Now What?

Last night, after some gentle prodding by Sarah (not Sara), I finally finished writing and posting my serial The Jace Letters. I crammed four emails instead of the usual one or two into the conclusion of this all-email, epistolary story of a godmother who has been kidnapped out of normal space/time, and the goddaughter who teaches herself physics in order to rescue her.

Now I need to figure out what to post next in this blog, preferably something I can post on schedule without too much trauma. So I have a question for you folks who read my fiction: what would you like to see next? Your choices are as follows:

1. Black Rose Kate's Own Story - a bit of autobiography Kate left behind in one of my spiral notebooks
   


2. Letters from Mâvarin - written by various characters at key moments in their lives
   


3. What About the Children? - a Mâvarin prequel that I got stuck on years ago



4. My Favorite Ghost - a Joshua Wander story I've been holding back to preserve its salability (besides, I'm stuck!)


5. Something else entirely - the catch is, YOU have to suggest the premise, and I have to like it enough to do it!
   

What say you? Shall Katie Specks regale you with the story of her escape from normalcy? Would you like to know about Del and Crel and Rani as children? Are you curious how a reluctant ghost gets a novice wizard off the hook after they're framed for armed robbery? Does the idea of Mâvarin apocrypha appeal to you? Or are you dying to see what I'd do with that fun idea you've been kicking around? Let me know, okay? Rani, Josh, Kate, Jace and I thank you.

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The Jace Letters, Part Seventeen

Here goes nothin'!


The Jace Letters

by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2006 by KFB

Part Seventeen

Subject: email test
Date: 4/??/??? 09590fh2fy08y
From: JaceFace
To: NotaBeach

test test test... Sent from time bubble 6 hours after the accident.

Don't forget to reply (to younger self?), and to delete this email from Sandy's laptop before she wakes up.

Subject: re: email test
Date: 4/??/??? 0959r22fy08y
From: NotaBeach
To: JaceFace

Ignore this email, Jace. I'm just testing something. See you soon.

Subject: What I Did on My Summer Vacation
Date: 3/10/13
From: JaceFace
To: NotaBeach

Aunt Sandy -

All right, yes. It's true. I know now for a fact that I'm Gabby, because I've seen you three times now in my role as your "kidnapper." Mostly I was there to make sure everything was set up for your relative comfort, and to make sure the cross-time link between our computers was set up properly. The really tricky part was sneaking into my family's old house in 2005 to install the "time card" on my old Compaq.

I don't know how much the future-Gabby has told you, so let me clarify things a bit:

1. I didn't create the rift between Sedona and Deming. When Ken and I got to 2005 Sedona, it was already there. There's also a side branch that goes to Roswell. I couldn't shut it down completely, but after your accident we planted a couple of trees and put up a No Trespassing sign to try to keep people out.

2. Your accident really was an accident. I saw it. You skidded off the road into the rift. I've spent years thinking about whether I could or should try to prevent that, but I concluded that it's safer to work with the version of the future I remember from the emails than to prevent the entire chain of events.

3. The medical time dilation - the slowing of your body's reaction to the accident - was mostly invented by Ken and me together. It shouldn't have worked, but it did, and I knew it would because it had. Does that make sense?

I'm in college now, obvously. I ended up at the University of Arizona, not because it had the best physics department or the best scholarship, but it's within driving distance of Sedona and the hidden entrance to the time bubble. Also it's where Ken wanted to go. We're back together, but more as friends than because we expect to get married or anything.

Let me know if and when you get out of the time bubble. I started a bank account years ago with the money you left me in your will, so you'll have that to start over with. It's not much, but I'll invest it, once I've have time to "cheat" my way to a few good long-term stock tips.

Jace

Subject: Free at Last!
Date: 6/??/??? 0959rv8q4h8y
From: NotaBeach
To: JaceFace

Jace –

Don't let the usual weird timecoding fool you. I'm actually out of the time bubble, and so far I haven't turned into a skeleton or crumbled into dust. In fact, I'm feeling much better now, and healing at a normal rate. I'm at your future apartment (details of which I won't disclose, just in case), getting my bearings and discussing my options with "Gabby."

We figure that we'll create too much of a paradox if I go back to any of those past years I lost, so any date before 2013 is out of the question. The part we've been trying to work out is whether I should come to your time, or settle with your future self in 2025. I haven't been to those years (except for right now when I'm in 2025), but you came back to see me from there. We've decided that I won't cause any catastrophe by coming to 2013, as long as we make a pact not to discuss your future actions. Actually, I suspect Gabby knows that we already made that pact in her personal past, but I know better than to ask her.

Don't worry about making those investments. I'll do it myself. But do start apartment hunting for me. I'm coming home!

Sandy

The End


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The Jace Letters, Part Sixteen

Here comes the big reveal! Have you figured it out already?


The Jace Letters

by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2006 by KFB

Part Sixteen

Subject: I live!
Date: 11/??/??? 0efhhffejf0fje0f08y
From: NotaBeach
To: JaceFace

Jace (or should I say Gabby?) -

I got through the operation, and obviously I'm awake now. Still a little groggy, but I hope not too groggy to proofread this time. Your Dr. Ken is pretty sure he got all the perforations that were causing the internal bleeding. It's just as well I hadn't been eating much, or I could easily have ended up with peritonitis. As it is, he's pumped me full of antibiotics, just in case. Blecch. I'm pretty nauseated, but I'll live.

Judging from the email I just read, I assume you know that you made this time bubble, and you rescued me from the crash. Thank you. Maybe there was/is/will be a better way to save my life, but this is the way you chose. It's such a chicken and the egg situation, isn't it? Which came first, the idea that these emails gave you, or the emails your idea made possible? Did we ever have a choice in all this? Maybe I emailed you from a future that didn't exist yet, and you are starting to make that future the real one.

I think I'm getting dizzy, thinking about all this.

I'm not going to say any more about all the things you'll be doing over the next decade. I don't want to risk changing my personal history, now that I'm pretty sure I'm getting out of here alive.

Next question is whether 32-year-old you will be able to get me back to normal time without me turning into a skeleton or something. "Gabby" says she's working on it.

Bless you, Jace!

Sandy



Technorati Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction

The Jace Letters, Part Fifteen

Now comes the scary part for me, where I start to resolve things and wrap this up. Or not.


The Jace Letters

by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2006 by KFB

Part Fifteen

Subject: Re: Stay Put
Date: 7/??/??? 0efhhffhfhqe0f08y
From: NotaBeach
To: JaceFace

Jace -

Gabby is back, and so is the doctor. And he brought two friends, and medical equipment. The operation is in half an hour. They've already given me some sedative but not the serious stuff to put me out yet. Dr. K. thinks if he can stop the internal bleeding I will probably survive everything else. The wounds we can see finally seeem to be scabbing istead ofgetting bigger.

Getting ttoo groggy to write this. I know who Gabby is. Sending. Write you if I wakeup.

Sandy

Subject: Please live!
Date: 6/17/12
From: JaceFace
To: NotaBeach

Aunt Sandy –

Your latest email makes me feel so helpless! You've reached the life-and-death moment we've been worrying about, and 18-year-old me can't do anything but wait for another email to see if you survived.

On second thought, maybe I can do something. I'm done with high school, I have access to a van, and I think my machine will work. Ken and I are driving to Sedona tomorrow. I'm anxious to hear back from you, but that could take months and months. I want to start now. I'll bring my laptop along.

I guess Ken and I are kind of back together, not that that really matters right now. We're not quite boyfriend and girlfriend, but more than just friends. Does that make any sense?

You're going to live. I'm sure of it. Otherwise, you wouldn't be going through what I'm about to make happen. It has to be worth it! It has to!

Jace


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The Jace Letters, Part Fourteen

I have no idea what I'm going to write here tonight, but here I go anyway.


The Jace Letters

by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2006 by KFB

Part Fourteen

Subject: Re: My Promise
Date: 6/??/??? 0efh40rghfhqe0f08y
From: NotaBeach
To: JaceFace

Jace -

I was right. The doctor says I'm bleeding internally. He can't operate by himself, obviously. I don't know whether I can get to a hospital - whether it's allowed, whether it's even possible. Maybe Gabby can bring more people in here. I don't know, though, whether she will or can. I don't feel I know much of anything at this point.

Sandy

Subject: Stay Put
Date: 11/15/11
From: JaceFace
To: NotaBeach

Aunt Sandy –

I'm pretty sure there's no way you would survive a trip to the hospital. If the time bubble or whatever it is is slowing down your physical decline, then the last thing you want to do is leave it. I'm sure that Gabby knows this, and will do everything she can to help you.

My senior year has started here. Ken and I aren't getting along too well right now, but he's promised not to abandon his plans to help me help you, even though we're not dating any more. He's become kind of sarcastic lately, thinks I'm so hung up on your problem and physics in general that I'm not much good for anything else. I guess it's been a while since I was fun to be around, whatever that means. I even had to move my "mad scientist" project out of his basement. Fortunately, my boss at LANL is humoring me by letting me keep it in her garage, which is only two blocks from my house, and then across the park.. She and her husband (another physicist) have even given me a few ideas on how to make it work. I don't think they take it seriously, but they don't treat me like a kid or a crazy person, either.

Tell Gabby that I think it's time for you and her to have a talk. I don't know if she'll listen to me, but if you're dying, it could be her last chance. Maybe I'm overreacting, and I hope I'm wrong. But things are clearly getting kind of desperate over there.

You said that Gabby seemed about thirty years old. How old was she when you first got there?

Jace


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