Rani in the Tree: A Fragment

This is the scene I just cut from Heirs of Mâvarin. Enjoy. I still love the scene, which helps to establish Rani's character, the reasons for the hunt and the wayward tengrem's state of mind. But it delays Rani's confrontation with the tengrem for several pages, and almost everything here is accomplished by something else somewhere. Therefore it has to go. I think. This scene actually appears in the chapter as posted on this blog a year or two ago, but has probably changed a bit since then.

"Later This Somewhere" will be back in a week or so.--KFB

Cut from Heirs of Mâvarin
Chapter One: The Tengrem
by Karen Funk Blocher

A short while after Bil and the blacksmith passed beneath Rani’s tree, he again heard the clop of hooves from upstream, and tensed. Was it a tengrem, or a hunter on horseback?

As the sound grew louder, Rani strained to listen, and then relaxed. There were two sets of equine legs coming, and human voices hung in the air. In a moment another pair of villagers emerged from the woods onto the River Road. Like the first pair, they were arguing. The argument ran along much the same lines as that of Bil and Jord, but without the sister.

This time, as the hunters passed under his tree, Rani called out to them. “Ho, there!”

The two horsemen reined in quickly at the unexpected greeting. Then one of them looked up, searching out Rani on his high branch. “There you are! You shouldn’t startle a man like that! You’re Rithe Fost’s boy, aren’t you?”

Rani frowned at the word “boy,” but replied with dignity. “Yes, I’m Rani Fost,” he said. “I—I was wondering how the hunt is going.”

“Why aren’t you with the hunters?” Clif Wipan asked. “Then you’d know what’s happening.”
“Hush, Clif,” Suri Pelch said. “I expect the lad’s only trying to respect Rithe’s wishes. Such a nervous woman! Meaning no offense, young Rani.”

“That’s all right,” Rani said. “It’s true. She is.”

“Anyway,” Suri continued, “It’s not going well, not at all. I’ve never seen an animal as fast as that tengrem. We keep losing it, only to see it again as it circles back.”

“We think the tengrem is between here and the village,” Clif added, “so we’ve split up into pairs to try to surround it.”

“It hasn’t been on the road here,” Rani said. “Not in the last half hour, anyway.”

“I’m not surprised,” Suri said sourly. “It’s probably chasing my sheep while we’re all busy tromping around in the woods.”

“I’m sure that’s all the tengrem wants,” Clif said sarcastically. “It’s not trying to save the kingdom or start a kingdom or kill the mages or marry its pale queen, or any of that other contradictory nonsense it told us this morning. No, it came all the way north just to gobble your sheep.”

“The tengrem said all that?” Rani asked.

“All that and more, when we first confronted it,” Suri said. “None of it made the least bit of sense.”

“That’s right,” Clif said. “Then when we attacked, it pretty much stopped talking.”

“Pretty much,” Suri agreed. “I thought I heard a few words, but most of what came out of its mouth after that was growls and smoke.”

“And flame,” Clif said. He grinned. “Maybe it was getting ready to barbecue a few lambs.”

“Laugh if you like,” Suri Pelch said, “but I’m going to check on my flock. Are you coming, Clif?”

“We can take a quick look at your sheep as we’re circling around,” Clif answered, “but only because it’s on our way. Be careful in that tree, Rani. The tengrem could be anywhere. We don’t want you falling off the branch and into the monster’s jaws.”

“I’ll be careful,” Rani said. As if that could happen! He had never fallen out of a tree, even as a little boy.

Suri and the miller rode on, leaving the River Road just before the bend to take the path that led to the Pelch farm. Rani settled down for another wait.

****

Revised version:

A short while after Bil and the blacksmith passed beneath Rani’s tree, he again heard the clop of hooves from upstream, and tensed. Was it a tengrem, or a hunter on horseback? Rani strained to listen, and then relaxed. There were two sets of equine legs coming, and human voices hung in the air. In a moment another pair of villagers emerged from the woods onto the River Road. Like the first pair, they were arguing. Rani spoke with them briefly, but Clif and Suri had little news to offer. Rani settled down for another wait, hoping that the next horse he heard would carry his friend Shela. Whenever anything interesting happened in or around Liftlabeth, the selmûn Wanderer was inevitably involved.

Later This Somewhere, Part Three

Here we are with Part Three at last. Part Two is three entries down, and Part One just below that. As promised, I've enlisted a collaborator for this project. Please welcome Sarah Kishler, a hoopy frood from way back, whom I've met in person exactly once. She has at least a hundred times more theater experience than I have (I was in one of my mom's shows in 1965), so she's definitely the go-to person for this story. Knowing how defensive I can get about my fiction, I was more than a little nervous about collaborating -- but so far, so good. Thanks, Sarah!- KFB

The Jace Letters 2: Later This Somewhere

by Karen Funk Blocher and Sarah Kishler
© 2007 by KFB & SK

Part Three

Subject: Re: That Impossible Theatre
Date: 7/6/2013, 4:23:573122 AM
From: NotaBeach
To: JaceFace

Dear Jace,

Well, of course I went back, at night this time. The box office for the theatre – it’s called the Jubilee Palace – is hidden away in a close, sort of a cross between a courtyard and a cul-de-sac. I only noticed it the first time because I saw a couple in evening clothes walking in that direction. This time I walked past it twice before I found my way in. Even then, they didn’t want to sell me a ticket!

“I'm sorry, but the play is sold out,” the man in the booth said.

I looked around. The theatre looked pretty much deserted. “How about tomorrow night?” I asked.

“Different play, and that's sold out, too,” he said. “We're sold out all this week.”

“Look, is there a reason you don't want to sell me a ticket?”

A woman entered the box office through a back door. “Let her buy a ticket,” she said, and flashed me a brief smile. “She's all right. We sold her one last week.”

“But why, Carly? What makes you think she's all right?”

“She's got the Look,” Carly said. “She's one of us.”

The guy at the counter didn't answer directly. He turned to me and gave me a long, searching look. “One for tonight, then?” he asked. “It's Brigadoon.”

“That will be fine,” I said. “What’s on tomorrow night?”

“Man of La Mancha.”

“Great. I’ll take one for tonight, one for tomorrow night, if that’s okay.”

The man glanced back at Carly, who nodded. The tickets were forty pounds each, and I’m not rich, but I handed over the money without regret. How could I not?

And it was worth it.

To answer your question, the theater was packed to standing room only capacity. The usher showed me to my seat in the second row of mezzanine. I actually had a great view! Don't ask me how I lucked into that when I bought my ticket at the last minute.

As far as the audience went, I didn't notice anything unusual about how they were dressed. They seemed to have more expensive clothes than I do, but that's no shock. I do remember reading somewhere that people don't really dress up for the London theater, though, so maybe that is a little odd. I guess I haven't been to enough “normal” performances in the West End to know.

Do you know who played the leads in Brigadoon? Of course you don’t, but you may recognize the names when I tell you. You may have even seen Robert Goulet on television when you were younger. He played Tommy, and he looked about thirty years old.. He’s not my favorite actor, but it’s remarkable that he was there at all, considering he’s been dead for six years. I scanned the program for any other names I might have recognized, but I only knew his, so I figured he was the only “big name” brought in for this one.

I couldn't have been more wrong. You should have heard the collective gasp of the audience on Fiona's first appearance– and then the applause that followed lasted for minutes. Goulet had gotten applause too, but this dwarfed his, in volume and duration. Everyone in the audience seem to be so surprised and delighted to see this actress that they had a difficult time settling back down so the show could go on. Of course, I was sure I was the only one there who hadn't a clue who she was. I looked in my program again and only saw the initials “SB,” which didn't mean a thing to me. I supposed she could have been someone very famous in the UK but not in the States.

It was only after the applause for “The Heather of the Hill” subsided that I worked up the courage to turn the woman next to me and ask who it was. She looked at me as if I had horns coming out of my head. “You need an introduction to the Divine Sarah?”

“Thank you,” I said, afraid that saying anything more would cause me to get kicked out of the theater or something equally terrible. But that was enough for me to puzzle it out. That was Sarah Bernhardt! I don’t know much about her career myself, but I understand she was the most famous actress of the 19th century. Her singing as Fiona wasn’t the best, but she gave the part real depth and feeling. And it gave me a clue into the nature of the audience, too – to instantly recognize a stage star who's been dead for almost a century? Clearly, these people are serious about this stuff.

I’ve been thinking today about having “the Look,” as Carly put it. I think it must be something to do with my having been in the time bubble. She can detect it somehow. Have you any thoughts on what there might be about me that a time traveler could actually see, and how they might see it? Whatever it is, I’m grateful. They’re obviously very secretive and security conscious about what they’re doing, trying to serve a very select clientele without the general public finding out about this strange theatre troupe and its anachronistic casts.

Tonight is Man of La Mancha, which I’ve loved ever since seeing the Quantum Leap episode about it. I didn’t much care for the film, though. I’m looking forward to seeing who they get for the lead roles in that one.

Beyond that, I really want to get to know more about this whole setup. Who is doing all this, and how and why? Do the actors know they’re working in 2013, with other players similarly out of their time? Are they living in 2013 for the duration, or going home after each performance? How do people get back and forth? I know we’re not supposed to discuss how you got me out of the time bubble alive in my past, your future, but knowing what these people do might help you with your research. Or am I wrong about that? In any case it must be a logistical and financial nightmare, organizing all these people from different eras, mounting full productions and still keeping the rest of London from noticing anything unusual. But I’ve noticed. I’m really glad about that! And as for David's autograph – I don't know if actors come back for repeat performances, but if he does – it's a plan!

Sandy

Beneath the Orange Sky

I'll get back to the other stuff eventually, but meanwhile here's a special treat, cross-posted from the Outpost. With closure, even!

Into the Land of Shadows

Vicki of the blog "Maraca" is responsible for this week's Round Robin topic, "Shadowland." This is going to be my most ambitious RR entry to date, not so much photographically as, well, you'll see.

Beneath the Orange Sky
by Karen Funk Blocher

They rode toward the mountain side by side, Rona Sable on her horse, Apple, her grandfather Seth on Chub as usual. The oncoming sunset did not pause in its approach, unlike several of the cars that passed them, heading toward the city as the two horses left it behind. While they were still on the long, flat highway, Seth played his favorite game with Rona, asking her questions about stars and planets, brains and botany. Rona answered dutifully, but she was not in the mood for it. Her whole body throbbed with tension, not just from the long ride, but with anticipation. She looked no more than seven years old, but today was her thirteenth birthday. Tonight after sunset, her impossibly youthful grandfather would finally tell Rona the secrets that had been withheld from her, all her life up to now.


Once they reached the base of the mountain, Seth lapsed into silence. They directed the horses carefully along the narrow shoulder, lest they miss their footing in the gloom. Ten feet to the right, the drop was at least a hundred feet, and increasing with every step.


"How far are we going?" Rona asked after a while. "This is getting dangerous."

Her grandfather did not answer immediately. Then he said, "Yes, it is. But for now we're riding only as far as the first vista point, another three miles or so."


Sunset was starting to fade as they turned right onto the looping drive of the Frog Mountain vista. A couple sat on the wall between the paved parking and the drop toward the valley below. Rona knew her grandfather would not want to tell her anything interesting with strangers around, so she wandered along the stone wall, taking pictures with her new camera.

"Point the lens this way," Seth said in her ear.


Rona aimed her camera in the direction her grandfather had indicated, over the wall onto a path that went past of couple of mature saguaros. Beyond the cactus, and over the foothills themselves, the LCD viewfinder revealed a light in the sky, arcing over the blue, like a cloud but not a cloud. Rona glanced away from the camera, but her naked eye revealed nothing.


When she turned back, the couple were getting in their car. "Finally," her grandfather said. "Now, look at that way. See the mountain over there, where there's still an orange glow? That is where we are going."

The more Rona looked, the less sense Seth's statement made to her. "From here? Tonight?"

"Yes, from here. Look, that's the way down, over by the two saguaros. Take Apple's bridle and follow me."

Rona protested even as she obeyed. "But why from here? That mountain is down beyond the airport. Half the city is between us and it. And it's getting dark."

"It won't get dark. Not quite. And now that we've passed the boundary, we're not where you think we are. There is no city, until we reach that mountain."

"But--"

"Wait and see," her grandfather said.


Five minutes later, the switchback they were following turned suddenly onto a disused section of road, where no road ought to be. Below was a flare of light, but it was not a set of headlights. The sky ahead of them was more orange than before, and the ghost of a full moon was in the sky, although Rona knew it should only be a half moon. By its light and the distant orange glow, she found she could see every pebble, every bramble. The horses plodded along the dark pavement.

"Welcome to the Shadow Kingdom," her grandfather said. "While we're here it will never be daylight, but it never quite gets dark, either. "Look behind you."

Rona looked. Behind her should have been the looming mountain, but instead she saw a valley and the twinkling of lights. A yellow glow fringed the horizon, and a much brighter glow above that seemed to hold back the night. "What's that? It almost looks like, I don't know, a bomb or something."

Seth shook his head. In this strange light he looked slightly older than usual, perhaps a year older than his students at PCC. "It's the interface between the world you knew and the one we just crossed into. It's not visible from the other side, except sometimes through a camera lens, when the two worlds come together at dusk. But on this side it's the primary light source. You won't see the sun again while we're here."

"How long will that be?"

"Until you come of age."

"What does that mean? Until I'm eighteen, or twenty-one? Or worse yet, until I look twenty-one? That could take decades."

Seth smiled at her. "It won't be like that. It's the sunlight that slows down our aging in the other world. Here you will finally start to age normally. And no, we're not waiting for you to reach some arbitrary age or stature."

"What then? Am I supposed to go and prove myself in some way, so I can be admitted to some strange tribe? Or engage in ritual dreaming? Or kill a deer with a stone knife? Does this world even have any deer?"

"Mutter's Grey deer. And no, you don't have to hunt them, although some do. You're here to complete your education."

"I can't do that at home?"

"Haven't you guessed? This is your home, the land of your birth and birthright. The things you need to learn, you can only learn here. Your mother will teach you."

Rona stopped dead. "My mother?"

Seth smiled at her. "Of course."

"But isn't she dead?"

"Did anyone ever tell you that she was?"

"No, but I kind of assumed...."

"You know better than to assume things. Observe, hypothesize, and test. But in this case you don't need to. I had a message from Mana, just last week. She's looking forward to seeing you again."

"Truly?"

"Truly," Seth assured her. "Now come on. It's time we were riding again. The horses see this road as well as you can, and we've a long way to go."

Full of wonder, Rona climbed into the saddle, and rode on into the endless orange twilight.



Linking List

Vicki - POSTED!
Maraca
http://mymaracas.blogspot.com/

Carly - POSTED!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Karen - POSTED!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Janet - POSTED!
fond of photography
http://fondofphotography.blogspot.com

Suzanne R - POSTED!
New Suzanne R's Life
http://newsuzannerslife.blogspot.com

Nancy - POSTED!
Nancy Luvs Pix
http://journals.aol.com/nhd106/Nancyluvspix

Tara
A Long Walk Home
http://journals.aol.com/tarastomsgirl/LifeisWonderful/

Jessica - POSTED!
QuickSilver
http://www.thewatersedge.us/QuickSilver

Steven - POSTED!
(sometimes) photoblog
http://sepintx.blogspot.com

Teena - POSTED!
It's all about me!
http://purple4mee.blogspot.com/

Gattina - POSTED!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com

The Children in the Shoebox: an Experiment

While we're waiting for the collaboration on "Later This Somewhere" to take off, here's something I'm writing off the top of my head, under the influence of E Nesbit and Miss Mullock.

The Children in the Shoebox
An Experimental Faerie Tale

by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2007 by KFB

Part One
Once upon a time there were three children who lived in a shoebox in the cupboard. Their names were Mattie, Maggie, and Maddie. I expect you think a shoebox is a very odd place for three children to live, but it was their home, and they were used to it.

The shoebox was in a cupboard, as I have said; and the cupboard was in a pantry, and the pantry was in a little stone house in a grassy clearing in the Deep Woods. The house belonged to a witch, and the Deep Woods belonged to the King, but he wasn't around much, just once a year to smile and wave and hunt the same magic deer who never let him come close to catching her. She was really a princess in disguise, and the King knew it, so he wasn't as ruthless in trying to trap her as he might otherwise have been. He kept hoping that one year the princess would get tired of being a magic deer, and let him take her home at last.

Meanwhile the King let the witch live in the woods to look after the deer and the children, who were his cousins once removed on his mother's side. They were part Faerie, enchanted to remain in the miniature form the Good Folk sometimes preferred. In this size they fit in the shoebox quite well, with three tiny beds lined with the down of baby robins, for indeed their beds had started out as a large bird's nest. The witch, who was a decent sort, really, had cleaned up the nest so that it was quite habitable and pleasant, and not at all smelly.

Every morning the faerie children would fly out of the cupboard, whose door the witch thoughtfully kept open except at night, for protection, and outside into the meadow for bath and breakfast. The little stream that ran through the clearing was shallow and only a little dangerous, as long as they stayed in the inch-deep water at the very edge. Breakfast was nectar from flowers and tiny millet-cakes the witch left out for them. They didn't actually see the witch, for she was invisible; but they usually remembered to sing out a "thank you!" to her, especially when she came up with something extra special to eat, like honey-buns or a tiny omelet.

Afternoons, the faerie children might go racing with butterflies, or make forts out of sweet grass, or visit with their friend, Princess Doris, the deer. Doris was secretly in love with an enchanted skunk who lived in the hollow of a nearby oak tree. Years before he had behaved very badly toward the witch's sister, which is a very foolish thing to do. He was sorry about it, but not quite sorry enough yet, in the witch's estimation. So the deer waited for Prince Roger - the skunk's real name - to be sorry enough for the witch or her sister to let him go. Another year, Doris thought, or two, and he would probably be quite reformed enough for them, and for Doris as well. She probably couldn't live happily ever after with a fellow who still went around insulting witches and princesses and thought it an all right thing to do. But the children thought Roger was quite fun to be with, and usually pretended that his smell didn't bother them at all.

The one thing that bothered the children about this life was that it got to be rather dull and lonely after a while. Doris and Roger were very nearly adults, and sometimes acted more like animals than people. The witch was invisible, so if she was even around they usually didn't know it. And the King, jolly as he was, seemed a little awkward around them when he came through every spring. "It's the politics," Mattie explained one year, and Maggie nodded wisely. Maddie didn't really understand this explanation, and wasn't quite sure the other two did, either. But she didn't say so.

The fact remained, however, that the three faerie children suffered, just a little, for lack or a mother or father or playmates aside from each other. Then one day, everything changed.

Well, really, only one thing changed, but it was a very important change. Someone new came into the Deep Woods.

Maddie saw the girl first, in the second clearing over from the stone cottage, on the left. She was sitting on a rock, dressed in a frock the exact color of buttercups. She was reading a large, thin book with a paper cover and colorful pictures on every page. Maddie, who knew her alphabet and more besides, flew close enough to read the words on the cover. "The Amazing Spider-Man," it said.

Careful not to be seen, yet, she flew off to find her brother and sister.

Later This Somewhere, Part Two

Two months without an entry! What a slacker I've been on this blog! Of course, the truth is that I've had a busy time in the rest of my life, securing a new job after First Magnus crashed and burned, and getting serious work done on Mages from Mâvarin. I've hesitated a bit on this new Jace and Sandy story, not knowing which direction to take after the opening installment. The most promising plotline I came up with seemed to be the theatre angle. Unfortunately, despite the many amateur plays and revues my mom wrote, directed or appeared in as I was growing up, I'm no theater expert. So I've enlisted Sarah K., who is, to help me write this serial, starting with Part 3. - KFB

The Jace Letters 2: Later This Somewhere

by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2007 by KFB

Part Two

Subject: That Impossible Theatre
Date: 7/4/2013, 05:41 PM
From: JaceFace
To: NotaBeach

Dear Aunt Sandy -

Wow, you really do seem to have stumbled into another major time anomaly of some sort. If I could, I would fly out there tomorrow and help you investigate. As it is, though, I have an interview for a summer internship, which promises to be far less interesting than a play that features out-of-their-time actors. And I have about $16 in my purse and $27 in my checking account to get me through the week, so I couldn't afford the trip anyway, even if I weren't busy here with the summer thing and my ongoing appearances as Gabby, getting ready to rescue you in my future, your past.

I am therefore counting on you to keep me updated on any other weirdness you come across over there. Are you planning to try the theatre again by night? I really think you should. Maybe the renovation stuff is to keep people away in the daytime. I mean, I can't imagine that someone would go to all the trouble of bringing actors from other times, rehearsing them and staging a play, all for just one night. I'm no expert on plays and such, but that sounds like a very expensive thing to do. On the other hand, maybe whoever did it has plenty of money, using the old cheat of investing in the past of stocks that you know do well in the future. Even so, it seems like logistically, it would be a lot of work for a one-night production. Maybe you happened to catch the last night of a longer run? Was the theatre full or empty, or something in between? Was there anything weird about the audience? Were they wearing mod clothes or leisure suits or silver jumpsuits?

You asked whether it's possible that your seeing actors from the past and future could be an aftereffect of your being in the time bubble. To be honest, I don't really know, but it seems unlikely to me. How would something like that work, exactly? More likely, you're just more observant than most people about time displacement, having experienced it yourself. You may even have picked up on the time anomaly subconsciously, when you happened to walk by the theatre.

I suppose that you may not want to get involved in another time travel mystery, considering that you almost died the last time, but a theatre full of actors who happen to be the wrong age doesn't sound dangerous to me. If you do go, be careful, and I'm sure you'll be fine. And if you do see David Tennant again, try to get me his autograph, will you? Thanks!

Jace

Later This Somewhere, Part One

While we're waiting for Jor and friends to get the story moving again in The Mâvarin Revolutions, here's the beginning of a new story about Jace and Sandy. Thanks to Sarah K. for the title. - KFB

The Jace Letters 2: Later This Somewhere

by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2007 by KFB

Part One

Subject: So How Is London?
Date: 7/2/2013, 07:43 PM
From: JaceFace
To: NotaBeach

Dear Aunt Sandy -

Now that you're safely settled in my time, it bothers me a bit that in some ways you're farther away than ever. I've seen you at least eight times as Gabby, but only twice under my own name, as my college-age self. Forgive me, but I have to ask: was that part of why you moved to London? Is communication with me so awkward under the present circumstances that you feel the need to distance yourself from me physically?

Well, all right, I know it's something you really wanted to do anyway, and I admit it's a place I'd really like to see myself. Unfortunately, I'm just a penniless college student, with no money to travel any farther than Deming or Sedona, and even those I can't get to very often. Now that the school year is over, most of my free time is taken up with research, trying to work out exactly how to save you in my future, your past. The time bubble is working for now, but I'm not sure how stable it is, or how we get you out when the time comes. I know I can't ask you about that, so I won't. Oh, paradoxes are fun, aren't they?

So what is London like? Since I've never seen the real thing except on tv, it seems to me like a magical, fictional world, the place of Mary Poppins and Sherlock Holmes, Winnie the Pooh and Doctor Who. I suppose it's nothing like that, really, just another modern city, with a number of historic buildings but nothing truly extraordinary, no dimensionally transcendental police boxes or magic nannies. And that's a shame, really. It's not that I expect space-time anomalies like the Deming-Sedona one everywhere we look, and really, that one is causing quite enough trouble, all by itself. But London, the fictional London of books and tv and film, is such a place of wonder that I'm sure I'd be disappointed if I saw the real thing.

Still, I'm hoping you'll say that even the real London has charms of its own. At the very least, you can look at the Houses of Parliament or the Tower of London and be reminded of their history, both in the real world and less mundane ones.

Jace

Subject: London Is...
Date: 7/3/2013, 8:23:573122 PM
From: NotaBeach
To: JaceFace

Jace –

Please don’t be hurt by this, but yes, you've guessed correctly about my motives. One of the reasons I moved to London was to minimize the contact between us. You said yourself (or at least you will) that it’s the easiest way to keep the ontological paradox from getting out of hand.

I'm happy to say that you're wrong about London, though. There is something utterly charming about the place, even without the outright magic found in literature. I am surrounded by "brilliant" (they say that a lot!), funny people, speaking in a surprising variety of accents on a wide range of subjects. I'm sorry to say I'm too shy to have made any friends so far, but my landlord is rather nice, and there are a few people at the shops I frequent that I would like to get to know better.

More than that, it's a different country, a heady mixture of foreign and familiar. Every day is a mini-adventure, just buying different foods and other items in strange packaging, paying for them with something other than dollars, then taking the tube back and cutting across Kensington Gardens to my "flat." So far there is no sign of Mary Poppins in the Park, but I have to admit that sometimes I catch myself looking for her.

There is one odd thing that has happened, and I've been meaning to email you about it, since I can't reach the older version of "Gabby" any more. Last week I set out to see a play in a certain theater in the West End, but the play had closed and the theatre was dark. Instead I ended up at another theatre nearby. They were offering panto, a version of Aladdin, which surprised me because it's my understanding that it's something they normally only do at Christmas. But I paid for my ticket and went in anyway. I can't pretend I understand the panto genre; it was the most thoroughly foreign and incomprehensible thing I've seen here to date, even more so than the cricket match. To be honest, I didn't like it much. It wasn't just silly, but pointlessly silly, and full of allusions I couldn't hope to understand.

But there was something strange about it, even beyond the cultural sensibilities that I lack. David Tennant was in it, but he didn't look anything like the David Tennant on tv. He played a Grand Vizier, and all right, yes, he was all done up in a wig and a fake beard. Even so, he looked older than I expected, even allowing for the fact that I remember him mostly from Doctor Who five to seven years ago. I assumed it was the costume, but I hung around the stage door afterward, and I saw him leave. Without the wig he had gray hair, I swear to you, actual gray hair, and his face looked genuinely older. He walked right past me as if he didn't see me, and disappeared into a rather odd-looking car.

Even that isn't the weirdest part. Also on the cast list was Julie Andrews! She's certainly not someone I would expect to be doing panto at this stage of her career. Nor is she, as far as I can tell, because she wasn't the older actress of The Princess Diaries and other more recent roles. The part she played was that of the young princess, sort of the Jasmine character if it were the Disney version, which it wasn't. I saw her leave the theatre, too, and she looked no more than 15 years old! I would say it's a different Julie Andrews, but Equity is careful about such things, and besides, there was no mistaking that voice when she sang.

It was all so strange that I wondered the next morning whether I just dreamed it, or whether my experience in the time bubble has left me with some kind of dementia, or maybe an ability to see the past and future and present at once, all jumbled up. I went back to the theatre, and it was closed for renovation! I asked one of the men working on it, and he said it had been closed for a month.

So I guess I need your expert opinion, yours and Ken's. Am I going mad, or is time even weirder in the West End of London than it is in the American Southwest? And if I really did see Julie Andrews at 15 and David Tennant at 50, is it because I was somehow seeing into other times, or did the other times recombine themselves independently of me, in an unseasonal panto show in 2013?

Sandy

Black Rose Kate: Stop MDC

And now for a word from Black Rose Katie specks, the Pirate Scribe!

(Cross-posted from Outpost Mâvarin)

Stop MDC

Black Rose Kate has no problem dispatching history's villains

"Aye, I thought ye'd be at the computer," Black Rose Kate announced. I looked up, startled. There she was, standing in front of my L'Engle books, my semi-fictional pirate friend, looking down at me with her usual air of amused tolerance. It was Thursday night, ten minutes past one in the morning. "Ariel said that you wanted to see me," she explained.

"Hi, Kate," I said. "Yes, I did. But how did Ariel know that?" Our mutual friend Ariel travels between time and between universes, meanwhile attending Croatoan College, which is itself transdimensional.

Kate shrugged. "She reads your blog. You mentioned me in tomorrow's entry. And that black cloth rose of yours was in one of your photos this week, so we knew you were already thinking of me. So tell me. Am I here for a particular reason, or is this a social call only? Did you want my expert opinion on that Johnny Depp movie Ariel has spoken of for the better part of an hour tonight?"

"Oh, I didn't go on about it that long," Ariel said, coming into the room behind Kate. "Hi, Karen."

"Hi, Ariel. And no, it's not about Pirates of the Caribbean. I have a Weekend Assignment to do, and I thought Kate might be able to help. You too, Ariel."

"Oh, one of those," Kate said, looking none too pleased.

I pasted the relevant text into this entry, and let them read it over my shoulder:

Weekend Assignment #168: For reasons best left unexplained, you have been allowed to excise one and only one person from the course of history. Which person would you choose to remove from history and why? That's right: Any one person you think history would be better without, you can now expunge. So who would it be -- and how do you think history would be changed with their absence? See. Told you it was one that would make you think.

Extra Credit: Favorite historical-themed movie. Because why not?


"I see," Kate said as she finished reading. "Because I have dispatched my share of enemies on the high seas and elsewhere, it pleases you to seek my advice before murdering some historical villain before he is ever born. Is that it?"

"Pretty much, yes," I said. "And you're right. I do think that preventing Nero or someone like that from being born is a kind of murder."

"But you don't have a problem with--" Ariel began. I was starting to think she was a mind-reader.

"Shh," I interrupted. "I don't want to talk about that. The point is, I wouldn't have the right to stop someone from ever existing."

"And you think that I, the bloodthirsty pirate, would be more ruthless about such things, and thus could give Scalzi an answer in your stead," Kate said.

"Yes," I said. "And if not, you can at least discuss the idea with me, and I can report on that."

"As I notice ye be doing already," Kate observed.

"Your problem with this is that you lack perspective," Ariel said. "There are plenty of worlds in which there was no Hitler, or no John Wilkes Booth, or no Nero. On the multiverse level, it's not that big a deal."

"It is if you're in a world where he did exist, and now you decree that he doesn't," I insisted. "That creates a whole new universe, right? And that's on top of the loss suffered by family and friends."

"I have known several families," Kate said, "that benefited greatly from the death of a father or brother or son. A woman my own age once thanked me for killing her husband, who had chained her and beaten her. Pick someone sufficiently awful, and the world is certain to benefit."

"Well, I did think about choosing someone whose nonexistence would mean lives saved," I said. "I could go with Adolf Eichmann or Josef Mengele, but that violates the spirit of disallowing Hitler."

"Who were these people?" Kate asked.

"Eichmann helped Adolf Hitler, the ruler of Germany, organize the murder of millions of Jews and Romany and other people," Ariel said. "Mengele conducted horrific medical experiments on some of their victims before killing them."

"Right," I said. "But it's all part of the same horror. And I don't think there is an equivalent person in more recent examples of genocide. Usually it's groups of people killing other groups for the crime of being a 'them'. So I was thinking along the lines of a Richard Speck, or Timothy McVeigh - you know, someone who personally killed a lot of people."

"Aye, that makes sense," Kate said. "But ye didn't need me to figure that out."

"I still don't like it, though," I said. "I still wouldn't do it. Would you?"

"Aye, with hardly a moment's thought, nor any regrets," Kate said. "Oliver Cromwell is another one I would not mind seeing gone from the world."

Ariel was rereading the text of Scalzi's assignment. "You know, I don't think you read this very carefully," she said. "It doesn't specify that one person was never born. It only says excised from history. There might be other ways to do that."

That got me thinking. "Such as?" I prompted. I was starting to have a few ideas, but wondered what Ariel had in mind.

"Lock the person up so he or she can do no harm," she suggested. "Send the person back in time, or forward, or to another universe."

"Where the person can do even more harm in unknown ways," I said. "That's no good. But if we can stop the person from becoming crazy or evil or both, that would take him out of the history we know."

"Mark David Chapman," Ariel suggested.

I nodded. "I suppose I should go with McVeigh or someone like that anyway," I said, "or the older of the two DC snipers, or one of the serial killers up in Phoenix last year. But Chapman...I don't know. If you could catch him young, get him the right treatment, keep him on the right medication and away from the Dakota, that still only saves one man's life, technically."

"Yes, but what a life you'd be saving," Ariel said.

"Whose?" Kate asked.

"John Lennon," Ariel and I said together. "Of the Beatles," I added.

Before I could explain further, Kate pointed at me, a look of triumph on her face. "Aye, that's the one!" she said. "I like the Beatles. Ariel even took me to the Cavern once."

This made me angry. "Why didn't you take me with you? You know how much I want to go."

Ariel shook her head. "We bend the rules quite a bit even just coming to see you, even for a quick conversation. Your version of the world isn't meant to have time travel, and I can't let you go wandering the multiverse with me. We're pushing the fiction boundary as it is."

"Fiction boundary? What's that?"

"It's a way of gauging relationships between realities, and the relative safety of certain kinds of interactions," Ariel explained. "As my supposed creator in the context of this reality, you can receive my visits, as long as they can be passed off as fiction. But the moment you actually go into the past with me, or off into a world in which the Beatles have been reunited for the past twenty years and are currently in the studio, you damage every timeline you touch. Sorry."

"Whereas I have no such restriction," Kate said. "Say the word and I will take this Chapman person from history, my way."

"You know I won't condone that," I said. "Much as I'd like to."

"And anyway, you can't do that either," Ariel told Kate. "John Lennon wrote a song about you. That makes you fictional to him, too."

"He did? When was that?" I asked.

"1982."

"But he died in 1980," I said.

Ariel looked thoughtful. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Kate does go after Chapman," she said.

"Then that's my choice, if I have to choose someone," I said. "Just don't actually kill him if you can help it."

For a moment Ariel looked tempted. Then she shook her head. "No, sorry," she said. "His death is too well established in your world. But we might be able to do it in another world, a few universes over. Are you game for it, Kate?"

"Aye, always. Let's go, then."

"Bring me back a CD," I said.

Ariel laughed. "Can't do that, either," she said. "but if you're very good, I'll find a way for you to at least hear a later album, at least once."

They left, then, and I was alone again, finishing up this entry. I don't know how serious Ariel was. She could easily have been making up all those rules as she went along. And I'm still a little worried that Black Rose Kate will kill Chapman rather than try to get him into treatment, or at least locked up.

Imagine there's no murder.

But oh, wouldn't it be something, having another 26 1/2 years and counting of new music by John Lennon?

Oh, drat, I didn't ask my guests about the Extra Credit. I'm not big on historical movies, unless you count Back to the Future or Camelot. Lawrence of Arabia was kind of amazing, although the long version really is too long. Oh, I know. My Favorite Year. That's based on a very specific history period: the days of early television, and the live comedy variety show.

Karen