The 48 Hour Wrap-Up

Ques’tu lis?”“Kes-tu-lis?” (*edit: Sebastien, a French intern at the Mouscron Public Library in Belgium has corrected me!) That is the question being posed to a bunch of young people in Belgium. It means (loosely translated) “What Are You Reading?” Everyone is getting ready for their summer reading programs, and “Kes’tu lis?” is a regular gathering that will introduce new mangas, graphic novels, and other cool reading. Go Belgian librarians! It sound really fun.

The 48 Hour Book Binge is such a nice kick-off to summertime.

Boy, sans The Book Thief, this year’s reading challenge went a lot better. Last year I was interrupted so many times I was frantic and irritated. I only finished seven books, and ended up being pulled into all kinds of other people’s problems, and I got really frustrated. This year, I am proud to report that being ruthless really helped. Clearly I need to be a bigger bully and make people feed me and leave me alone to read more often. I only felt guilty once or twice. Or three times. But no more than that.

This year, I finished …

  • Fifteen books (actually fourteen and a half, but I had to finish up the last Maude March!)
  • 3,688 pages (throw in a couple of MG and 400 pagers – it helps)
  • And approximately thirty-six hours of reading (barring sleeping, and an unfortunate phone call from a girlfriend I couldn’t tell to hush and leave me alone, ’cause she was calling long-distance, and an unfortunate choir rehearsal where the director was late – but I had my book in my purse, so all was well!).

Getting my reviews/comments posted was a bit of a challenge at times, but scrawling thoughts on handy scraps of paper seemed to work out okay. These couldn’t be mistaken as coherent reviews for the most part, but for some books it was a temptation to write essays (there’s that English major in me always wanting to respond to books in some way.) – which I squelched, for the most part. No matter how brief my comments, some of the books I read were fabulous, and you should check them out. I did begin some books and choose not to finish them or review them — I’ll spare all of us that torment — but I tried not to spend more than ten minutes on figuring out whether or not a book was worth my time.

As always, having an excuse to read unopposed is an unrivaled delight to me, and I hope to join the fun next year!

Time Flies!

With only an extended break for chorus rehearsal, I feel like I’ve been reading for days. It’s been a kick. I’ll be back with page count and time on the morrow… but for now, bed, to have one long convoluted dream featuring every character and storyline I’ve lived in the last 48 hours…

Sandstone: If

Every once in awhile, I come across something that rings so loudly as a One True Thing that I am made slightly ill by the reverberations.

In choosing my life in print, I tend to skew toward YA stuff, of course, and it’s easy enough to target that I am reliving, relieving, regretting, wishing. And of course, it’s also the writing/literature I choose because I just like it, it’s a funny, quirky time of life when one is free to do just about anything and go any direction without fear.

But.

Shouldn’t every time of life be like that? And so, I found this latest Flickr/Ficktion.ning to be one of those queasy reverb times when I am sort of wall-eyed and nauseas from a good clock on the head. This is me: this is the me on the chasm, on the lip of a great big crack in the earth. This is me, for the nine millioneth time, drawing back from the crack because I’m not sure whether I would fall in or up or down.

Please, God, this is me for once taking a great big leap.


Sandstone

6.9.07

“I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. I have accepted fear as a part of life, specifically the fear of change, the fear of the unknown, and I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back, turn back, you’ll die if you venture too far. “ — Erica Jong

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:

Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

“Second Fig,” 1922 – Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am muted by desire, wavering here, on this freeway overpass. If I took just a few steps up, grasped the edge of the cyclone fence, I could be right out over the traffic, at the end of my world. The wind, which teases soundlessly, would shrill in my ears, making a malevolent tangle of my hair. If, If. I won’t do it, though. I’m only here for symbolic reasons. My therapist friend, Bev, says I need to be “in the wind” more often, and learn to enjoy it. Bev says I should play with blocks of sandstone, holding them and carving at them, letting them crumble and shatter beneath my hands. Bev says that art should learn to live with impermanence. Bev should’ve been a Buddhist.

It is windy today, and the poisonous clouds of oleander along the freeway are thrashing wildly. I squint down at the ribbons of hazy asphalt, then squeeze my eyes shut to block out the endless rush of cars. This is a stupid place to stand. If it weren’t for Bev, I wouldn’t be here.

Bev says that my random destructive tendencies are a result of my inability to cope with chaos. Bev says I have to “face my fears,” and let go of my death grip on my life. Bev says that once I see that every life is at the mercy of the Fates, at the mercy of the winds of change, I’ll be better able to understand my place in the universe.

Of course, Bev could be wrong.

What could happen is that I will stand here in the wind, and realize that I am a speck of dust in the universe, and that is my place. What could happen is that I will realize that nothing I plan may happen, that I spend too much of my life making lists of things marked ‘Eventually’ and ‘Someday’ and that I wrestle each day to convince myself that eventually and someday are guaranteed. What could happen is that I may realize that everything I do doesn’t matter, that chaos is the way of the world. What may happen is that I come down from this perch, screaming.

Instead, I think I will just tear up my university applications.

They will take longer to fall than I would.

He wandered off the Interstate in search of a cold drink and a clean restroom when he passed the brown clapboard building with the words “Friends of Bill, Meet 7:30 Weeknights,” in faded letters on the marquee.

Friends of Bill. He could be a friend, too, though he held none of the requisite addictions to qualify. Decisively, he circled back, found a diner that served hearty portions of meatloaf and plain brown bread, then, finishing, strolled slowly through tree-lined streets, looking up through gold dusted air, listening to the quiescent sounds of a small town settling in for the evening.

The building smelled faintly of spaghetti dinners and mothballed clothing; an old Elks Lodge or community hall. The “NO SMOKING” sign predicted the air filled with the familiar blue haze in the corridor, as desperate lungs took in their last tar-laden breaths. Anonymous faces old and young drifted in from the gold touched evening. A coffee urn dispensed a blackish, brackish brew, a liquid replacement for the courage so many needed to attend each night, and he took a bracing sip.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The words to the Thomas Simmons prayer, murmured in soft cadence with the man beside him, relaxed him. A feeling of relief swept over him as the meeting slid through the familiar paces – he had been here before, and done this before. He had never stayed so long, and friendly eyes turned to him as introductions were made.

I’m Mitch, he thought, choosing a name at random. Or Jason. Gordon. The names stuck in his throat, and he averted his face as the Anonymous began to speak. They would not withdraw compassion for his pseudonym he knew. That travesty a hundred thousand others had already taken up and worn as a mask, the real Mitches, Jasons and Gordons caped in opaqueness as Bobs, Mikes and Dans. Only when they were able to discard their falsehoods – it was their addiction to that which held them – could they reclaim a real identity. He would not suffer for that untruth, but from others, worse ones. His presence here was the greatest lie of all – he had the courage to change nothing.

It was easier, with a razor, than she had expected.

After all, it was a word already branded in pain on her soul.

‘If,’ always followed closely by ‘only.’

Enough of regret. She would make a bit of ink when she had finished, out of walnut hulls, charcoal and the like and rub it into the narrow chasms of opened flesh. The red weals would heal, but the scar would remain. Like a prayer on her skin, she would be reminded, and throw her dreams out further, to arc beyond the gravity of the reality of her life. And, if she breathed the word, and lived it, and dreamed it long enough, she would break free of her little orbit, and maybe her own wobbling star would shoot out into a new trajectory.

She needed to feel the weight of a new gravity, if only she were not afraid.

If.


So. IF is now the property of The Skin Project and was taken by Flickr photographer Miss Hagg. This evocative photo will likely be the Ficktion.ning subject of a number of other stories found with: The Gurrier, Ms. Teaandcakes, Elimare, Chris, Aquafortis, Valshamerlyn, and Miss Mari.


Every once in awhile I write a story that seems like a bit too little like fiction, and a bit more like throwing up. I think I need a good lie down now. If this has been more information than you needed, that’s what you get for reading the fine print.

Zipping 'Round the Blogosphere

Geez, it must be the angle of the sun or something. Last year it was Garrison Keillor who took writers to task for whining about their Very Hard Lives and how creativity, just squeezing out a sentence a day is the Hardest Work, Ever.

It was a well-needed and not well heeded piece of advice. GalleyCat informed us of the latest Oh The Strain Of Writing whine from the peanut gallery, and Chasing Ray has made a few pithy statements. Read and enjoy.

I’m sure everyone else who keeps up knows this by now, but I am still …torn between amusement and alarm at the idea of a Meg Cabot graphic novel?! Erm… Meanwhile the GalleyCat also has the news that Penguin Books UK is spending a huge amount on a new site run by teens and for teens called Spinebreakers. People: this is not your mother’s …uh, book club. Wait. I seem to have heard that somewhere before… All right. Let’s just say this is not your mother’s cyber book club. Apparently, the larger percentage of frequent visitors to social networking sites are readers, so Penguin thinks this will light a fire beneath a whole new generation. Should be interesting, in a FaceBook kind of way…

Also, okay, so my new novel is a cooking novel. This does NOT mean that I watch The Food Network. Much. Except for entertainment purposes…

Cynsations has an update on what’s going on with Nancy Garden, the very famous author of the often banned and very beloved Annie On My Mind, which is twenty-five years old this year.

YPulse has a piece today on the decline of BFF’s. That makes me a bit sad, but, as an introvert, I tend to think that the fading of close-knit friendships is inevitable as people get older *(Yes, I am a pessimist. Sorry). The reason is, among other things, that technology has in some ways robbed us of our social skills in the real world. That, and the fact that our society seems to encourage people to be Center Stage, the main contestant in their very own reality show seems to discourage realistic interaction, selflessness and actual listening skills, and those are a few important things for real friendships. However, I’m sure the majority of teens are savvy enough to figure that out and get those friendships back!

I’ve been bummed since everyone in my Cybils Sisters group has already read the last Magic or Madness book (and the latest Holly Black, and the latest Laurie Halse Anderson – life is so hard for mere writers when compared with booksellers and librarians! ) (Ahem!). I still haven’t read the last book but I am excited to have heard by way of Shaken & Stirred that Ms. Larbalestier not only has a new book coming out, it’s being released next autumn from Bloomsbury USA. Another congratulations for jumping the …pond? Or the land mass in between us. Or something.

Zipping ‘Round the Blogosphere

Geez, it must be the angle of the sun or something. Last year it was Garrison Keillor who took writers to task for whining about their Very Hard Lives and how creativity, just squeezing out a sentence a day is the Hardest Work, Ever.

It was a well-needed and not well heeded piece of advice. GalleyCat informed us of the latest Oh The Strain Of Writing whine from the peanut gallery, and Chasing Ray has made a few pithy statements. Read and enjoy.

I’m sure everyone else who keeps up knows this by now, but I am still …torn between amusement and alarm at the idea of a Meg Cabot graphic novel?! Erm… Meanwhile the GalleyCat also has the news that Penguin Books UK is spending a huge amount on a new site run by teens and for teens called Spinebreakers. People: this is not your mother’s …uh, book club. Wait. I seem to have heard that somewhere before… All right. Let’s just say this is not your mother’s cyber book club. Apparently, the larger percentage of frequent visitors to social networking sites are readers, so Penguin thinks this will light a fire beneath a whole new generation. Should be interesting, in a FaceBook kind of way…

Also, okay, so my new novel is a cooking novel. This does NOT mean that I watch The Food Network. Much. Except for entertainment purposes…

Cynsations has an update on what’s going on with Nancy Garden, the very famous author of the often banned and very beloved Annie On My Mind, which is twenty-five years old this year.

YPulse has a piece today on the decline of BFF’s. That makes me a bit sad, but, as an introvert, I tend to think that the fading of close-knit friendships is inevitable as people get older *(Yes, I am a pessimist. Sorry). The reason is, among other things, that technology has in some ways robbed us of our social skills in the real world. That, and the fact that our society seems to encourage people to be Center Stage, the main contestant in their very own reality show seems to discourage realistic interaction, selflessness and actual listening skills, and those are a few important things for real friendships. However, I’m sure the majority of teens are savvy enough to figure that out and get those friendships back!

I’ve been bummed since everyone in my Cybils Sisters group has already read the last Magic or Madness book (and the latest Holly Black, and the latest Laurie Halse Anderson – life is so hard for mere writers when compared with booksellers and librarians! ) (Ahem!). I still haven’t read the last book but I am excited to have heard by way of Shaken & Stirred that Ms. Larbalestier not only has a new book coming out, it’s being released next autumn from Bloomsbury USA. Another congratulations for jumping the …pond? Or the land mass in between us. Or something.

Housekeeping

Every once in awhile I question the meaning of the life, my sanity, and my purpose in the universe in general. I do note that these times of questioning seem to coincide neatly with house cleaning.

Housekeeping is a word that gives me the creeps. Though it is such an awesome book, all about keeping a place for one’s soul in the midst of errata, the task of housekeeping these days is much murkier. First, you’re faced with the perkiness factor:

Did you not know that American housewives are some of the Happiest People On Earth? Look at the commercials – you’ll see us skinning and grinning, gleeful as meth addicts with our starched blouses, crisp clam diggers and highly artificially scented chemical products. Just once I’d like to see a.) a commercial featuring a man doing something like mounds of ironing, or hugging small children with fond exasperation as it pukes, upends something on a spotless floor, or takes a mudbath while you’re doing laundry or cleaning stains out of the carpet, or b.) an unhappy person doing housework, whose life is not suddenly and inexplicably changed due to a Dow Chemicals product. [Better Living Through Chemistry, Part Deux.]

The second creepy thing about housekeeping in this country is that American women who keep house are sexually desperate and/or deviant, and will ostensibly attack anything upright and male – door-to-door salesmen, the pool boy, or whatever clichéd blue collar I’ll-come-to-your-house-to-fix-it person you can find. Shows like Desperate Housewives have started to make me feel like I have a stunted sex drive – I mean, honestly, aren’t I meant to be swanning around in cling-wrap and feathered mules? Shame on me in my jeans and tee’s — what chromosomes am I missing?

And then, there’s the whole Cult of the Puritanically Clean house keeping thing that bugs me. I am serious about recycling, trying to eat locally first, organically second, trying to reduce my environmental impact on this rapidly dissolving dirtball upon which we live. Now, there are umpty-million options for ‘eco-friendly’ ‘natural’ and ‘convenient’ products to make your house “allergen free” and “safe.” First of all, I don’t think that people seventy-five years ago had hypoallergenic homes. They didn’t die from the actual earth-dirt in their houses. Second, most of these über-clean sanitation products seem to create excess garbage and ozone holes. How many disposable cleaning options do we really need? First it was just baby wipes and the like – things you don’t really want to reuse anyway. And then it was washcloths, which, I don’t know about you, but I tend to wash mine? Then it was oil-impregnated dust cloths, cleanser-stuffed disposable toilet brushes, disposable dish-wipes, and on and on. Honestly, no matter how convenient as they are, I feel downright guilty owning a Swiffer (and props to Natalie Dee for the cartoon). I refuse to go all the way to perdition, and get a Wet Jet. It’s bad enough that I wipe the floor with something else I throw away.

Every once in awhile, I question myself, my sanity, and the meaning of life. And frankly, I’m just not finding it in housekeeping

Sigh. Back to cleaning out the closet.

SCBWI Too Expensive? PLEASE TAKE NOTE:

Jay and the Disco Maidens (which is, incidentally, a really good name for a rock group) remind us that we all have the power to be great. By offering to pay the full SCBWI tuition of a person in need, they have entered into the Pay-It-Forward Hall of Fame.

I think we all just found Thirteen Reasons Why the Disco Mermaids rock.

Thanks, people.

Countdown…

For everyone who has EVER watched a Disney movie and said, “What, huh?” in complete bewilderment, I direct you to an Irishman’s take on Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang. Good grief, I absolutely cackled.

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Happy Nineteenth Amendment Day, welcome first week of the über busy month of June, and with it, the second monthly installment of Wicked Cool Overlooked Books, brought to you by Chasing Ray, in concert with the ladies at 7-Imp, Kelly at Big A, little a, and anyone else who wants to play. I am becoming a believer in the powerhouse of ideas that is Jo Walton. Must. Go. Read…

The 2007 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards for Excellence in Children’s Literature have been announced. Once again, that Astonishing Life is garnering more critical praise, and once again, I’m getting antsy for Volume II!

For those of you willing to steal an hour from your employer on the computer, do check out Sugar Magazine’s live interview with e. lockhart on Wednesday at 8 AM California time, 11 AM New York City time, and 4 PM London Time. And yes, London does have the best time slot. Sugar is a UK magazine. Congrats to e. for jumping the pond.

Linguists who love a good poem and the thrill of using their noggins will enjoy the Poetry Workshop at the Guardian. Meanwhile, the London Review of Books has a great review of books on animation and how artists work. Did you know that Walt Disney’s visions quickly grew beyond his meager talents as a cartoonist, so he acted out most of his cartoons for his fellow animators to see and draw? You’ve got to really know what you want to be so fully able to allow others to see it.

I discovered a couple of places potential authors should know about: Rick Frishman’s Author101’s Publicity Blog and Colin Murcray’s Journal of a Male Children’s Book Writer. Both of these sites offer insights which might be of use. Mr. Murcray’s latest article on finding the courage to write is really close to home, and now that I am jumping into the publishing thing without backup singers (although I may still figure out a way to drag some of you into this with me), knowing that I have a place to begin looking for publicity hints is a good thing. The launch meeting for Knopf’s next line is this week — and this week I find out if the cover design that I’ve seen is what we’re going with. Intrigue!

June is the month I’ve been waiting for — for a number of reasons, not the least of which is little my brother’s 8th grade graduation (Finally, the bearded fuzzball boychild is leaving middle school and joining the ranks of Others Who Shave! Huzzah!) and the incipient birth of a nephew (at least my sister looks like she reallllly hopes so), but because the 48 Hour Book Challenge is upon us in just four days (eek!) and the clock is ticking on the fabulous Summer Blog Blast Tour.

What’s a ‘Blog Blast Tour?’ you ask? It’s a week long blog tour celebrating the season of picnics and the fabulous authors of the season. The idea comes from the fertile mind of Colleen Mondor, and includes about twenty-five YA author interviews at various blogs. Our blog tour includes many different YA writers — covering “boy books,” “girl books,” graphic novels, historical fiction, fantasy, romance, SF and mystery. Some of the writers are well known, and are just starting out. The common thread binding them all? – They all write good books. That is the central, unifiying idea around which Colleen has organized this blog tour, and we think that makes it really special.

As the date draws closer, you’ll hear more about it! Meanwhile, I am squirreling away stacks by the bed for the Book Challenge hurtling toward me at week’s end!

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I somehow always knew that Anne Frank was not the only one. The Holocaust diary of a Polish Jewish girl was discovered in Bedzin, Poland, and unveiled at Israel’s Holocaust Museum today. Rutka Lasier, we will remember your name.

Sleeper Stories: Irresistible

Tandy is still wearing her suit after church, picking nervously at the hem of her Harris tweed skirt. She has put on some weight, but her eyes are still huge in her too thin face, and her crossed arms are all angles and elbows as she stands and stares out of the window.

She looks so much better now that it is hard to see her as the same woman who arrived here two months ago, looking hag-ridden and death-shadowed, her hair thin atop her head where he had yanked it, trying to get at her face one last time. I have only seen him once, and it was dark that night, and he would not come inside my grandmother’s house. I always wonder if his face is battered and scarred. I always wonder if she gives as ‘good’ as she gets.

At least she’s calmed down a bit. Tandy was so manic when she arrived that my flesh would crawl every time she looked at me. Her voice reminded me of the rattle of dice, her conversation a gamble flung across an anonymous table, her direction uncertain, her destination unknowable. At least she’s calmed down some. For all the good it will do her now.

On the shallow church steps, the minister had taken Tandy’s hand and paused, solemnly looking into her upturned face, his eyes somber. He hadn’t seemed to mind that he was holding up the rest of the line of worshipers, anxious to get out to their cars and into their homes, out of their stuffy suits and into their sweats and slippers and pot roasts.

“Estandia, I understand you’re going home.” His rumbling voice had not formed a question.

“Tomorrow. Very early.” Tandy, with a wincing smile, leaned away from the large man.

The minister’s voice was as gentle as he could make it. “Take… care of yourself, won’t you?”

Tandy smiled meaninglessly, her eyes seemingly disconnected from the content of her head.

“Take care yourself, pastor,” she replied jauntily, slipping into the crowd of the faithful, their Sabbath best as concealing as fall foliage…

Mama has called us to the table for dinner, but Tandy is still standing in the den, futzing with the buttons on her jacket vacantly. She shifts on her thin legs, her feet encased in the leather pumps Mama loaned her. Tandy left her dress shoes when she left home, packing only odd bits of ephemera, the flotsam and jetsam of what had been within reach in the tumbled rooms of her house. I overheard my mother tell my father that the house was almost destroyed – furniture broken, pottery shattered, clothes strewn. “That house is a war zone,” she said.

Tandy is going back to that house. Tomorrow.

After the service, Brenda and Darelle caught up with Tandy at the car.

“Don’t make us come down to Texas, now,” Brenda warned in her usual mix of humor and threat. “Don’t make me come down there and kick your butt. You take care.”

Darelle closed her eyes and sighed. “She doesn’t need anybody else kicking her butt,” she murmured sotto voce, and Brenda had the grace to look chagrined.

“Take care of yourself, girl,” she reiterated nervously in a high, bright voice. “Just let us know how you’re doing.”

Darelle looked at Tandy gravely, biting her top lip. “Tandy,” she began hesitantly…

“Goodbye, my dear,” Tandy caroled, moving in close, bussing Darelle cheerfully on her round cheek. “You girls stay sweet. ‘Bye now. Take care. Take care…”

“Tandy.” Mama is gently drawing her sister toward the table. “It won’t stay hot all day.” Tandy stumbles a bit, lost in her reverie, but then her smile brightens, and she practically lunges toward the table, pulling Mama along in her wake.

“Everything looks great, Deenie,” Tandy grins, invoking my mother’s baby name while surveying the loaded table, reaching out for a piece of bread, then pulling her hand back at my father’s glance. “I could eat a horse,” she continues, then brays raucously at her little joke. Cringing, I grope for Mac’s hand under the table.

Aunt Tandy is leaving tomorrow, very early, to board a plane and return to her big house in Texas. Aunt Tandy’s husband has been phoning and phoning, initiating friendly banal conversation.

How’re ya’ll doin’ up there? Is it raining yet? Ya’ll been up to Frisco?

Apparently, now that the hairline fracture of Tandy’s skull is healed, all is forgiven. Now that the bruises have yellowed and faded, it is all right for him to make mention of her return. The locked room where the paramedics resuscitated her body, the hospital room where she lay with restraints upon her spindly arms lest she do herself some further harm are all a part of ancient history. Bewildered, we stand around wordlessly as Tandy packs, unwilling participants in her roulette game. I look at my poor family, locked in our own private combat. We don’t know how to act in someone else’s war. And Mac, so new to our epic struggle, is still trying to understand what he has gotten himself into…

By the time my father brings in the dessert, I long to stopper my ears and cease this rattling flow of conversation. My aunt is in rare form, laughing and joking and spinning off into little stories of her time in Hawaii, and how she was tempted to really give someone the “one fry” they asked for when she worked at a fast food joint on the Big Island. Now she is off and away on another topic entirely, debating with my father the origins of German Chocolate Cake, when coconut isn’t from Germany, and neither is chocolate. “They’re both New World foods,” she insists earnestly. “This should be called something else entirely.”

My memories of Tandy’s time in Hawaii culminated with her coming to “stay for awhile” with my cousin Melita, then three. Tandy’s arms and legs had been marked with funny yellow splotches. At six, I had thought that she’d had chicken pox. She told funny stories, though. It didn’t matter that she had old scars.

“It’s based on Black Forest torte,” my father is waxing expansive, the resident expert on Germany now. I roll my eyes and ignore them both.

Tandy’s relationship with my father is based solely on bantering insults and mock aggression. Mostly, my father’s wrathful temperament makes his aggression real, but we’re being polite these days, all of us stepping lightly, treating Tandy like she will shatter if we speak too loudly. After twenty five years of her particular brand of hell, I’m not sure if anti-aircraft missiles would make a difference, but we all try… we are all trying… it is all very trying…

I am shredding the bread with the icy lump of margarine which my father neglected to take out of the fridge until the last minute, as usual. I am thinking that it is his little conspiracy, we should eat our bread plain and like it, darn it, when suddenly my brains snaps back into my head, and I tune in to Tandy’s voice. My father has just told her she doesn’t need a slice of cake that big, and Tandy’s expression has taken on a flirtatious petulance, obscene somehow on her death’s head face, and she is crossing her stick thin arms across her narrow chest.

“Stop telling me what to do,” Tandy pouts. She turns to us, laughing, “Your father doesn’t think I’m forty-six, he treats me like I’m six! You’d tell me every breath to take,” she complains to my father.

Around the table, we all chuckle politely, my mother smiling courteously, all of us playing into the genteel family scene.

“He’s just getting you ready to go home, isn’t he?” Mac interjects blandly, taking a bite of salad.

* * * *

There is a silent heartbeat, and then my father guffaws. My mother breaks into a nervous smile, more a grimace, and shakes her head. My older sister snorts and busies herself with pouring the juice. Tandy is fully present, for once, eyes wide and is that… anger on her face?

My rapidly indrawn breath comes out in a hiss between my teeth, and I cast an exasperated glance at Himself. His left eyebrow jumps, a nervous tic, and I immediately give him a quick nudge, reassurance. I know how much it takes to speak the truth at my father’s dinner table.

“I had nothing to do with that,” I betray him cheerfully, reanimating us. “I’m just sitting next to him.”

“You! You!” Tandy sputters, pointing her fork at Himself. The brief glimpse beneath her veneer is over, and her smile is back. But the mask is tarnished, there is a sadness to her voice, and her chin is tense.

“You are so bad,” my sister exclaims.

The conversation stutters to life again on different topics. We go back to talking about the cake. Yes, the cake. That seems safe…

Early, early this morning, Tandy got on a plane to go back to her big house in Texas. Her husband of twenty-eight years was waiting for her. There was a reunion.

My mother offered to pay Tandy’s way out for Thanksgiving, but she won’t come. She has her grandchildren to consider, her four children who ignore her and “borrow” her car and her cash card. Her husband, who leaves holes in the drywall with his fists. Tandy has to call the workmen to repair the bedroom doors. Those lovely French doors that the paramedics damaged so badly…

I wonder when I will see her again. Sometimes, I don’t think I will. She always goes back. Mac says it’s like she’s the iron to his magnet.
I think it’s more like she’s the sailor to the rocks, the lemming to his cliff, the bite of the razor to her sickened flesh. She is drunk on this illness, led toward him by some unknowable call.

She will go back, and she will fry. She’s like a moth to a flame. Be ware, ladies. He’s irresistible.

Ficktion Fridays: Away With the Fairies

I.

“There are fairies at the bottom of the garden,” Mame said suddenly.

Dad guffawed.

“Yes, Mum,” Mom said absently, peering down at her crossword. “Derek, do you want the last of the toast?”

“Yeah, I’ll take it,” Dad said through a mouthful of crumbs. He glanced up at Mame from the sports section in the newspaper. “She’s off with the fairies today, then, is she? Next thing she’ll be saying is she saw something nasty in the woodshed.” He laughed again, and Mame stared straight ahead, as if she couldn’t hear him.

“Oh, stop it,” Mom said, smiling tolerantly. “She’s never that bad, not yet. Don’t be cruel, love.”

Kristin pushed back her hair, tilted her head and smiled in that utterly condescending manner she had perfected since Year 9. “Do they have wings, Mame?” she asked sweetly. “What kind of fairies are they?”

“They’re the kind that live at the bottom of the garden,” she said tartly, suddenly turning mad, dark eyes in Kristin’s direction. “There’s a unicorn, too, not that the likes of you could get near him.”

Kirsten’s complexion chalked, and she drew back, her smile crumpling.

“Girls, get along with your breakfasts,” Mom said, shooting Kirsten a keen glance. “I’ll drive you if I have to, but I’d rather you got a bus to the orthodontist this morning.”

“I’m finished anyway,” Kirsten said, pushing back from the table and picking up her plate. “Will you get me a note for first period? We have some kind of assembly.”

Mom followed Kirsten down the hall. Dad turned a page in the paper.

“Where?” I whispered.

Mame’s glance darted toward me. “Where,” she said with no inflection, and my throat constricted.

“Where, Mame?” I whispered again. “Where are the fairies?”

Mame’s opaque gaze was a thousand miles away.

“Robyn,” Dad said, pulling himself away from the hockey report, “Now, you know she can’t understand whatever it is you’re going on about. We talked about all this before. Go get your books now, or you’ll be late.”

“Yes, Dad,” I said glumly, and rose from the table. I took a last longing look toward my grandmother, and out the window to the back garden.

“See you, Mame.”

At the door, it was the usual fast forward as Mame’s bus pulled up to the curb and Dad grabbed a last cup of coffee and went out to his real estate office. Mom had a deposition at the courthouse, so she was headed downtown in a hurry, teetering down the front steps in her good crocodile pumps. Kirsten checked her hair one last time in the mirror and sauntered toward the bus stop, hooking her iPod cords down the front of her hoodie. I grabbed my backpack and edged around the man from New Realms as he maneuvered Mame’s wheelchair down the ramp.

“Have a good day, Mr. Lin,” I called. “Bye, Mame.”

As the caretaker gently turned Mame’s wheelchair, she spoke again. “Red shed,” she said clearly, staring at the wall of the house. “There are fairies at the bottom of the garden.”

“Oh, good for you, Mrs. Donovan,” the stooped, gnarled man patted her arm as he expertly kicked the wheelchair lift into action. “I’ve got fairies in the flower pot on my front porch. I wish I had them in my garden.”

I hesitated. Mr. Lin sounded like he was dead serious.

“Robynnn!” Kirsten was shrieking. The bus was coming around the corner.

I’ll look for them, I thought, running down the sidewalk. Later. I’ll look for them later.

“Red shed!” Mame shouted agitatedly. “Red shed!”

“I’ll find them,” I shouted back.

“Hurry!” Kirsten screamed.

Tightening my braces produced, as always, the feeling that a vice had been tightened around my whole head. For the ten thousandth time I wished my mother wasn’t such a fan of the perfect smile. My overbite had been slight, and the space between my two front teeth minimal, but since Kirsten was having work done, my parents had thought to get me “all squared away” as well.

As we walked away from the orthodontist’s office, Kirsten informed me that she was going downtown.

“Fine,” I muttered, blinking as I saw my sister with a shimmering haze around her person. “I’m getting a migraine, so I’m going home.”

“Good,” Kirsten said, unruffled and unfeeling. “I’ll tell Mom I had to walk you. Okay?”

I agreed miserably. In a way, I wished she would walk me home. The sunlight seemed to be stabbing through my eyes into the back of my brain. The sixteen blocks home seemed impossibly long. I staggered onto a bus, and slumped into the seat, cringing at each bump.

When I walked into the house, I thought I heard the printer in Dad’s office.

“Dad? I’m home.” I walked into the room but only found the fax blowing noisily as pages sifted into the hopper. I wandered into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of milk. Finding my migraine medication, I swallowed it with down, stumbled to my room, pulled down the blinds, and collapsed into bed.

II.

What woke me was the light.

It was warm, sleeping in a sun puddle at the end of a long autumn afternoon. I stretched and turned over, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun on my face. The migraine meds had left me a little bemused and fuddled, fuzzy, but in a comfortable way. I stumbled to the window and looked out, rubbing my eyes.

The shimmer around the trees made me squint. Things seemed to be moving, occasionally jumping, shifting. The shed at the bottom of the garden seemed almost a living presence, crouched and watching from its position at the very end of our long, narrow plot of land. The light touched the building oddly.

“Red shed,” I murmured aloud, and blinked. Mame had been on about it just this morning. What had gotten her all wound up?

Fairies. In the bottom of the garden.

Galvanized, I shoved my feet into a pair of moccasin slippers, and headed into the hall. Outside, everything seemed suddenly too bright, so I picked up a pair of Dad’s old sunglasses from the kitchen counter, and slipped them on, stepping out the back door.

As the screen slapped shut behind me, all was breathlessly silent in the garden, as if the wind itself had drawn in a great breath. I waited, oddly unsettled, for the birds to continue cheeping, and the traffic from the road down the hill from us to resume. After a moment, the wind sighed once again in the tops of the trees, and a magpie croaked from the crossbeam of the roof.

I sat down on the stairs and looked around. The morning glories had died back some, but their vivid blue blooms were still weighing down the fence between our garden and the neighbor’s. A warped picnic table with a cracked terra cotta pot graced the other side of the yard, sad proof of one of Mom’s attempts to save Mame’s porch garden. The late rain had left the trees along the edge of the yard shedding their reddened leaves and the wind had scattered twigs all around. In the middle of the yard, a drift of golden brown leaves in the thick green grass seemed to undulate, as if …breathing.

“Weird,” I said, crossing the yard to peer at them. “That’s not the wind, is it?” As I bent toward the leaves, the movement stilled, and I drew back, startled. “Oh, gross, don’t tell me it’s some kind of bugs,” I muttered to myself. I reached out a hesitant hand, daring myself to flip over the leaf and see what lay behind it.

“One… two… three!” My fingers flicked at a piece of bark, and I squeaked. Nausea roiled inside as I fought to keep my feet. It had been tiny and brownish pale, and twisted – probably just a piece of some kind of root, but for a moment… a moment… wild, beady eyes, long, sharp fingers, a bulbous, wrinkled abdomen…

I shivered. The migraine medicine, I decided, wasn’t finished with me. I should go inside.

Ugh. Shouldn’t have gotten up so fast, I thought, rubbing my arms and tottering back toward the house. Should probably see if I can keep down some lunch, see if I can sleep off the rest of this buzz…

My foot had touched the bottom stair, when a movement from the shed caught my eye.

Dad’s knights. Hadn’t they been all in one piece the last time I’d looked?

He’d been so proud of them, putting them together for Kristin’s Year 5 history faire. Finding bits and bobs of old metal, he’d fashioned one a serviceable hauberk and a shield, a broadsword for the other. Now one of the knights was headless, but held only the bottom of the hauberk, while the other retained his head, but his arms ended in rusted stumps.

I peered at them, frowning. It could be that I just didn’t noticed when they’d begun to fall apart, I reasoned. School had been going for the last six weeks. It had been awhile since I’d come out to the yard and just sat.

I trotted up another stair, and had pulled open the door when I heard a screech. Startled, I turned back.

The door of the shed was wide open now. A strange light emanated from the old red building, and the rusted figures of the knights seemed to stand closer now, their truncated limbs stretched out across the door.

As I recoiled, I heard the doorbell ring.

“Robyn?” Mr. Lin’s voice was calling. “Hello? Donovans? Is anyone home?”

I risked another look over my shoulder at the shed, and heard Mame’s shout. “Home! Fairies!”

“Robyn?” Mr. Lin’s voice sounded relieved as I opened the front door. “Thank all Gods. She’s had a difficult morning.”

“Are you bringing her home?” I sputtered. “I-I’m home sick. I can’t take care of her by myself. I can’t understand her. What if she needs the toilet?”

Mr. Lin looked uncomfortable. “Of course, I wouldn’t leave you to cope without anyone. It’s just…” He cleared his throat and ran his finger along the color of his spotless white shirt. “She seemed so… worried.”

I blinked. “Worried?” And Dad’s words echoed in my thoughts, Now, you know she can’t understand whatever it is you’re going on about. We talked about all this before…

I bent down and addressed Mame’s expressionless face. “It’s all right, Mame. I’ll just get my bag and come back with you. If it’s okay,” I add, looking up at Mr. Lin.

“Fine,” he said, relaxing a little. “We’d love to have you.”

“I’ll come back with you,” I continued, “and Mr. Lin will tell me what you want me to know. About the shed. And the fairies. All right?”

Mr. Lin looked down at me with a fathomless expression, his dark eyes hooded and distant. I met his gaze and waited until finally he nodded, a single decisive bob of his head.

“Right, then,” he said, turning Mame’s chair. “Grab your things, then.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lin,” I said.

“Might as well call me Tam,” he said, kicking the wheelchair lift. “Everyone else does.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Photographic Inspiration Courtesy of nikpawlak, more stories from the usual suspects can be found on our Ficktion-Ning site. Cheers, and beware of fairies!