She turned to him and he gave her a worried glance, as if he thought he had done something wrong but was unsure of what it was. Kami gave Ash a quick reassuring smile, then looked back at Jared, catching a glimpse of his face as he looked down again.

“Hey,” Kami said softly. “Is everything okay?” She felt dumb asking. It wasn’t like Jared was ever subtle about it when he was upset: this was just him being quiet and not meeting her eyes, a little withdrawn. He was just feeling awk- ward about interrupting; he wasn’t unhappy.

That was confirmed when Jared answered, in a level voice, “Fine.”

“Okay,” Kami said uncertainly. She lifted her hand to bridge the space between them somehow, and a faint shudder ran through Jared’s body. He stepped away from her and into the drawing room, going to stand by the fireplace.

That’s Me In the Spotlight

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

I thought I would talk a little bit about public appearances. For it is part of being a writer, and a very different part: mostly writers sit around their caves in their pyjamas fiddling on their computers. But sometimes they have to put on real clothes, make themselves presentable, and then speak in a not-offputting fashion to an audience of people!

I like doing appearances! As with all things, I learned by trial and error (that time the bookshop was expecting someone different and the poor babies got me instead, that time I fell off the stage) that I can’t give a practiced speech, and cannot be counted on for, like, any wisdom. At all. Whatsoever.

But I do like having fun around lots of people who love books, and celebrating books with people. I love talking books and telling stories. People who love books are my people, and seeing them fills me with a sense of hope and community.

And the fun hardly ever… well, sometimes… occasionally doesn’t… gets out of hand.

So, I wrote Unspoken, and I thought to myself: Self, you love this book and would like to spread the word about it a bit, maybe you could arrange some sort of… touring event… style thing? I am sure not TOO MANY disasters will take place.

This is what happened next…

THE SMART CHICKS TOUR

So, Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong organised, for three glorious years, an annual Smart Chicks event where they gathered many writers to celebrate awesome fictional ladies and awesome real-life reader ladies. I came on the 2010 one, couldn’t come on the 2011 one, and thought to myself that I sure would like to come on the 2012 one.

So, while hanging out with several author ladies in Arizona, I decided to cunningly and coolly bring this up.

MELISSA: Any Smart Chick author of the past is always welcome.

SARAH: Can–can I come?

MELISSA: Of course you can-

SARAH: *casually backflips into a pool to escape any awkwardness*

MELISSA: Is she dead?

ROSEMARY CLEMENT-MOORE: I think she might have hit her head.

MELISSA: I think she drowned.

ROSEMARY: O God what will we tell her mother.

SARAH: What’s up, my homies?

MELISSA: Of course you can come on the tour! That’s what I meant! You’re invited! But please don’t do that again.

SARAH: Do what? Why do you all look so upset?

On one of the memorable Smart Chicks tour stops, Charles de Lint, who is a Fancy Person who brought modern urban fantasy to the masses and other fancy things, was there.

Also, there was a very large, carved desk. Now, when I am doing an event, I like to move about. Other writers, they are very fascinating people, they have a lot of compelling stuff to say, they are awesome no matter where they are, but I like to be moving around a bit. Maybe doing actions. Dances. Mimes. I think you see where I’m going here.

Later he and Holly Black were somewhere, hanging out. I don’t know where fancy people hang out. Let us say they were in Fancylandia.

HOLLY: I think you just met Sarah?

CHARLES DE LINT: No, I don’t think so.

CHARLES DE LINT: Let me tell you who I DID MEET! A crazy lady who climbed over this huge desk in a floofy skirt and high heels. She went right over it, Holly, like a squirrel on stilts!

HOLLY: … Oh you met Sarah, all right.

MELISSA: It’s always fun to have you at events, Sarah.

SARAH: *genuinely touched*

AUDIENCE: What is Melissa’s Carnival of Souls about?

SARAH: Oh, oh I’ll do an impression!

WRITERS: Oh boy she’s rolling around on the floor.

AUDIENCE: She’s stolen a child! Call the police, she stole a child!

MELISSA: I mean it’s always such an interesting experience.

Possibly our moment of deepest shame was shared by all my fellow writers save one.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Who’s your favourite member of One Direction?

KELLEY ARMSTRONG: Is that a band?

MELISSA MARR: Are there boys in it?

ROSEMARY CLEMENT-MOORE: I think so but I don’t know their names.

SARAH: Guys, I’m pretty sure they’re fictional, I’m pretty sure they’re on Glee.

MEL DE LA CRUZ: Oh my God. I apologise for them. I apologise for everything. HARRY STYLES, and what is WRONG with you people?

When my little brother heard about this, he was deeply shocked at my ignorance. I have now been taught all about One Direction.

THE AUSTIN TEEN BOOK FESTIVAL

I was super honoured to be invited to the Austin Teen Book Festival, and to be appointed moderator for two very fancy panels!

Now, a moderator is someone chosen to run the discussion for a group of writers. Keep them in line, as it were. I took this duty very seriously.

RAE CARSON: She’s standing on a chair and giving commands. What should we do?!

LIBBA BRAY: I’m going to hold that chair. (Always kind, Libba.)

LEIGH BARDUGO: She’s strangling Margi Stohl. I don’t understand and I have to understand because I don’t want to be strangled!

As I understand it, no other moderators strangled people that day. I scorn their lack of commitment to the cause.

Also, there were signing lines for each author, and I totally had one. A line. I love you, Austin! For the beauteous people in my line, I had drilled English penny necklaces. (For those who have not read Unspoken: this gift will make sense only if you have read Unspoken.)

LOVELY LADY: Can I have a penny necklace?

SARAH: Uh… nope.

LOVELY LADY: Oh, you’ve run out, never m-

SARAH: I cannot lie to you, lovely lady. I haven’t run out.

SARAH: *produces several chains which have become hideously tangled*

SARAH: I can’t untangle them. I don’t know what to do!

SARAH: THEY’RE LIKE MATING SNAKES–WHICH CAN NEVER BE TORN APART-

LOVELY LADY: It’s cool, the book’s fine.

SARAH: Thank you for understanding.

LOVELY LADY: I hope the snakes will be very happy together.

I also now own a bright pink T-shirt proclaiming ‘KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD.’ I’m pretty sure I didn’t make it any less weird.

THE POWELL’S PORTLAND EVENT

At Portland I did a lovely event with several authors much lovelier than I: Cindy Pon, Malinda Lo, Mette Ivie Harrison, Janni Lee Simner. (And Kate Elliott came because she is fab.) And maps of Sorry-in-the-Vale were being printed to give people who came. So, we walked into Powell’s bookshop, and…

BOOKSELLER: There has been a terrible incident!

EVERYBODY: *looks at me*

BOOKSELLER: Yes, it does have to do with Sarah Rees Brennan! … How did you all know that?

EVERYBODY: *shrug*

BOOKSELLER: The maps were sent to the wrong bookstore!

SARAH: I will go get th-

BOOKSELLER: And that store is closed on Sunday.

SARAH: noooooooooooo

BOOKSELLER: What should we do?

SARAH: I HAVE A PLAN.

EVERYBODY: What did she say? Stop her!

SARAH: Quickly bookseller, take me to the back room.

MALINDA: Did Sarah just drag someone into the back room literally within minutes of walking in the store?

CINDY: Well, we all saw that one coming.

I dashed in the back, logged into my email and performed a tricky maneuver which got me into the site where I could print off the maps. I forgot to log out, so: Powell’s bookstore, I like you guys very much, I hope you are enjoying my emails, I’m sorry if you were expecting more literary insight.

A thing I like to do when there are a bunch of authors (and the more the merrier, always, because then it feels more like a fun conversation, and also I can rely on someone else to say something wise) is buy all the books so I can give them to an audience member as a Gift Package. So I nipped the books up really quickly after the Maps Incident, and promised to pay for them later, and then with all the carry-on (excellent writers saying excellent things, me pretending to be buried alive behind a bookcase, me being the worst at recognising people–HI JULIE–me being given a beautiful gift of cookies) I forgot. We exited and bundled ourselves into a taxi to the airport, and then I let out a shrill scream.

SARAH: I MUST GO BACK I STOLE THE BOOKS! I STOLE THEM ALL!

CINDY: What’d she say?

MALINDA: She committed a crime.

CINDY: Well, we all saw that one coming.

I was going straight from Portland to my tour in England, and this meant a series of flights that added up to two nights and a day on a variety of airplanes. DEAR GOD I WAS SO TIRED. And the airplane food was a special kind of dreadful.

However, at Powell’s bookstore a lovely lady presented me with cookies, baked with chocolate chips and sea salt for all the tears people cried at the end of Unspoken. (That’s a direct quote. Good cookies and a rapier wit. ) What I’m telling you is that I lived on those cookies for two nights and a day. Those cookies were my only friend.

A MAN WHO WAS MY FELLOW PASSENGER ON ONE FLIGHT: Did you bake these yourself?

SARAH: No! *proudly* a fan baked them for me.

A MAN: Wow. Are you famous?

SARAH: *preens* Well, no, but-

A MAN: Yeah I thought not, because famous people travel in first class. And also you just fell asleep on my shoulder and drooled.

SARAH: …

A MAN: There were some cookie crumbs in the drool.

SARAH: Well, I’m not sharing my cookies with you now.

THE LIBBA BRAY AND HOLLY BLACK EVENT

HOLLY: I’m doing an event in September, too! With Libba.

SARAH REES BRENNAN, INVITING HERSELF ALONG TO EVERYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE FUN SINCE THAT TRIP OUT OF THE HOSPITAL IN 1983: Can–can I come? Ask Libba! I mean if it’s cool.

LIBBA: It’s cool. *plays a chilled out tune to herself* Everything is cool, bro. (Musical people are more relaxed and friendly. I think that’s science.)

Of course, at the event, I shamed myself as I always do.

SARAH: Do you guys want to know what Libba’s book is about?

HOLLY: Why–why is she dancing?

SARAH: This is FLAPPER dancing. I’m being a JAZZ BABY. (note: Libba’s The Diviners is set in the 1920s, I didn’t just take a funny notion into my head.)

LIBBA: Shhh Holly, I want to know how the book ends.

But I scored cupcakes (it was my birthday… I don’t demand baked goods everywhere I go) and I think everybody had fun. I call it a win!

So you can see why I think of book events as times to celebrate books, have fun with friends, talk about books with new people, and generally have a gloriously nerdy time.

So I am much looking forward to travelling about in the charming Cassie Clare’s fancy, decorated bus next month. I have such plans: to do mimes that will embarrass her, to do impressions that will embarrass her, to make fun of her bus (I’m going to be working on a theme here). The glorious Maureen Johnson will be accompanying us on several stops, and so those stops will be even more fun.

I will be there the whole time! I hope to see you there. http://sarahreesbrennan.com/appearances/

I will sign everything presented to me. I hope I will have prezzies.

I cannot promise to behave.

The Valentine’s Day Snippet

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

Happy Valentine’s Day, my sweetest readers: I love you because you are the best!

And I have brought you a gift! HOWEVER, you are not to blame me for this gift, because Cindy Pon and Holly Black chose it. They felt it was absolutely the right one. So if you don’t like it… come after them…

Thus without further ado…

It took her a moment to realize there was someone else in that small dark corridor.

He was standing against the wall in the shadows. The only light was the stripe cast through the door Kami had not quite shut behind her; the iron doorknob was still pressed against her palm. His face was shadowed, but in that pale strip of light, she saw the gold glint of his hair and the line of his body, shoulders squared and arms folded.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Kami. She let go of the doorknob and reached for him. Miraculously, he did not flinch away. He let her fingertips rest against the worn leather of his sleeve.

“Listen,” Kami whispered, braver now. “I don’t care what Lillian says, or what anyone says. It doesn’t have to matter. You don’t have to hate yourself. I know you. Better than anyone. Don’t I?”

She felt sinking disappointment when he uncrossed his arms and her hand fell away, certain he was about to move farther away.

But he moved nearer. Surprise ran through Kami at that simple action, his warmth so close to her chilled body. His breath was a whisper of heat against her cheek. As she swallowed in the dark, she felt his fingers lightly touching the collar of her dress, trailing back to the nape of her neck.

Then his hand closed tight in her hair, and he pulled her in against him and kissed her. Kami arched up against him, sliding her hands up along his chest, feeling muscle move under thin cotton against her palms. She clenched her hands and held on tight to the fabric of his T-shirt, knuckles pressing into the lines of his collarbone.

She kissed him, pulling him down to her, as his fingers tugged at her tie and her body drew in closer to his with each tug. She felt the material give, the buttons pulling free so her collar drew open, and he slipped his hand just inside the warm space between her collar and her throat, his fingertips curling against her skin.

His other hand was stroking her hair, pulling at it a little too much but with a frantic attempt at gentleness. He was pressed against the wall and she was pressed against him. She was finally close again, inside a circle of warmth, his leather jacket around her and his body against hers. She was almost close enough.

The door to the pool room opened, and Kami tore herself away, throwing open the door of the parlor and hurling herself inside. She found herself blinking in the impossibly bright lights. When the dazzle cleared, she saw everyone looking at her curiously. Holly was leaning across to Angela, as if they had been talking at last, and Rusty looked as though he had just woken up from a nap.

Kami resumed her seat on the sofa in complete silence, and found out who had opened the door to the pool room as Lillian walked into the parlor. Lillian, naturally, had not a hair out of place and gave no indication that she had witnessed any torrid corridor encounters. Kami watched her walk calmly toward the mantelpiece, and jumped like a hare at a gunshot when the door opened again.

Ash walked in.

Kami had not noticed before that he was wearing a leather jacket. His was black, and looked a bit newer than Jared’s battered brown leather jacket, but she hadn’t been able to see colors in the shadows.

Oh no, Kami thought, surely not. Life could not be that ridiculous or that cruel. It could not be true.

Ash met her fixed stare and offered her a smile, shyer than Ash’s usual smiles. Kami forced herself to smile weakly back. It wasn’t one of her best efforts, but Ash looked pleased. He went back to his chair, glancing at her and smiling again.

Then Jared marched into the room and headed straight for the window seat. Once he was at the window, he leaned against the glass and looked out at the night.

So if Kami did the making-out mathematics, and weighed the chances of it being the guy sneaking looks and smiles at her, or the guy who was keeping up his perfect record of stonily ignoring her . . .

Kami sat stricken. She could not imagine what expression was on her face, but she saw Angela giving her an odd look out of the corner of her eye.

Rusty leaned in to her, settling his arm around her shoulders again. “Everything all right, Cambridge?” he murmured.

Kami said numbly, “Never better.”

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! (Sorry!)

Shut Up, Ladies

Originally published at Sarah Rees Brennan. You can comment here or there.

It made me so sad to see, in an article about Jane Austen, that even though Jane Austen remains super popular there has been a decline in respect for her as a serious artist. Because it’s ‘chick lit’… as if any genre is Automatically Bad. And as if anything a woman created that a lot of women really like… is Automatically Bad.

I was reading some fan responses to the Vampire Diaries over the weekend (sharp left turn from Jane Austen! Also, yes, I’m very cool!) —and I started to get viscerally uncomfortable about how often the women involved in creating it were named and hated on. Julie Plec and Caroline Dries were brought up time and again, with a constant refrain that they shut up, drop out, SHUT UP, if only Kevin Wiliamson or Jose Molina would save the situation. The dudes’ names only ever came up associated with praise.

The stuff the fans didn’t like which was masterminded by dudes, was talked about differently: that episode sucked, that season had this off time. Never, ever ‘this dude sucks.’

It reminded me of how I used to see the same hatred of Marti Noxon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which really sharply contrasted with the refrain of ‘Joss Whedon is my master now.’

Look, I am no expert on television here: I never know who’s written an episode, or who’s behind a certain plot arc. (I also barely know how to turn it on or change the DVD player settings, but that’s shame for another day.) I’m sure all these ladies are imperfect. Maybe all these ladies have done terrible things to their shows! Please do not tell me all the details of any of these women’s awful crimes against fiction.

My point is that I doubt that the dudes were flawless in their handling of fiction: the problem is the insistent pattern that goes ‘SHUT UP, WOMAN’S NAME, SHUT UP!!’

I remember looking at one site and seeing a female YA author being discussed. Her appearance, her manners, whether she’d written too many books, too many books in one series—I have seen at least six female authors called ‘whores’ (OH. I. SEE.) and ‘money-grubbing hacks’ for writing a long series. I have never seen similar criticism for, say, Rick Riordan (don’t stop writing Rick Riordan, that’s not what I meant! I like a long series! I’m just making a point!)—whether she was grateful or gracious enough.

Then I looked at what they had to say about a male author in the same field… apparently his worst offense was being friends with the female author… (Kind of like how the most criticism I see against Neil Gaiman is actually against Amanda Palmer, asking why he doesn’t get her to… guess what… shut up.)

It’s so much easier for people to hate on a girl than a guy. A lady’s success will so often be looked on with dark suspicion, while a dude’s success is looked on as his due.

Of course my opinion here is personal: I’m a lady creator, though not as fancy as the ones I’ve been discussing. I’ve had my appearance criticised, and the company I keep, and how I conduct myself, and that all sucks. Quite recently I remember a blogger described my behaviour at a public event as ‘attention-seeking’ (no! good gravy! who do I think I am, up on a stage talking?)… I’ve seen that word used for a lot of women, but I’ve never seen it used for a man. It’s almost as if… people see a dude up on stage talking and think ‘Yes, things are as they should be.’ And they see a lady and think ‘SHUT UP, WOMAN’S NAME, SHUT UP.’

I’ve said snarky things and been roundly criticised for my rudeness. (Like, this weekend.) So have many ladies! While snarky dudes are celebrated, quoted, applauded: while we all know that dudes can get away with a million more things than we can.

Having a semi-public job means a certain amount of scrutiny. Creators are always going to get critiqued, because that’s what people should do with art, and if people don’t care about your fiction you’ve gone wrong somewhere! That’s all fine.

But I wish, wish, wish there wasn’t that obstacle for women, that kneejerk ‘SHUT UP!’

Pride and Prejudice is two hundred years old today. Jane Austen wrote in another book, Persuasion, ‘Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story… The pen has been in their hands.’

The pen should not be seen as solely belonging in their hands.

(Wow, this got long.) (Maybe I should shut up.) (But I hardly ever do.)

…

I saw and much appreciated the responses to this impromptu rant from writers I know and love like Maureen Johnson, Holly Black, Seanan McGuire and Kiersten White… and it reminded me of a point that seems applicable!

Here it is: groups of writers, as well as individual writers, and how they are perceived.

This is probably not going to surprise you: when they are groups of ladies, or groups that include ladies, NOT SUPER WELL.

Let us consider the Inklings: a group of writers including J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, which is often considered a fantastic example of writerly communion and community. But lots of people want to be very clear that mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers may have been Tolkien and Lewis’s friend, but she wasn’t one of the Inklings. She didn’t attend meetings! Okay maybe one but it didn’t count! They were all, all dudes. (Okay. Maybe so. But chill yourselves, why is this so hotly contested? … Oh wait I know why.)

But everyone is definitely sure the Inklings read aloud from this other lady’s bad writing.

(Q: Have I ever mocked bad writing, sometimes by women, in a group of writers?

A: BOY HAVE I EVER. I have done nothing else for a week straight. But I STILL think the Inklings could’ve decided to mock a dude as well as/instead of this lady.)

There is an old boys’ network which exists, especially in Literary Fiction Circles, i.e. the most highly regarded and best paid. 83 per cent of the books reviewed in the New York Review of Books are by men… and 83 per cent of reviewers are men, too. (What a highly interesting coincidence!) When questioned about the Super Sketchy Numbers, the editor of the Times Literary Supplement (surprise: he’s a dude) said ‘The TLS is only interested in getting the best reviews of the most important books.’ (Oh. I. See.)

These dudes with this power are able to silence any silly praise of ladies. Remember me talking about Dorothy L. Sayers above? This is what a dude writing for the New Yorker said about her: ‘I have often heard people say that Dorothy Sayers wrote well… but, really, she does not write very well.’ (Thanks for clearing that up, buddy.) Dudes are more likely to get awards, shiny objects that say ‘Here is your Well Done for Speaking Up, Dude. NONE FOR YOU, LADY.’

Dudes are more likely to get praise because of this network: they’re more likely to get awards because of this network. It provides a loop of infinitely helpful feedback for dudes, and so the praise dudes give other dudes is listened to, is given more of an official voice, whereas the message sent to ladies talking about books by ladies is too generally (stop me if you’ve heard this before) ‘Shut up, Woman’s Name, shut up!’

The Bronte kids, Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell, had a writing group: they all wrote collectively about a land of their imagination. Later, Charlotte, Emily and Anne all went on to write classic works of literature (under dudes’ names of course). Branwell went on to take a bunch of drugs. Critics at the time floated this brilliant theory: WHAT IF THE DUDE OF THE GROUP TOTALLY WROTE ALL THE BOOKS? (Shut up, the actual geniuses of the group!)

One of my great Writing Group inspirations is that of Jenny Crusie, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Pat Gaffney, Anne Stuart and many others. I’ve never seen anyone talking about that group except for the ladies themselves. (Because they’re romance authors?) (Shut up, ladies writing about lady stuff, shut up!)

So, my closest writer people and critique group, mostly ladies. I’ve heard us called a ‘clique’ (like Mean Girls, sure! Ladies=clique!) with suggestions we’re ‘pretending to like each other (For Some Reason) (you know how those catty insincere ladies are!)’

People talk about us as if what we do is sit around plotting pettily and doing each other’s hair. (It’s a fair cop: I have done Holly Black’s hair. Her whole kitchen was purple afterwards, it was like I murdered a giant grape. Will not make it as hair stylist: must stick to writing.) Shaping each others’ writing, talking about each others’ writing, talking about our literary influence (almost every lady writer I know: hella influenced by Robin McKinley)… any discourse we have is ignored or dismissed as untrue. ‘Shut up, ladies, shut up!!!’

Oddly, I haven’t seen anyone suggesting that Neil Gaiman is pretending to like/forming a clique with John Green because he was a guest at his Carnegie Hall event. I haven’t seen anyone suggest that the overwhelmingly male critics of literature, writing overwhelmingly about dudes, are a) lying about how great these dude books are or b) being mean by talking about only dudes/dudes they’re friendly with/majority dudes/more positively about dudes.

And I’m not saying that dude authors, or any dudes, or any ladies buying into the ‘Shut up, woman’s name, shut up!’ thing are being mean, either. I’m saying, there’s a pattern we’ve all, to some extent, unconsciously adopted. I’m saying that when we think ‘SHUT UP’ about a lady we should examine that impulse.

Because until then, for all ladies… Our words aren’t as valued, and that doesn’t just mean our books: it means our critique as well, and our community.

Okay. *glances around* Uh. *hopes has not alienated all dude authors ever and shot all (slim already) chances of ever being asked to write a piece for a major publication or shot all (slim already) chances at an award*

I maybe have to both shut up and change my name to Benedict Cumbersnoot. Excuse me…