Theodora Goss

On Fridays I usually try to write part of my story, but I spent this evening at Boskone, so I’m going to write about that.

This morning I woke up at seven, got dressed, and went to the university to meet with students. I met with students all morning, then taught for three hours, then met with more students. Then I took the T, green line to red line to silver line, across the city to Boskone. I was on one panel and talked to many people, and now it’s midnight and I’m tired, so I’ll do my best to make this post coherent.

Why do I go to conventions? I suppose the most practical reason is that when I go to conventions, people get to know who I am. And then they look at my blog, and perhaps they read my books, so going to conventions is simply part of what I do as a writer. Today I was on a panel on H.P. Lovecraft with Charles Stross, John Langan, and Jack Haringa. I thought it went well . John was an excellent moderator, I thought Charles and Jack and I all made interesting points, and there were very interesting points from the audience as well. Charles brought several Cthulthuesque visual aids.

Before the panel I had wandered around the dealer’s room. Omar Rayyan was there, and I know I’ll have to at least buy an Omar Rayyan print at some point during the convention. I talked to Gavin Grant, who was at the Small Beer Press table. Gavin was kind enough to give me a copy of Joan Aiken: The Serial Garden, and I bought a copy of Holly Black’s The Poison Eaters. I saw some other wonderful things that I’ll try to write about tomorrow. I’ll try to post some pictures too. A less practical reason for going to conventions is seeing all the things that people are creating. Beautiful books, beautiful art. The art show this year is particularly good.

I ran into or had short conversations with several people I knew or had at least met before: Sarah Langan and her husband J.T. Petty, Laird Barron, Paul Tremblay. And I have a long talk with Genevieve Valentine, with whom I shared some dinner and a dessert. (We did the girl thing: shared food. If you share food, you don’t have to feel guilty about what you’re eating. Although honestly, the dessert was such a large slice of chocolate cake, and so much of that cake was frosting, dense and chocolaty and flavored with Guiness, that we only ate about half of it. Even with sharing.)

A third reason for going to conventions is meeting friends. We all live in different places, all over the country, and conventions give us the opportunity to see each other again, to catch up.

A fourth reason is the shop. Every profession talks shop. Writers do too: writer shop is about who’s working on what, who has a book coming out, what sorts of projects are floating around. Who’s good to work with, how books were sold, what problems are coming up. I get so much information simply from talking shop with other writers. We all develop a sort of knowledge, a general sense for how things are working, what the industry is doing. And that’s absolutely crucial in an industry like this one, where there’s no central source of information (except perhaps Locus Magazine). You have to talk to people to, basically, know what’s going on. To keep up.

If you don’t do that, don’t keep up with the industry, you’re going to run into problems. You’re going to sign with a publisher who hasn’t been paying writers, or not understand how to promote your own writing, or miss opportunities. And if you want to be a professional writer, to do this at the most serious level, you can’t afford to do that, any more than a businessman can afford not to keep up with the stock market, or a lawyer can afford to ignore the latest cases.

What do conventions give me? Information, connection, pleasure. That’s why I go to conventions.

I’ll be at Boskone on Saturday and Sunday as well. Hopefully on those days I won’t be quite so tired, and will be able to put together more coherent posts. But what I really want to say is, as I rode the T toward the convention hotel, I felt a sense of freedom and joy, that I was going to be spending time with my crowd. That I was going to see friends again, and be with people who cared about books and art. People who made things. Who are my favorite sorts of people.

I asked Terri Windling if I could write about a poem she had written called “The Night Journey,” and she very kindly told me that I could. It’s one of my favorite poems. She gave me permission not only to quote from it, but to reprint it here, so after my analysis you’ll find the whole poem reprinted below.

It begins,

“Go by coombe, by candle light,
by moonlight, starlight, stepping stone,
and step o’er bracken, branches, briars,
and go tonight, and go alone . . .”

A coombe is a kind of deep, narrow valley, says the dictionary. So follow the valley, whether by candle light, moonlight, or starlight (meaning, whether or not you have a candle I suppose, but whatever you have, you must follow). It’s going to be a wild sort of valley, with bracken and branches to step over, even briars that might tear your dress. And go tonight, not another night. And go alone, because this sort of journey can only be taken alone.

” . . . go by water, go by willow,
go by ivy, oak and ash,
and rowan berries red as blood,
and breadcrumbs, stones, to mark the path;
find the way by water’s whisper,
water rising from a womb
of granite, peat, of summer heat,
to slake your thirst and fill the coombe
and tumble over moss and stone
and feed the roots of ancient trees
and call to you: go, now, tonight,
by water, earth, phyllomancy . . .”

Phyllomancy is a means of divination using leaves. So what are you following on your journey? You have particular markers: water, trees, berries. Breadcrumbs and stones also mark the path, which means that others travelers have followed that path before. Drink from the water that seems to spring up from the earth and then runs along the bottom of the coombe. The water is calling to you, but I suspect that more than the water is calling – everything is calling, the trees, the stones. You can see what is written in the leaves, you have already left your home and been granted certain powers. You are already a seer.

” . . . by candle flame, by spirit-name,
by spells, by portents, myth and song,
by drum beat, heart beat, earth pulsing
beneath your feet, calling you home,
calling you back, calling you through
the water, wood, the waste, the wild,
the hills where Dartmoor ponies pass,
and black-faced sheep, a spectral child,
a fox with pale unnatural eyes,
an owl, a badger, ghostly deer
with horns of star light, candle light
to guide the way, to lead you here . . .”

You are following the breadcrumbs, but also the stories – the portents, the myths, the songs, all the things you have been told all your life that are telling you where to go. The spirit-name: is that yours? The spells: are they spells you have woven? The heartbeat. I am certain it is yours, that you are following the beating of your own heart. But there is also a drumbeat, a pulsing that comes from somewhere – or someone? And from the earth itself, whose heart is pulsing with yours? Until earth and heart and drum are simply one pulse, one beat.

And they are calling you home, back to the home you left so long ago, but where you have realized you belong after all. It’s not where you expected, is it? It’s in the wood, the waste, the wild. Where the dead walk, where the animals are ready to speak with you and to lead you as well, animals that are not simply animals but also your kith and kin and kind.

” . . . to lead you to the one who waits,
who sits and waits upon the tor,
he waits and watches, wondering
if you’re the one he’s waiting for . . .”

Are you? Do you think you are? You’re the one who heard and answered the call, so that must mean something. You’re the one who came, who wants to be worthy. A tor, by the way, is a high hill or pile of stones. And now you’re standing in front of him, because you’ve heard the call and you want to be the one. And you’re waiting. Hoping you are the one he’s been calling, because this is a call you’ve heard all your life. And tonight you decided to answer it.

” . . . he waits by dawn, by dusk, by dark,
by sun, by rain, by day, by night,
his hair as black as ravens’ wings,
his eyes of amber, skin milk white,
his skin tattooed with spiral lines
beneath a mask of wood and leaves
and polished stone and sun-bleached bone,
beneath a shirt of spiders’ weave,
his wrists weighted with silver bands
and copper braids tarnished to green,
he waits for you, unknown and yet
familiar from forgotten dreams . . .”

Who is he? I think he is an image of the one who is always calling. Several years ago, I wrote a book about three women poets, and I noticed that all of them had a poem about the call – a stranger came and called, or there was a call from some unspecified source. And they had to follow, whatever the price. (It was usually an ordinary woman’s life. Comfort, a home. But they always followed the call.) It is a very old call. It has been calling for a very long time, as long as there have been singers and storytellers and painters on cavern walls.

” . . . you dream and stir upon your bed
and toss and turn among the sheets,
the wind taps at the window glass
and water tumbles through the leat
and through the garden, through the wood,
and over moss and over stone
and tells you: go, by candle light,
and go tonight, and go alone . . .”

Wait, weren’t you on the hillside? No, you’re still in bed, still not risen. Dreaming about the call. You haven’t yet made the decision to go out into the darkness.

” . . . he’s sent you dreams, he’s left you signs,
he’s left you feathers, beads and runes,
so go, tonight, by candle light,
by ash and oak, by wood, by coombe.”

But he’s calling you to whatever it is you’re supposed to do, whatever it is you’re supposed to be. It’s your choice now. Are you going to rise in your nightdress, not even stopping to change? Are you going to take the candle and go? Are you going to follow the narrow valley, drink from the spring that runs through it, use all the powers you have ever had, all the training you have ever received, to read the signs and follow?

Or are you going to turn over, fall into a deeper sleep?

No, I didn’t think so.

I have no idea if this is how Terri would read her own poem, but it’s what the poem means to me. Here it is in its entirety: (Read it again. What does it mean to you?)

The Night Journey
by Terri Windling

Go by coombe, by candle light,
by moonlight, starlight, stepping stone,
and step o’er bracken, branches, briars,
and go tonight, and go alone,
go by water, go by willow,
go by ivy, oak and ash,
and rowan berries red as blood,
and breadcrumbs, stones, to mark the path;
find the way by water’s whisper,
water rising from a womb
of granite, peat, of summer heat,
to slake your thirst and fill the coombe
and tumble over moss and stone
and feed the roots of ancient trees
and call to you: go, now, tonight,
by water, earth, phyllomancy,
by candle flame, by spirit-name,
by spells, by portents, myth and song,
by drum beat, heart beat, earth pulsing
beneath your feet, calling you home,
calling you back, calling you through
the water, wood, the waste, the wild,
the hills where Dartmoor ponies pass,
and black-faced sheep, a spectral child,
a fox with pale unnatural eyes,
an owl, a badger, ghostly deer
with horns of star light, candle light
to guide the way, to lead you here,
to lead you to the one who waits,
who sits and waits upon the tor,
he waits and watches, wondering
if you’re the one he’s waiting for;
he waits by dawn, by dusk, by dark,
by sun, by rain, by day, by night,
his hair as black as ravens’ wings,
his eyes of amber, skin milk white,
his skin tattooed with spiral lines
beneath a mask of wood and leaves
and polished stone and sun-bleached bone,
beneath a shirt of spiders’ weave,
his wrists weighted with silver bands
and copper braids tarnished to green,
he waits for you, unknown and yet
familiar from forgotten dreams;
you dream and stir upon your bed
and toss and turn among the sheets,
the wind taps at the window glass
and water tumbles through the leat
and through the garden, through the wood,
and over moss and over stone
and tells you: go, by candle light,
and go tonight, and go alone;
he’s sent you dreams, he’s left you signs,
he’s left you feathers, beads and runes,
so go, tonight, by candle light,
by ash and oak, by wood, by coombe.

This poem is reprinted, with Terri’s kind permission, from The Journal of Mythic Arts.

What is it with this week?

I was so tired earlier in the week, and now I’m most definitely sick. But it’s a sort of low-level sickness, a sense that things aren’t right with me: tiredness, achiness, my head not quite clear.

Yesterday I came home from the university, lay down to rest for a few minutes, and woke up three hours later. And then I could not get to sleep again until very late, and tossed and turned all night.

I did not write my blog post.

(You know that I’ve committed to writing a blog post a day. So when I woke up this morning, an hour earlier than I usually do, I made myself breakfast and decided to write yesterday’s post. Here I am, with oatmeal and orange juice, doing just that.)

My blog post today is about the difficulty of writing when you’re tired. I have two examples for you. Take a look at my blog post “The School Itself.” That’s writing while tired. It’s rambling and, to be perfectly honest, I’m not being particularly original, am I? I mean, there I am, trying to describe a witch’s school, and I’m not coming up with interesting imagery. If it were a story and I had time to revise, I would have revised almost completely. Made things a lot more interesting. But that day, I just couldn’t come up with anything.

My second example is “The Haul.” I was tired that day too, and all I could do was give you photographs.

The question is, what do you do on days like those? The answer, for me, is not to take a break from writing. I suppose for many people it would be, and perhaps it ought to be for me as well. But then, on top of not feeling physically well, I would have the not-well feeling of not having written. So instead, I write tired. I’m tired, I go ahead and write. And whatever comes out, comes out.

(Can you see the effect in this post? My sentences are shorter, the transitions between them more choppy. It’s as though my brain is having difficulty seeing connections, knowing where I should go.)

On a blog, there is no chance to go back and revise, so what comes out is what you get. And in a way that may be unfair, because you’re not exactly getting the best of me. On the other hand, you are getting an accurate representation of who I am as a writer. There are days when I’m writing tired, and that’s the best I can do. If there were time to revise, I would.

Today is going to be a long day for me. I have conferences all day long, and then I have work to do after I come home. I think that’s why I’m sick, to be honest: it’s a combination of stress, too much work, and the fact that I have fifty-six students this semester. When they get sick, I get sick.

So I will get through the day, come home, and probably fall asleep again as I did yesterday. And maybe wake up and write my blog post. I have a whole list of blog posts that I’ve been wanting to write, but I’ve been too tired to write them. I’ll give you some of the titles:

“Go Tonight” about one of my favorite poems by Terri Windling,
“A Thousand Words” about writing a thousand words a day,
“Swan” about a story for a silent movie or comic book,
“The Romantic Underground” about a literary non-movement,
“Care for Yourself” about taking care of yourself as a writer,
“The Writer’s Cat” about Cordelia, plague of my life and paper-eater.

I hope I get to them . . .

Time to go start my day. It’s going to be a long one.

Once, I had a student who started the semester by telling me that she was a terrible writer, that she had a great deal of trouble writing. Of course I believed her, and I planned on giving her extra help – until I actually saw her papers, which were perfectly normal undergraduate papers. What I learned, during our conferences, is that she had a tendency to use what I call the “preemptive put-down.” She would put herself down first, as though expecting me to put her down. As though putting herself down would somehow head off a put-down by me, or someone else, I don’t know whom.

I understand the preemptive put-down because I’ve certainly done it myself. I’m sure you have as well. “This dress is so ugly, but it’s the only thing that wasn’t in the laundry basket.” “It’s a first draft, and it’s awful – seriously. You shouldn’t even look at it.” “I’m terrible at public speaking,” or “dancing,” or “throwing knives at people blindfolded.” Whatever.

The preemptive put-down is a way of putting yourself down before anyone else can. It’s a way of not being hurt, only it doesn’t work, does it? For two reasons. First, because you feel as bad about yourself, having just put yourself down, as you would have felt if someone else had done it. And second, because when you put yourself down, other people tend to look at you strangely, to start wondering if in fact the dress is ugly, the story is awful, you’re terrible at public speaking (in which case why are you on the panel anyway?).

So much of what we think of as reality is perception. There’s real reality – like rocks, and if you don’t think rocks are real, try kicking one. Then there’s perception – Google stock is worth buying, that woman is beautiful, that speaker sounds smart. And perception can be influenced (unlike rocks).

Motivational speakers know this, and it’s part of how they make their living: people tend to take you at your own valuation. If you ask for things and believe you deserve them, you get them with surprising frequency.

So you must, must, must value yourself.

But we don’t, do we? There are several reasons, but perhaps the most frequent one is that we were taught not to as children. Because no one wants children to be “spoiled.” That was a kind of mantra when I was growing up – that my brother and I were spoiled American children. We didn’t know what it had been like, how difficult it had been, in Hungary under the communists. And of course we didn’t. We were just trying to get on with our American lives. I’ve seen that attitude in a variety of settings, and I think it’s partly cultural. Once, at a playground, I saw an older woman who was obviously Eastern European lean over and say, to an American mother who was playing with her daughter, “She’s a little spoiled, isn’t she?” As though it were the most natural thing in the world. In the South, there’s a saying: you’re not supposed to get above your raisin’. (Which makes me wonder, is this an aspect of cultures for which defeat still rankles? This concerted attempt to keep its children down?)

I think this sort of message has a terrible effect. I did not receive it as strongly as many others do, but I remember times in my life when I did not try something because I simply assumed that I would not be good enough, that I did not deserve whatever it was – the scholarship, the prize.

Here’s why I bring all this up. If you’re going to be a writer, you absolutely have to learn to value yourself, because writing is hard enough without the preemptive put-down. There are plenty of people out there who will put you down. Your job is to build yourself up, however many times you need to. And to get better, and better, and better through all the rejections.

Because you know what? Putting yourself down is a profoundly unattractive habit. People start to wonder if you really are as awful as you say, or if you’re just asking for compliments. (If you need compliments, I recommend the following method: “I so need a compliment right now. Can you compliment me? Any kind of compliment will do.” If you are with a reasonably decent person, you will get a compliment. As I mentioned, people tend to give you what you ask for.) And putting yourself down is cowardly. It’s a way of making yourself safe, of hurting yourself before anyone else hurts you. Although, again as I mentioned, it doesn’t actually work, does it? It doesn’t make you feel safe, just sort of sad.

So how do you value yourself? It’s difficult to change your mental state, but it’s easy to change your actions. And changing your actions changes your mental state. So you must act as though you are valuable. You must act as though you are the best friend you’ve known and loved since childhood. When your best friend is sad, what do you do? Tell her how wonderful she is. When your best friend is sick, you bring her soup. You listen to her, you care about her, you buy her presents on her birthday. You draw her bubble baths. (All right, maybe not. Think of yourself as a friend even better than your best friend. After all, you were there when you were born, you will be there when you die. Who is closer to you than you are?)

If anyone insults her, you stand up for her.  You never put her down or allow anyone else to do so.  If she puts herself down, you tell her to stop.  You tell her you won’t tolerate such behavior.

And you would be honest with your best friend. If the dress really was ugly, you would tell her, you wouldn’t let her wear it, you would take her shopping for another. You would certainly not stand there and insult her! You would tell her the truth and help her become the person she wants and deserves to be.

The more you learn to value yourself, the better your life will become. The more you will have the courage to change it, to make it the life you want. Valuing yourself doesn’t make life easier – life is always going to be life, you know? But it allows you to participate and compete. It is your “yes” to life, your “I’m going to give speeches and dance and throws knives at people blindfolded.” (After knife-throwing classes, of course.)

This is as close as I’ll ever come to a rant, but I really care about this.  When you’re around me, don’t give me the preemptive put-down, because I’ll call you on it.  As your friend.

I was listening to a video made by some friends of mine, and I started wondering what my voice would sound like recorded. And of course since it’s late and I’m tired and I have a lot of work to do, I immediately started playing around and created an MP3. And then I figured out how to upload an audio file on WordPress, which required paying $19.99 for 5 GB of space, which seemed like a pretty good deal. And then I uploaded the audio file.

Here it is, an audio file of me reading the blog post I uploaded earlier today, “Thoughts on Love”:

Thoughts on Love Audio

It’s only my first attempt, and I made some mistakes. For example, the first time I tried to record something, I did not use a mic, so there was a lot of background static. I erased that recording, but the second time, when I did use a mic, I adjusted my voice based on the first recording. So I think that in the second recording, which is the one above, there is too much emphasis. In places, I don’t sound quite natural.

The next time I do this, and I’m sure there will be a next time now that I’ve learned how, I’ll read more naturally, with less emphasis. But honestly, I’m fairly pleased with the recording. I think I sound all right. It’s obvious that I’ve been trained to read out loud – and that’s true, I have been. In high school, I participated in speech competitions, was the captain of the debate team, and hung out with the drama crowd. I was the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. In college, I was president of the Washington Literary Society and Debating Union. It’s also obvious that I don’t have a  trained voice. A professional actor would do much better, I’m sure. But I like my voice well enough, I’m comfortable enough with how the recording came out, that I’ll certainly post more.

I do notice one thing that is interesting to me – and rather strange. I recognize my cadences. They are the cadences of an Episcopal minister speaking from the pulpit. I haven’t been to that many church services, although when I used to go it was always to the Episcopal church. (Although I’m a devout pantheist by nature.) But somehow I must have internalized those cadences. Somehow they must have crept into my reading voice and made themselves at home there.

What will you think of this recording? I have no idea, but feel free to tell me of course.

Next stop, music videos. (All right, maybe not. I’m not Loreena McKennitt. Although I’m having so much fun that I’m sure I’ll think of something else to do.)

Anyway, I hope you like the recording. This is what I sound like. Really!

I think there are two kinds of romantic love. (I’m not talking about love in general, love for country, love for a child. Romantic love specifically.) One kind is for writing about. The other kind is the one you actually want.

The kind for writing about is the Tristan and Isolde love. It’s immediate, passionate, intense. It breaks you apart and remakes you, so that you’re a different person, no longer the person you were. It demands everything from you: your time, sometimes your life. It’s the best thing you could ever possibly experience, until it’s the worst thing you could ever possibly experience and you want to die.

That kind of love makes for fabulous stories. You can write all the intense and passionate parts, and then you can write all the painful parts. You can torture your characters all you want.

The other kind of love does not make for interesting stories. You probably have an idea of what I’m going to describe, but that idea is wrong. I don’t mean the sort of domestic love that endures for years. I don’t mean that at all, and I don’t think that’s romantic love but something else. The Tristan and Isolde love does not fade into domestic love. If it does, it wasn’t the Tristan and Isolde love, which either endures or destroys itself. It can turn into hatred more easily than it can become domesticated, settle down into an ordinary life.

No, the other kind of love I’m talking about is described by Viktor Frankl, who writes,

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”

I suppose what I’m really describing are three types of love: romantic love (passionate, intense), domestic love (comfortable, a safe haven in a stormy world – Tristan and Isolde were never safe havens for each other), and this other thing for which I have no name.

Romantic love makes you feel bound to the other person. Domestic love makes you feel safe with the other person. This third thing makes you feel free and not at all safe, because it means that you are seen, truly seen, by another person. Seen not just as who you are, but as who you could be. And so this love says to you, become who you could be – I will help you, I will be there for you as you do that, but I will demand that of you, that you become the self you were meant to be.

But it also leaves you perfectly free. It’s not a love that says, love me back. It’s not a love that says, do your duty. It’s not a love that restrains you in any way, except by asking you to become yourself.

And it’s a love that sees you, not as a reflection of the one who sees, but as who you actually are.

It’s a light in the darkness, by which you are seen and enabled to see.

I think I’ll call it perfect love, and it’s what I think we are all striving for. Romantic love feels wonderful, until it doesn’t. And domestic love makes us contented, until we realized one day that we want more, that we are not being our fullest, truest selves. That we were not meant to be contented, but to be discontented, to be forever searching and striving for more. That the search and the striving make us most human. What we want is the love that calls us on through the darkness. That offers a partnership deeper and stronger than either of the others. (If Tristan and Isolde had lived, would they have found it? Would he have helped her become a poet, would she have sent him on his quests with her blessing and a kiss?)

But that sort of love doesn’t make for very good stories, does it? (Although it might, just might, make for good art.)

Tonight I am so tired that I can’t write. So I’m going to let Thea write for me. She’s been visiting for a while, and we’ve been having long conversations about all sorts of things. She’s been telling me about her adventures, which are much more amusing than mine. Tonight I asked her for some information on Miss Lavender’s School. And she told me – well, I’ll just let her write it herself. While I have some dinner . . .

All right then. You wanted to know what it was like to go to Miss Lavender’s School? I’ll describe it for you. And you have to remember that, all the time Matilda, Emma, Mouse, and I were sneaking out at night, sneaking out during the day, traveling through time, all that – we were still going to classes, still doing our homework. That first semester, I got all Bs. But at least they weren’t Cs, you know?

If you were going to Miss Lavender’s, you would start at the Boston Common. One of the streets along the Common, and no, I’m not going to tell you which, has a small wrought iron gate. It’s between two houses, and if you can’t find it, you have to ask the cats. There are always one or two cats hanging around there. But they’ll only tell you the way if you’re the right person, the one who was admitted, who has an invitation, a reason to be there.

Open the gate and go down the lane that runs between the houses. (All the houses around the common are old brownstones. The lane is narrow, nothing but brick walls on both sides, with strips of some plant that lives in shade on both sides of the lane – liatris, someone once told me. And ivy growing up the walls.) It’s called Hecate Lane, and once you get to the end of it, you get a surprise, because what you see there couldn’t possibly exist. It’s almost like a park, with a large stone house in the center. That’s Miss Lavender’s. It occupies more space than you would think existed there. Miss Gray explained how it worked to me once, but I’ve forgotten.

“It’s magic, right?” I asked her.

“It’s physics, and when will I get it through you girls’ heads that magic is simply another word for science? That’s why we call them the Magical Sciences.”

That’s what she says, but I still don’t get it. And yet there it is, a park with a stone house in the middle, and gardens with paths, and playing fields. And a pond where we used to go sailing.

The school itself is two hundred years old – I mean this particular building, of course. Miss Lavender’s has existed for who knows how many years. Thousands, I think. So don’t expect modern comforts. The sinks are old and porcelain, the bathtubs are old and porcelain and take forever to fill, although they’re great for reading once you’ve gotten in them, and the water is blazing hot. There are not enough showers, not for almost a hundred girls. We all eat together in the dining room, with the old school silver. The food isn’t bad, lots of stews and the sorts of dishes that aren’t too difficult to make, that girls will eat. We used to complain about it of course, claim that it was stewed cat. As though any cat at Miss Lavender’s would allow itself to be made into stew! Most of them are too snobby to even talk to us. Most of them have already chosen their witches, and they spend most of their time with the juniors and seniors, doing whatever it is they do. By that point they can do all sorts of things we can’t, or couldn’t at the time I’m writing about. Teleport, travel through time, go to the Other Country whenever they wanted.

We were still taking our elementary classes. There are the regular teachers who are there all the time, or almost all the time, because you know Miss Gray travels around. Mrs. Moth, Miss Gray, Hyacinth. Miss Lavender teaches classes too, although she runs the school, which takes a lot of her time. And then each semester we would have visiting teachers. The Gentleman was there one semester – he was the best fencing coach we ever had. Morgan was there teaching Spellcasting. Merlin came once, not while we were there, but before. That was not such a great idea. I mean, almost a hundred teenage girls – and Merlin. Some of them had pictures of him up on their walls. And famous alumna would come to give lectures. Once, Athena Mandragora talked about advising the president on magical affairs.

So what would you do on a typical day at Miss Lavender’s? Well, you’d get up at seven, when the bell rang. You’d get ready for the day, fighting for sink or shower space with the other girls. Breakfast in the dining room (oatmeal, pancakes, whatever the cooks had prepared that day). Morning class, Elementary Teleportation with Miss Gray for example, with fifteen other girls all trying to move oranges with their minds. She would show us how she could move just the orange seeds out of the oranges. Show-off. Then lunch, and some time to study or wander around the grounds. Or sit in the library, toward the back between the shelves, talking with Matilda, Emma, and Mouse about how we were going to sneak out and talk to Anatolia Mandragora. Then afternoon class, probably Magical History with Hyacinth. “Which witch was Queen Elizabeth’s personal adviser during the second half of her reign?” she would ask. Of course only Emma knew the answer.

Then study time, when we actually had to study, because Magical History had made us realize that we were all a chapter behind. “How could you get behind? Honestly,” said Emma. “Didn’t you look at the syllabus?  Do I have to explain the whole Tudor succession to you?”  We solemnly assured her that yes, she did. Then dinner, some more time to plot and plan our sneak-out-ery, and bed.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “It’s Saturday, and if we go in the middle of the archery match, we won’t be missed.”

Four girls, four wooden beds that had probably stood in that room for a hundred years, pictures we had put up on the walls. Four desks with chairs, with names like Zephirine and Amalia carved into them with penknives. I suppose Miss Lavender’s was like any other boarding school, really. Well, except for the flying, and the cats, and the saving the world.