Esmeralda and the Brown Brachet-Ch. 1&2

                                                                     

So, I'm repeating the first chapter because I went back and did a picture for it. The first Esmerlda pic I did belongs with the second chapter. Glad we got that straightened out. The story is becoming very silly indeed.

Chapter l

Clearly, the brachet had been a mistake. But when, on the third lonely day of her quest, the little hound had popped out from behind the Standing Stones of Glarn, Esmeralda had greeted it with joy.

“Hail, O brachet! Art sent to accompany me, mayhap as guide and guard?”

The skinny brachet had fixed her with a penetrating gaze which dropped at once to the leathern pouch at her side.

“Art hungered, little one?” Esmeralda knelt down before the brachet and reached into the pouch. “Gladly will I share of my simple provisions.”

Two wheaten rolls and a twist of dried venison disappeared, and the brachet moved closer to nose at the pouch. Esmeralda reached out a hand to stroke the dog—no, this was a bitch, to be sure. “What a pretty maid thou art, with thy white stockings and elegant long ears.

The brachet had accepted the caress with a philosophical sigh. There will be more food, she reasoned; in time that fragrant bulging pouch will be at my mercy. The woman is desperate for companionship. Look at her crouched there, cloak spread on the ground, face imploring. If she had a tail, ‘twould be a-wag.,

The brachet had allowed herself a tiny whine and, swallowing her pride with the last morsel of bread, had licked the young woman’s hand. There, done and done.

~~~

“Come out of it, you wretched brachet! Leave it, I say.”

Esmeralda’s feet hurt. Five days of walking, three of them through this strange wood, five days of listening to the brachet howl, five days of watching the sinuous brown body dart off into inaccessible places. Five days of watching the crystal at the top of her staff fail to respond to the rising moon as it should have done.

“When the crystal is set alight by Selene’s beams, then must thou follow the path she shows,” the aged Sooth-Seer had whispered. “Follow it even as an arrow from a bow if thou wouldst find the dungeon where the true prince lies.”

Esmeralda drew in a deep breath and limped ahead. Just a few more paces and she would be clear of these dark trees. She could just glimpse a clearing ahead and sense, rather than see, a burgeoning glow.

The brachet continued her frenzied excavation at the base of a grandfather tree as Esmeralda stepped into the moonlit glade and held aloft her crystal-topped staff.

                                                                  

Ch 2

The full moon winked from behind the scudding clouds that fought to obscure it. Esmeralda stood waiting; staff raised to head height. Her arm began to tremble, and she wished she’d taken her mother’s advice and chosen a more slender support for the Enchanted Crystal.

“I can do this,” she whispered, grimacing as the racing clouds briefly obscured the moon. Then, raising her voice to be heard over the scrabbling of the brachet in the wood behind her, she began the Chant of Invocation.

O Queen of the Night,

Guide thou my steps.

Avert thou from my path

Thy creatures of the Darkness.

Be with-

Arooooo! Aroooo!

The piercing howl of the brachet interrupted the invocation, and Esmeralda whirled, her green cloak twisting about her most satisfactorily. She had endured countless fittings and had driven three sempstresses to tears with her insistence on a cloak that was not only warm and, it goes without saying, beautiful, but also had pockets and was properly swirly. What was the point, she had asked, irritably of the first attempt, of a cloak that didn’t flow about its wearer, wrapping her in mystery.

Adjusting the mysterious velvet folds, she called to the brachet. “Do shut up, you miserable cur! I’m invoking Selene here.”

Turning back to the moon, now almost completely covered with clouds, Esmeralda gabbled her way through the rest of the invocation, noting that the Enchanted Crystal was barely glowing now and that the moonlit path before her was rapidly becoming a mass of dark shadows. Just the place for Creatures of Darkness, she thought, and who can tell if that interrupted invocation had even worked.

AROOO!

The brachet had ceased her digging and, in the growing darkness, seemed to be looking meaningfully toward Esmeralda. With a sigh of resignation, Esmeralda reached into one of the cloak’s capacious pockets and withdrew the Torch of Night Seeing. Its slender metal cylinder was capped by a lens and with a click of the Button of Power, a strong beam of light shot toward the little hound. Esmeralda picked her way toward the brachet and the excavation she was guarding.

“What is it, you idiot bitch?

The brachet nosed at something on the edge of the hole. It glinted in the torch’s beam and Esmeralda gasped. A heavy golden arm ring lay atop the mound of fresh dirt. The brachet nosed at it again and barked impatiently.

There, you stupid woman. An idiot bitch, am I? Here’s a portent for you.

Esmeralda played the light on the armlet. Rubies winked at her and when she leaned to pick up the beautiful thing, her fingers tingled as she touched it. She brought it closer to her face and turned it about. In the torchlight, she could discern words engraved on the interior. Strange words of no language she knew. Llowfo het hse god.

Her brow wrinkled in thought. Welsh maybe? That double ll… But even as she studied the inscription, the letters began to swim on the golden surface and to rearrange themselves.

Follow the she dog.

“Now really!” Esmeralda stamped her foot. “This is Too Much!”

She was about to toss the armlet back into the hole at the foot of the tree when she noticed that, though the moon was still hidden by the clouds, the Enchanted Crystal on her staff was pulsing with rainbow sparks. As she hesitated, the heavy golden arm ring twisted in her hand and, to her horror, slipped over her hand and slid up her arm to lodge above her elbow.

No amount of tugging would dislodge it. And the brachet was moving off, away from the path shown all too briefly by the moon.

Almost in tears, Esmeralda tried to return to the moon path, but the ring would not allow it, painfully tightening its grip on her arm with each step she took away from the brachet.

That’ll learn her, thought the brachet (who’d been named Jenny but preferred to be called Destiny, if she had to be called anything at all.) She wheeled about and set off through the woods.

Weeping and cursing, Esmeralda followed.

Silent Sunday

 

The Reading Room

One of the views from my reading room.

This is another--waiting to pick up Josie. On this day I was third in line--all it took was leaving the house at 12:45. (School is out at 2:45 but it's usually 3 before the children are escorted out to the cars.)

It could be awful but it's not. It's an almost two-hour block of uninterrupted reading time. The past two days, the air has been fragrant with the intoxicating smell of new mown hay (see first picture.) 

Freed of distractions, I can really concentrate. I managed to read a book I just couldn't get into some years ago, despite its incredible reviews.  The meticulously researched story of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 is alternated with the also meticulously researched story of a serial killer who picked his victims from folks (mostly young women) in town for the fair.

It was a beautifully done rendering of a time and place--but I had the uneasy feeling that I was hurrying through the welter of detail about the fair to get to the 'good parts' about the serial killer. It made me a little ashamed of myself for such a prurient interest. 

Next up--Lies My Teacher Told Me--Oh, boy! Eye-opening critique of traditional history books as used in American schools.

 

A Roadside Tapestry

I see embroidery patterns here.

 

Josie's After School Routine

This week, Meema is picikng me up Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Yesterday was Wednesday and Meema asked me which day I wanted to get an ice cream cone because once a week was the rule. What do you think I chose?

You're right. I chose Wednesday. Because it was now. I also tried a new flavor of ice cream--it was vanilla with oreo cookie mushed up in it and it was AMAZING!

As you can see, now that I am older and bigger, I don't have a baby car seat anymore--just a booster seat so I can see. I like it much better.

I also have a HUGE backpack to carry my lunch and snacks and sweater and pencils and school stuff.

It is pretty heavy, but I can handle it.

When we got home, first I had to find those babies and get Hamsie out. I had some painting to finish and guess what! There were some new watercolors. Which is a good thing because I had used up all the blue and green in the old set.

When I finished painting, we went upstairs to my office because I had a letter to write. Meema did some ironing and then I had an idea. I told her I needed some fabric to make a quilt and she gave me a whole basket full. I told her to keep ironing and not look around because it was Meema Day, and I was making her a surprise.

I laid out pieces of fabric everywhere.

That is how I decorate for Meema Day.

When I told her she could look, she was very excited. She said it was the best Meema Day ever.

It was almost time for my daddy to pick me up, but I let the Castle People take a look at what I painted.

What will I do after school tomorrow?

 

An Evening Mood

 

The Picture Man

"The Picture Man was Paul Buchanan (ca. 1910-1987), an itinerant photographer who, on foot, on horseback, and by car, wandered four North Carolina mountain counties from 1920 until about 1951. He had stopped making pictures for more than thirty years when Ann Hawthorne, a photographer living in the mountains, heard about Buchanan and went to see him. He told her stories--many of which are transcribed in this book--and showed her some of his negatives, which were filthy and, she thought, unprintable. Hawthorne cleaned them up, though, and discovered a splendid photographer. Buchanan didn't think of himself that way; he took pictures because it paid well, and he was a professional who took pride in what he did. Buchanan worked during years when the mountains were still relatively isolated and when many outsider photographers tended to stereotype the people who lived there, posing them in homespun instead of their new store clothes, for instance. Buchanan, born and raised in the mountains, never did that. These photographs are posed pictures, but the subjects did the posing. They chose what to wear and how to stand. In Paul Buchanan's pictures, then, we have a pure record, a gifted photographer's portrait of the people as they saw themselves. from Bruce Morton's introduction 'If I did take them,' Paul Buchanan said, 'they're good pictures. Good and plain.' They are that, but they are something more as well. They are history, or some of the stuff that history is made of: a few more pieces of the quilt that is our memory, that tells us who we were and who we are."

                                                            

There is a fine exhibit of Buchanan's work at the Yancey County Public Library in Burnsville, NC.  I was there last weekend participating in the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival. The Saturday morning workshop I facilitated was held in the library, and I had an opportunity to enjoy these amazing photos. Each one tells/suggests a story.

This woman makes me think of the saying "beats bears with switches." She looks tough and no nonsense but she donned her good dress for the picture.

I can't resist this dog.

Father and son--I love the hand on the shoulder.

I bet there's a good story here.

Serious little boy and his dog makes me think of Jenny.

Yikes! That's quite a family.

More no-nonsense women in their nice dresses.

Unlike this sassy duo who are clearly having a good time.

I'd like to know about the dynamic behind these three. 

 

Cloud Cuckoo Land

 What an amazing and wonderful book!

 Literary/historical/science fiction all rolled into one glorious ode to the endurance and transformative power of the written word. 

Like my own Crows, there are five main characters. BUT there are multiple times and places, and it is Doerr's genius that they all intertwine into a coherent whole, tossing symbols and references back and forth like so many glittering balls. 

I was captivated by the stories of all the characters and had to force myself to slow down and savor each section. I borrowed the book from a friend, but I can see I'm going to need my ow copy because I'll be re-reading it soon. VERY highly recommended.

Quoting Wikipedia: Cloud Cuckoo Land is the story of five characters spanning eight centuries. In the fifteenth-century Byzantine Empire, Anna is a young seamstress living in Constantinople, and Omeir is a village boy conscripted into the Ottoman army, as they are preparing to take the city. In the present day, Zeno, a Korean War veteran, works in a library in Idaho translating Ancient Greek texts, while Seymour, a disturbed autistic youngster, becomes caught up with a group of ecoterrorists. In the twenty-second century, Konstance is a young girl aboard the Argos, a generation starship heading for a planet called Beta Oph2.

Their stories are bound by an Ancient Greek codex entitled Cloud Cuckoo Land that each of the five characters discover and find solace in. It is a fictional book written by real Greek novelist Antonius Diogenes in the second century, and tells the story of Aethon, a shepherd on a quest to find the fabled paradise in the sky. In his travels, he is transformed into a donkey, a sea bass, and finally a crow, which allows him to fly to the gates of the city in the clouds.

9-11...Remembering ...

A day that reminded us we are not invulnerable.

 

Odds nd Ends

 

Seventy Years . . .

When I was nine years old, I was completely consumed with the upcoming coronation of Princess Elizabeth. I filled a scrapbook with clippings and magazine stories about the event--a fairytale golden coach, a handsome prince, jewels, and robes of state--my young self swooned.

And when I wasn't swooning or adding to my scrapbook, I was relentlessly badgering my grandparents about getting a TV. No one in the family had one and they were the most susceptible to my pleas. I suspect, my grandmother was also interested in the coming spectacle. And her bridge club would probably be too.

Done. We watched and admired--not stopping to think that what we were seeing was the door of a solid gold cage of tradition closing on this solemn twenty-five-year-old who would spend the rest of her life as a symbol, a figurehead with no political power, a cutter of ribbons and shaker of hands.

I'm not a Brit so I'll not get into the pros and cons of a constitutional monarchy. But seventy years later, I'm still a fan of that seemingly indomitable woman, who, to all appearances, did her duty in the stringent and mostly boring job she inherited. I admire her grace in adversity and her devotion to her role. 

And to die in one's sleep, two days after a last formal reception of a new Prime Minister--what a final curtain!

                                                                                          

Along the Way