Books Away!

The Leaky Cauldron Quiz #2!

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 10/30/2006 11:00:00 AM | (0) comments

Imagination, Faith And Magic (Part Nine)

Part One Here
Part Two Here
Part Three Here
Part Four Here
Part Five Here
Part Six Here
Part Seven Here
Part Eight Here

Two men sat at an outdoor cafe. They were bent toward each other, urgently gesturing as they spoke with hushed voices. Other diners nearby sipped coffee and rustled newspapers. Above, the sky was clean and fresh - as of yet unsullied by the day's transactions - adorning the graceful architecture of the town like a simple crown adorns a fair queen. The morning songs of birds and the tinkling of a fountain skipped in the air - delicate treasures, like those in a china shop. The two men plowed on.

Under a tree in the corner of the cafe sat a woman, a cup of coffee curling at her table. Her hair was white - pure white - not the kind that is underrun with black or grey. It was pulled back in a simple tie at the nape of her neck. Her skin was the color of creamy coffee and her eyes were a silver blue. The face was lined but not wrinkled - almost as though she had been sculpted like this from the beginning. She wore what appeared at first to be a sari, but on closer inspection it was only one piece - a long, loose-fitting dress of solid white, sleeveless, with a soft silk scarf draped over her shoulders and down her back. Simple brown sandals were on her feet - her feet, which though there was an air of age about her, were the only things that really looked old.

She was writing - at least she held a pen midair. At this moment though, she was watching the two men with open yet benign intensity, as though she were trying to hear what they were saying. They did not seem to notice the eavesdropper, but carried on unheeding.

Andi took all of this in from her position at the fountain - in the fountain, I should say, for she was actually standing up to her knees in the water. Passers-by took no notice of her until finally a little girl with dark ringlets looked up at her and said, "Ooo Mama! I want to play in the wa-wa!" Andi started. The mother said no and bustled the little girl away, but Andi now felt self-conscious standing in the fountain in the middle of the square, so she hurriedly stepped up on the stone ledge of the fountain.

She was completely dry.

Andi did a double take. It was true. Not even a hint of moisture anywhere. She turned, considering the water, but even as she did, she sensed she was being watched and swung back facing the cafe.

The old woman had her head bent, pen flashing in the sun. The two men now sat considering their menus and the other diners carried on their mindless activities. A waiter carried a plate of pastries and fruit to an old man. Like an explosion, a powerful wave of hunger nearly buckled Andi's knees. She hadn't eaten since, well, since before the library, but how long ago was that? It didn't really matter at this point, though, because there was little doubt that she needed food. She started toward the cafe and was almost there when she realized she didn't have any money with her, just a credit card. Was it possible that this place took credit cards? But even as she wondered this, the old man stood and said, "Ah, there you are my dear! I've taken the liberty of ordering for you - your favorites!" and he pulled out the chair opposite of him.

"Ah..."

"Not to worry, come, sit and eat. It is for you" he said softly, taking her hand and guiding her to the chair. "And I will not bother you, for I am late already for checkers in the park!"

With that he pushed the chair under Andi, picked up the bill and left. For a moment Andi considered whether it was safe to eat this food, but that primal need to feed overrode all objections, and she snatched the chocolate covered pastry up and fairly stuffed it in her mouth.

"Breathe" she thought. "This food isn't going to run away!" The waiter filled her coffee cup and she drank it, burning hot, without even adding cream and sugar. As she began to fill up, she noticed a few things. First, the old gentleman clearly didn't know her taste, whatever he said, for though she was grateful, the items on her plate could hardly be called her favorites. Honeydew melonballs and chocolate covered pastries could never compete with bacon and eggs, or even flaky butter crossiants.

She also noticed that the men who had conversed so urgently were still leisurely considering their menus. This stuck her as odd, for the menu was only a two-sided card. But there they sat, study the menus over and over again. In fact, if she remembered correctly, the middle aged couple a few tables over had already finished their breakfasts and yet the waiter was bringing out two more plates. Perhaps it was a buffet...of sorts. She looked around to confirm her guess, and her eyes met those of the Authoress in White. She had her tilted just slightly to the side and was smiling a generous but puzzled smile.

She summoned Andi, but Andi didn't budge. The White Lady sat back in her chair and put her hand to her mouth, still considering Andi. She bade Andi to drink her coffee, but Andi felt this was an odd request for a stranger to make, and besides Andi couldn't quite work out how this lady was speaking to her. Her mouth wasn't moving...or was it? The Authoress said, "Stand on your chair and sing "The Hills Are Alive" from the Sound of Music." Andi was shocked, and very much disturbed by this request, and turned her back on the Lady in White.

Laughter - merry laughter rang out over the courtyard.

"You are not one of mine!"

To be continued...

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 10/29/2006 02:14:00 PM | (0) comments

Imagination, Faith And Magic (Part Eight)

Part One Here
Part Two Here
Part Three Here
Part Four Here
Part Five Here
Part Six Here
Part Seven Here

She stared at the two again, and then shook her head and said, "Ok, well look, how do I wake up or get back or whatever I need to do?"

"Do you not want to be here?" said Founder.

"Sh-should I...want to be here?" and then slightly exasperated, "I still don't even know where here is!"

"But...Peter told you, right?"

"Who's Peter?"

"Peter Wimsey - Lord Peter? You know!"

"Lord Peter...Lord Peter Wimsey?! The fiction character? What did he say?!" And Andi began to rack her brains for anything in one of those mystery novels that might shed some light on her predicament.

"He was suppose to tell you what Rowling said - what Lewis saw..."

"I..." and she made a desperate gesture of helplessness and frustration, but at that moment, a little light went on in the back of her befuddled mind and she froze.

What Rowling said...what Rowling said...

"But that's what that man said - the man at the library!" she cried.

"Yes, yes, Peter!"

She looked at him for the briefest of moments and then flung her hand out in front of her as if to hold at bay this information. Shaking her head, she started mumbling "no, no, no" over and over again.

"But Andi, you've been given a great privilege - not everyone is invited..."

And Founder Diggory continued speaking, but Andi had her hands over her ears, her eyes squeezed tight and was saying to herself, "I just need to think. I just need a second to think. I must need to wake up. I've just got to wake up now. Ok...now. Wake up, NOW. Ok, right now..."

There was a tug at her shirt. She jumped and looked down into the little boy's face. "Ms. Andi, I have a riddle for you-"

"Diggory! You can't do that-"

"I'm not gonna-"

"I won't let you-"

And suddenly the two boys were yelling at each other, the older brandishing a wooden switch at the younger.

She bolted, zig zagging her way among the trees and the ponds, running for all she was worth. Panic had taken over and she was fleeing instead of fighting, not so much because she was a coward, but because she couldn't identify an enemy. Behind her, the boys were now yelling her name and she could hear their falling footsteps on the soft earth.

"Petrificus Totalus!" the older boy yelled, "Petrif...Petri...Damn trees!"

Andi split two trees, took one mighty step and leapt over one of the small ponds. She had all the confidence in the world that she would clear it, and she really should have, but the heel of her tennis shoe splashed down in the smallest amount of water on the bank of the opposite shore. In a moment, less than a second, her momentum pulled her forward, but like a drain suddenly unclogged, the water in the pool suddenly gave a great slurping sound.

The two boys pulled up, panting, next to the pond.

"Damn it!" exclaimed Founder, doubled over, panting, with his hands on his knees, peering into the depths.

The younger one surveyed the sloshing waters of the pond with his hand on his chin, and then shaking his head, said with a surprising maturity, "What do they teach in schools these days?"

"Ha!" barked a laughing, panting Founder Diggory as he looked up at the little boy.

To be continued...

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 10/29/2006 01:11:00 AM | (0) comments

Imagination, Faith And Magic (Part Seven)

Part One Here
Part Two Here
Part Three Here
Part Four Here
Part Five Here
Part Six Here

Slowly the blindness lifted, sight confirming what her brain could not grasp. The rough-cut stone wall of the room in the basement of the library should be right in front of her.

But it wasn't.

And she should have her hand on an plastic electrical switch attached to the wall that should be there.

But she didn't.

A world of green and blue was forming around her. It was as if several things were happening at once. Dawn was growing on the land. Her sight was being restored. And the blurry, indistinct shapes were exploding - a bit like fireworks - into trees and water and grass.

She couldn't believe it. Somehow, someway, she was hovering in a forest of tall, still trees. The ground was soft and grassy and there were small pools of water dotting the land as far as she could see. She looked up. The sky above was a perfect, cloudless blue - motionless, but like it had been frozen a moment before movement. It reminded Andi of a prima ballarina performing a jete. Having lept into the air, the sky was now defying gravity and motion, waiting for some unknown musical cue to release it from its pose.

A peculiar sensation was slowly overtaking her; it reminded her of the way she felt when standing on the observation deck of the Sears Tower. Like she was suspended tiptoes, slowly tilting towards the fall...

And suddenly she was on her knees, her hands out in front of her.

And it was in this moment, when her hands touched the grass and smelt the earth and felt the warmth, that it all became real. Her breath came back to her - at least it seemed she had been holding her breath until that moment. Taking great gasps of air, her mind began to clear and the disorientation slipped away. After a moment, she struggled back to her feet. Her face brushed a branch hanging quite near. She looked at it and noticed that the tip of the slender branch seemed to be broken, as though someone had snapped it upward. But even as she was registering this, the branch began to mend - rapid time, right before her eyes! The woody splinters reached out to one another and began to twist around each another until they were one again; while the light grey bark that covered the tree suddenly ran like water over the newly formed wood. Yet the branch remained bent, awkwardly turned upward.

Tearing her eyes away from this, she looked about, seeking some direction, some sign of civilization. But as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but trees and grass and small ponds. There just wasn't much for it, so she took a resolute step forward.

"Wait!"

She jumped sky high.

"OH MY GOD!", she yelled clutching her chest, whirling around and staring a the two young boys who had appeared from apparently nowhere.

They looked with raised eyebrows at one another in amusement.

Then the older boy said, "You'll want to mark your spot."

Her face showed no signs of comprehension, so the younger boy spoke.

"So you know where you started. Just basic exploration skills."

"Plus, you might need the switch again" said the older boy and motioned to the unbroken branch.

"That's a switch?" she said, looking at the thin branch with the skyward tip.

The younger boy suddenly looked at with great suspection. Frowning slightly he said, "Yeah, it is. I ought to get rid of it..." and trailed off with some mumbling.

The older boy looked slightly amused at the younger, and then spoke to Andi.

"Yes, it's the switch you flipped to get here. Here, let me mark this spot for you."

And he pulled out another switch, about a foot long, and swished it through the air, pointing at a spot just near Andi's feet. Suddenly a bouquet of deep purple crocuses popped out of the ground and a wonderful, fragrent scent filled the air.

"Now if you ever get lost, you can follow the scent. It will be strong enough."

A moment of silence, and then...

"Thank you."

And she stared at them and they beamed back, the younger one no longer concerned about switches. A long pause, and then...

"Where am I?"

The two boys just stared back, but she could see in the face of the older one that he was struggling. Finally he said, "It goes by a few names, and as far as place...well, there are many places here..." He bit his lip while his eyes darted downward and then quickly added with a lighthearted air, "...as there are everywhere, of course."

He flashed a charming smile and Andi noticed for the first time he was quite good looking. He had an open, honest, intelligent face and an air of integrity about him, though she thought he couldn't be much out of highschool. Though shaken, she suddenly felt as though she could trust this boy.

"I'm Andi Arthur, and you are...?" she said.

"Diggory" they both answered.

Ah, the moment she thought she had found stability... She waited a few seconds, and then said, "You're...both Diggory?"

"Yes."

"But I'm the oldest", the younger one said.

"Shh!" said the older one.

She stared at the younger one with humored disbelief. She had never cared much for younger children and prefered dealing with the older one. Glancing back at him, she waited for this childishness to be patronized, but the older one was looked at her with the air of one forced to explain something he had rather not and said, "Well, it is true, but I know that doesn't make sense."

"And if that doesn't make sense, he's the founder!" exclaimed the younger one.

She really wished the good looking guy would get his kid brother under control. Even though she trusted him, it didn't change the fact that she had just had some unexplainable experience and had no idea where she was or how to get home and the more this little boy shouted nonsensacles into the air, the more agitated she felt.

"Hush, Kirk!" chided the annoyed older, but now proclaimed younger Diggory. "I'm not really the founder" he said quickly, while the younger made to protest "but I am named Founder as a tribute to...well, him..." (At this the younger boy grinned a proud little arrogant smile.) "when he's older, anyway..." finished the older, but younger Diggory.

"Ah-hah..." said Andi.

To be continued...

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 10/18/2006 07:25:00 PM | (0) comments

Closed Door

Just an update - the door at JK Rowling's site is now closed - but rumor has it that there will be another WOMBAT within a couple of months. And she usually does something for Christmas so we have that to look forward to...that, and Book 7...




Here is a picture of the confetti the trees threw on my path the other day - isn't it wonderful?!









And here is a picture of some fabulous leaves still on the trees - I suppose they are someone else's confetti - but I took a picture of them anyway.

Yet out of all those lovely autumn pictures, nothing says "fall" like the brilliance of the campaign trail...

I'm sure the Republicans have something just as stupid - but unfortunately they're not wearing it on city buses across town.

Happy Autumn!

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 10/13/2006 04:08:00 PM | (0) comments