Even though we can’t get away for Spring Break — because, global pandemic — Kara and I are chatting this month about books that transport us far away. Escapist literature, turned up to eleven.

P.S. — For everyone who requested reviews of Erin Morgenstern’s books, this chat is for you.

P.P.S. — Technically, it’s for everybody else, as well, but I wanted to make you Morgenstern-curious readers know I was thinking of you. Cheers!

I discovered this morning that my sketchbook at The Brooklyn Art Library is now viewable online! If you’d like to check out some of my art work, please click this link. All of the designs in this book are also available for sale as cards at Ella’s Apothecary — which is having their brick-and-mortar shop grand opening in a couple of weeks!

I know I’ve been missing the earworms and other posts a little bit lately, but I’m just trying to finish up my semester and not let my writing projects fall down at the same time. 12 Days of Holiday Music is coming VERY soon, though, and I’ve been curating this year’s series behind the scenes, so get ready. 😉

If you’re in the market this weekend to buy some books, either for yourself or to get a jump on holiday gift-giving, consider supporting my school’s libraries with their annual Book Fair, because this year it’s all online!

You can find three of my titles there, in the Special Guests and Community Authors section:
* Finis. (Animal Affinities Book 1)
* Homecoming (Animal Affinities Book 2)
* The Sharp Edges of Water (poetry)

There are also hundreds of other books for all ages and interests, as well as some of the other non-book things you often find in bookstores (calendars, etc.).

But hurry, since Book Fair ends tomorrow. And thank you!

Welcome to the weekend, and to the next installment in “The Frog Wish,” a serialized story featuring a witch that I’m writing one scene at a time every weekend in October. You can read parts 1-4 here, then see part 5 here, and then find part 6 here. Enjoy!

*****

“The Frog Wish” (part 7)

Eleanor had never eaten partridge before, much less off a wooden skewer, nor had she sampled currant sauce. Both were quite delicious, though. At least, she thought they might be. She had eaten the first one too fast to really taste it and was bartering for a second one with the adorable child vending them out of a motley tapestried tent. Behind the tent was a large firepit with several long roasting spits slowly turning over it. An older child, possibly thirteen years old and probably the older brother of the dumpling-faced girl facing off against Eleanor, slid a small creature off one of the swiveling rods whenever someone ordered food.

“If you want seconds, you still need to pay for them,” the little girl was saying. She looked to be about six or seven years old, with bouncy ginger curls and violet irises. She wore an elaborate dress covered in ruffled edges and shiny fabric ribbons that had been dusted with silver dirt all over. The petite lace flounces at her elbows bore traces of currant sauce. But her face and hands were clean.

“I wouldn’t dream of not,” Eleanor assured her, rifling through her pockets again. She had paid for the first partridge with three quarters she’d had left over from impulsively purchasing a bottle of water in the checkout line at the hardware store. That had been after loading the slats for her new bed into the back of her car.

That seemed like days, not hours, ago now. Just a foreign episode in a half-forgotten life devoid of consequence.

Eleanor stopped short. Where had that thought even come from?

“Do you have any more of those shiny coins?” the child asked, interrupting her startle. “I liked the funny face on them.” She giggled. “My brother thought they were funny, too. He let me keep one.”

Eleanor half-smiled at that. She would parse out her existential angst later. Right now, as they said, the landscape was food. “I wish I did, but I already gave you all I had.” She had no more money on her; in her pocket was only the tiger’s eye––which she was smart enough to hang onto in this mirror world––and the ribbons it had been wrapped in. She looked at the girl’s dress more carefully. The ribbons on it were all different colors, and now that Eleanor really paid attention, they seemed to have been tied on randomly everywhere rather than as any sort of intentional design choice in the garment. Probably the girl had been collecting and adding them on herself. “That’s a very pretty dress you have there,” she said.

The girl grinned until her eyes all but disappeared. “It’s my favorite one. I always wear it on market days.”

Eleanor nodded. “And I see you have quite a collection of ribbons, too. You must really like them.”

“Yup!”

“Well, you probably already have enough, but if you wanted any more, I do have a pair of very silky black and white ribbons here in my pocket.” She pulled them out of her pocket, taking care to keep the stone hidden as she did so.

The little girl’s eyes went wide. “Those are long ones,” she said reverently. “Long enough for my hair.”

“They would look beautiful in your hair.” Eleanor kept her voice solemn as her stomach grumbled just a little bit at the roasting smells on the breeze. “And they’re the only ribbons I have. But I’m willing to give them to you for another delicious partridge, if they will be of use to you.” She held them out.

The little girl fingered the ribbons carefully, testing their smoothness, touching their neatly angled ends. “They’re not even frayed.”

Eleanor might have felt guilty about trading roasted birds for seventy-five cents and a pair of satin ribbons, except that these things seemed to hold such value for the child. There didn’t appear to be any adults at this stall. Maybe this little girl and her brother were on their own? She glanced back at the roasting spit. They knew what they were doing and boasted a brisk business. They didn’t look like urchins. Eleanor’s stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten enough yet. Who was she to insist on the value of one or another item in a silver fantasy world you entered when a witch breezed you through a mirror with magic powder?

The force of her rationalization combated her instincts to try just rolling with the bizarre situation she was in. But before she could say anything else, the little girl clasped her hands around the ribbons. A smile opened on her face like a butterfly.

“This trade is a good one,” she said. “But only if you’ll tie the ribbons into my hair for me.”

Eleanor couldn’t hide her surprise. “Why me?”

“Because I can’t see the back of my own head and want to make sure they’re in there right and pretty.” The look on her face suggested she thought Eleanor might be dim-witted.

“Oh, of course,” she replied. “I’ll make sure they’re in their securely, too.”

The child grinned again and called over her shoulder for her brother to get Eleanor another roasted partridge with currant sauce. While he prepared her food, she tied the ribbons into the child’s mop of curls as carefully as she could, trying not to yank on any hairs or make lopsided ponytails in the process. Afterward, the child handed her the food and then made an elegant curtsy.

Eleanor smiled back and took a bite of the skewered bird. She could savor it this time, appreciate how the mildly salty first impression gave way to a tender, juicy richness. Was it gamey? Perhaps. But the sweet tang of the currant sauce mitigated it. It was delicious enough that Eleanor wondered if she should feel guilty and become a vegetarian like Moira.

Moira. Moira.

Eleanor took another big bite. Now that she had some food in her belly, she wandered back over to where Reginald was squatting on a wide tree trunk at the edge of the clearing. She sat on the tall log next to him and put the fairy tale book next to her feet. As she drifted away from the intimacy of the clearing, the colors and sounds of the market bled away from her perception. Even the partridge tasted less…vibrant? Flavorful? It resembled a well-tended game hen now. Eleanor nibbled at it again, no longer feeling guilty for enjoying it. She had other concerns.

“Reginald, do you know why Moira pushed me through a mirror?”

The frog sighed. It sounded like a humid wind through a willow tree dripping over a pond. “No.”

“And would you tell me if you did know?”

“Ribbit.” He licked his eyeball. “Yeah, I probably would.”

Knowing that felt more disappointing than Eleanor expected. It was one thing to have a recalcitrant guide and ally who could probably help you out of a bind if the need was great enough. It was another to know that the person who sent you into a surreal landscape, and had sent you a guide, had sent him into that same landscape without any idea of why you were there in the first place. She wrapped the remaining half of her partridge in the baking parchment it had come in and set it on the log next to her.

“What am I supposed to do here?” She gestured at the clearing. “This is all very interesting, but what’s the point?”

Reginald hopped a half-turn toward her. “You’re the one on the quest. What are you questing for?”

“Nothing.”

“Nonsense.”

“But––”

“Okay, let me try this again. What does Moira think you’re questing for?”

Moira was still harping on the Lucas thing. And it didn’t matter that Eleanor had told her that she was done with him. It didn’t matter that he had moved out, or that she had bought new bedroom furniture. It didn’t matter that Moira and Lucas were cousins, or that Moira always thought she knew better than everyone else, just because she had that dumb second sight or witchy intuition or whatever the hell she wanted to call it. It didn’t matter that her readings were always spot-on, even when Eleanor refused to admit it.

Moira thought Eleanor wasn’t going to be happy until she had resolved this thing. Whatever this thing was.

“Ribbit.”

“I don’t know, okay?” She sounded testy, even to herself.

Reginald licked his eyeball and hop-turned away from her. “You just keep on thinking that. I’ll wait till you figure it out.”

Well, at least he wasn’t going to abandon her here. She could feel some gratitude for that.

She picked the partridge back up, unwrapped it, and took another bite. As she chewed, she considered the Lucas situation. It hadn’t really been his fault it had ended, nor hers. Not anyone’s. He wasn’t in love with her, and Eleanor had decided that she didn’t want to waste time on a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere. And it was okay that he wasn’t in love with her. As reserved and shy as he was, she didn’t know if she’d ever have expected him to fall in love in the first place. She shouldn’t have let herself get so wrapped up in someone who wasn’t ever going to show his emotions at the level she was pretty sure she needed.

As she was about to take another bite, a blur of taupe striped fur brushed across her arm and cheek and tackled the partridge out of her hand.

“What just happened?” she shrieked.

“Ribbit.”

A loud chewing and snuffling sound came from a few paces past Reginald. There on the ground was a large tabby cat, devouring what was left of her food, nosing the parchment paper aside, one paw holding the wooden skewer down into the gray dirt.

Eleanor stood and walked over to the cat. The partridge was so gone, and the cat was licking its nose over and over again in hungry swipes. “That was mine,” she said. She didn’t have anything else to barter with. “You had no right to take it.”

“You realize you’re arguing with a feral cat?” Reginald croaked. “Do you expect it to answer you?”

Eleanor glared at him. “Why wouldn’t I expect that, at this point?”

Then the cat cleared its throat. It was standing on its hind legs and held out a pale front paw. “That was delicious, thank you,” it said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Famine.”

#

*****

Please join us for my online book launch of Homecoming, the second book in the Animal Affinities series! It will be on TODAY, this afternoon at 4:00 central time, wherever you have an internet connection. Click here for the details.

Want to read more of my writing that’s already published? Click here for poetry, click here for urban fantasy, and click here for realistic flash fiction. You can also buy my books at Blue Willow Bookshop and my books and poetry art cards at Ella’s Apothecary, and I hope you will!

Those of you who’ve been following my blog for a while know that in October I have a series called Witchy Weekends, and this year I’m continuing writing a fairy tale. You can read parts 1-4 here. And here is the link for part 5. Part 6 follows now:

*****

The Frog Wish (continued)

Eleanor’s stomach grumbled again, and she rubbed it gently with an anxious hand. “Why can’t I hear them?” she asked Reginald. “Why can’t I hear anything?”

“Ribbit. You can hear me, can’t you?”

“Well, yes.”

The frog swung his eyes toward the market. “Maybe if you get closer to them, you’ll be able to hear them, too.”

Did he know this for a fact? “Can you hear them?” He croaked his response; it sounded both affirmative and exasperated. “How often have you come to this market? Has it ever seemed silent to you?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” He jumped off the stump and onto the path leading to the middle of the market. “Come on.”

She hesitated, worried the scene would recede away from her, that she’d be stuck on the path between the mirror forest and the silent stalls forever.

Reginald stopped before he sprang again and turned around to look at her. “You’re not very trusting, are you?” He seemed then to shake his head, an uncanny movement on a frog’s body. “I smell food.”

Eleanor didn’t, but her stomach quivered anyway. “Fine.” She took one small step onto the packed gray dirt. Nothing shifted away from her. She took another step. Still nothing weird––well, more weird––happened. A third.

“At this rate you will starve before you make it across the clearing. Ribbit.”

“Shut up.” But Eleanor stepped it up and reached the frog.

“Finally.”

“I could kick you like a soccer ball across the clearing.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I might accidentally drop this heavy book on you, though. You might hop away before it crushed your little webbed footsies.”

“Only aquatic frogs have webbed feet. Pay attention.”

Eleanor waggled the book over Reginald’s green body. He didn’t flinch.

“Low blood sugar? Ribbit.”

“Yes.” She didn’t even care to think up something clever to say. The smells of the market were reaching her now, in the clearing, and she thought she could detect the far-off ambient noise it was making. It seemed proximity to the stalls activated their impact on her senses.

“You’d do better to actually read that book than threaten me with it.”

As Eleanor stepped into the middle of the rough ring of stalls, her perception awoke with sounds and smells, and the closer she came to each stall, the less silver it appeared. Color began leaching into the landscape in small doses, suffusing the other people as if from the inside. “Food first.”

She kept just enough distance from the market activity to not be part of it while still observing all that she could. The wares on display seemed to have been lifted out of a stereotype. Baskets of colorful spices, the occasional live chicken or goat, formless textiles draped here and there awaiting the purpose of nimble hands. But the inhabitants of this landscape––people and animals and some creatures who seemed perhaps to be both, conversing with each other as naturally as any shoppers and sellers at any farmer’s market in Eleanor’s world.

She was still looking for food––of the cooked and ready-to-eat variety––when a flurry of activity shifted her eyes to the right. There stood a booth she hadn’t seen before, this one piled high with fruits. Melons, grapes, berries in every color. Bananas by the bunches. A rainbow of apples cascading along one entire side. Figs, stones fruits. Spiky and fingerlike things––jackfruit and citron and dragonstar––she had only ever seen at specialty grocery stores but had never tried. And the squat, bulbous creatures hawking them looked both familiar and completely unreal. One of them, swaddled in layers of clothing of indeterminate shape and color, beckoned her over. His face reminded Eleanor of Reginald’s, writ large, its wide straight mouth and bulging eyes dwarfing its smooth double slit of a nose.

“Hungry?” it asked her.

“I am.” She thought her stomach might actually turn inside-out with fervor and took a few quick steps toward a bunch of fat, shiny grapes. She could devour them on the way to a booth with something roasted and meaty.

“Stop!” Reginald hopped in front of her before she could grab anything.

“What, why?” Her stomach roared in despair.

“Not up on your Rosetti?” He gestured to the book under her arm, then jerked his head toward the proprietor’s grimacing figure. “Goblins?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I take it back.” Reginald kept hopping toward her until she had to step back, out of the immediate fresh aroma of all the sweet fruits piled up before her, just begging to be eaten. “You are too trusting.”

The anger in her belly faded somewhat.

“You can read it later, I guess, but just stay away from the fruits here.” He gave the goblin behind him a stern glance; the goblin stuck its floppy tongue out at him. Reginald croaked fiercely and licked his own eyeball in response, then when the goblin turned around, Reginald did too.

Eleanor stared at him. “That was weird.”

“Thank me later. There’s some roasted partridge on a stick with currant sauce a little farther on.”

She was hungry enough that didn’t even sound strange to her. “Food first,” she repeated and followed him toward the back of the clearing, a little closer than before.

#

*****

Please join us for my online book launch of Homecoming, the second book in the Animal Affinities series! It will be next Saturday afternoon, October 24th, at 4:00 central time, wherever you have an internet connection. Click here for the details.

Want to read more of my writing that’s already published? Click here for poetry, click here for urban fantasy, and click here for realistic flash fiction. You can also buy my books at Blue Willow Bookshop and my books and poetry art cards at Ella’s Apothecary, and I hope you will!

It has recently come to my attention that the song I included for today’s earworm was by a band whose members included a known perpetrator of sexual assault. I had no idea. The song I played here is the only one by that band that I ever really knew, and I hadn’t paid attention to anything else they’d done. I regret that and hope that my post, which has now been edited to remove the song, didn’t cause anyone distress.

 

 

Last night I walked into my bathroom and found Salaadin waiting for me. What do you think he was thinking? Tell us in the comments below.

I was reminded last week of how much I love the band Barenaked Ladies. Enjoy.