Among Others

I heard a ripping sound, and turned, and gasped with horror. She had taken out the one-volume edition of The Lord of the Rings, which was hers, but the first one I had ever read, and torn out a page. She threw it at me, and it became a burning spear in the air between us. It was dark enough now that it lit everything up with strange extra shadows. I dodged it. She tore another page. I could hardly bear it. I know books are only the words, and I have two copies of it of my own, but I wanted to go back and grab the book from her. The spears weren’t as bad as the violation, they wouldn’t have been even if they’d hit me. How could she use books against me? But I could see how it would seem the obvious thing.

I could do the same. I drew the illusion monsters towards me and gave them a push towards her. They changed and became dragons and huge alien turtles and people in spacesuits and a boy and girl in armour with drawn swords, making a barrier between us, protecting me, rushing down through the dusk towards her. I took another step uphill and away.

She could ignore an illusion as well as I could, of course.

The spears kept coming. They weren’t on fire now, and they were harder to see. She must have torn out handfuls at once and been flinging them wildly. I stopped and reached out to the pattern of the world. They were paper. Paper was wood, so easy to make into a spear, but what did wood really want to be? One came so close I could feel the wind of it passing, and I knew, and laughed. It was what Mor had said here, so long before. It wasn’t even difficult. The spear that was a page became a tree. So did the others, the ones she had already thrown and which were stuck in the ground. For a moment they stood there, roots in the earth, branches reaching, oak and ash and thorn, beech and rowan and fir, huge beautiful mature trees in full leaf. Then they began to move downhill, Burnham Wood coming to Dunsinane. “Huorns will help,” I said, and there were tears in my eyes.

If you love books enough, books will love you back.

They weren’t illusion. They were trees. Trees are what paper was, and wants to be. I could just about see her through them. She was raving and screaming something at me. The pages were turning to trees as soon as she tore them, and sooner. The book, which was in her hands, became a huge mass of ivy and bramble, spreading everywhere. The whole desolation where the Phurnacite had been was a forest, with the ruins of the factory at the heart of it. There were fairies in among the trees. Of course there were. An owl swooped down over the dark pool.

“Sometimes it takes a little longer than you think,” I said.

I kept walking on, up and away from the Phurnacite. She was still raving, down there in the trees. I just kept walking away, as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast. I was out of her reach now. I took two more steps and I was out on the road.

Once there, I could hold on to the bars of the railings to help myself walk. This was useful, and almost as good as a stick. I only had to get to the bus stop. My old stick was in Grampar’s house. Then I saw that I was just like stupid Fanny Robin in Hardy’s stupid story, dragging myself along the railing, and I started to giggle.

As I came to the end of the railings, by the bus stop, still giggling a little, there they were in front of me.

I was more than a little surprised to see Wim, astonished to see Daniel (how had he got away?), and completely amazed to see Sam. The three of them had appeared seemingly out of nowhere like the Trinity, though of course it was all simple enough. Wim had decided to come and had telephoned Daniel who had telephoned Sam. They hadn’t seen me turn to flame and make the pages into trees, at least Daniel didn’t. I think Wim may have seen something out of the corner of his eye. I don’t know what Sam saw. He just smiled.

I didn’t need them in the least, but it was lovely to see them.

Wednesday 20th February 1980

We went in the car to collect my stick and all went to Fedw Hir and saw Grampar. He isn’t going to forgive Daniel any time soon, but that’s the way things are. Auntie Teg made dinner for everyone, with me helping, and then we decided to all spend the night in Grampar’s house, because there really isn’t room in the flat. It was like one of those dreams where everyone is in the wrong place. Grampar liked Wim. He always wanted a son. And Wim really likes Sam. It’s so strange them all being here.