Lit in Progress

… would make a good beginning for a short story, though it seems rather sappy upon waking up. Unfortunately, almost all (that is to say, both the major) the charachters were stolen from books I’ve been reading lately.

She’d grown now, tall and changed and solemn. The garish superficiality of her chosen world, her rigid self-delight, had faded, crinkled, withered like the outer petals of a rose. She’d become older than she deserved to, ought to be. Her face was sharper. It had taken everything she had, magically, physically, intellectually, to escape the colorful courtyards, the cardboard people she thought she ruled. She’d come at last.

She came unwittingly to the world he was in.

Okay, what happens is Gwendolyn (en?) somehow grows up and gets away from her ruling-world, and somehow gets adopted or mentored or sponsored by some Lady, like Kim in the Mairelon books, to be presented in Society (I know, the era’s slightly different, but if there are multiple universes anyway, who’s to know?). So I guess they’re having this kind of dress rehearsal for a party (don’t ask me; the dream here’s mostly about the house still; I am in Real Estate, you know). And the home at which the party is/will be held is really cool, actually. But the only thing I can remember about it is that it has an Entry, and also a large bathroom you can get to from the entry, and then go directly from the bathroom into the living or drawing room, or whatever I was calling it in my subconscious mind - “So you don’t have to be seen until you’re Ready To Be Seen,” Gwendolyn’s mentor says. So she’s struggling with a ginormous skirt, trying to use the restroom (yes, the door’s closed) when she hears someone come in to the entry. When she comes out, he’s talking with her friend in the drawing room/parlor thing (keep in mind the house is vacant, like a new home or most open houses I’ve sat). And somehow it starts snowing and they’re stuck there. (Don’t ask me.) And she recognizes him, kind of, but he looks shorter and he’s put on weight, so it takes her a while. She actually has to squat down (not a debutante all-time, eh?) and look at him from about rib height, and then she gets it. “Chrest-!” she begins. He stops her, “Don’t say it!” I’m not sure why; in the book, Chrestomanci comes whenever someone’s calling him, but since he’s there already, I’m not sure where he’s worried about going - unless, of course, he’s not the Chrestomanci anymore, and maybe the NEW Chrestomanci’s not happy about it, and he doesn’t want to call the guy or something. Also, the important shift from the Chrestomanci world is that Gwendolyn is no longer Janet’s double, but rather (improbably) Millie’s.

She was so different, now. He wondered about how thin she’d become, and thought ruefully of his own recent obesity. (thoughts of Dr. Pawson? do all expert enchanters have thyroid problems?) She reminded him of the thin-skinness of movie stars, of statues, of Egyptian paintings.

Sitting, waiting in the cold empty house, with her, not talking. She is quiet, no longer malevolent, no longer childish. Their friend the Lady stands upright at the window, watching the snow fall and drift on the side of the house.

He thinks about his wife. They had been walking over a field, grey-yellow with winter, she growing weaker. She had lost her footing. She was in a coma. She was dead.

And Gwendolyn looked so much like her. “Shall I go out, and try to find …?”