Jo Walton - Among Others

“Go,” she said to me, in English. “Need. In—” She gestured.

“In the Valleys?” I asked. I was used to guessing games when it came to fairies and nouns. “In Aberdare? In the vales of coal and iron?”

I could feel Wim looking at me.

“Belong,” she said, and pointed at me.

“Where I come from?” I asked. “I’m going tomorrow.”

“Go,” she said. “Join.” Then she looked at Wim, and smiled, and drew her hand down the side of his face. “Beautiful.” Well, he was. She swept on, out of the doorway, and a parade of warty grey gnomes came in through the hole in the wall and followed her out without a glance in our direction.

Wim stared after her, awestruck. “Wow,” he said, after a while.

“Do you see what I mean now about hard to have a conversation?” I asked.

“Impossible, yes,” he said. “Fragments like that, you wouldn’t know if you were making up the right half or not.” He was talking quite distractedly and still looking after her. “She really was beautiful.”

“She meant that you were,” I said.

He laughed. “You’re not serious? No, you are serious? Jesus!” He peered after her, but she was out of sight.

“You are beautiful,” I said.

“I get zits,” he said. “I cut myself shaving. I’m wearing a stupid tie. She—”

“Have you read ‘Firiel’? In The Adventures of Tom Bombadil ? The end of that? That’s what you’re feeling.”

“Tolkien really knew what he was talking about,” Wim said.

“I think he saw them,” I said. “I think he saw them and dreamed them into the elves he wanted. I think they are his dwindled remnant.”

“Maybe he saw them when he was a child, and remembered them,” Wim said. “I wish I knew what they are really. You’re right, they’re not ghosts, or not only ghosts. They’re definitely not aliens either. They’re not substantial. When she touched me…”

“They can be more substantial sometimes,” I said, remembering the warmth of Glorfindel beside me on Halloween.

“What did she mean? Go, need, in, belong, go, join.”

I was impressed that he’d remembered so precisely. “I think she meant I should go to the Valleys because I’m needed there for something. Maybe you’re right about my mother, or maybe it’s something else. I’m going tomorrow anyway.”

“Half the time I can’t believe it. What you told me about your mother and magic and all of that. And then something like her.” He turned to me and put his arms very tightly around me. “If you’re going to go and save the world, I want to come.”

“I’ll phone you every day,” I said.

“You need me.”

I didn’t ask what earthly good he’d be, because that would have been cruel. “I did it on my own before.”

“You got mashed up and nearly killed before,” he said. “Your sister did get killed.”

“There’s nothing she can do like that now,” I said. “I don’t even think she wanted to kill us then. And this—this isn’t unusual. Or it’s only unusual in that it’s in English, and here, where they don’t usually bother with me. Maybe it’s because we’re closer.”

“Not unusual!” Wim looked at me as if that was the oddest thing he’d ever heard. “And closer to what?”

“Wales?”

“Closer for values of closer that mean further away. The Welsh border is only a couple of miles from Oswestry.”

“Okay. But they want me to do something, and I’ll do it, or I won’t do it, and it’ll work or not, and I’ll survive or not,” I said.

“I’m coming with you.”

“I’m not going to Elfland to have adventures,” I said. “I’m going to South Wales, where, in between seeing my slightly peculiar relatives, they probably want me to do something that seems pointless, like dropping a flower in a pond or a comb in a bog, which will have repercussions down the way.”

“A comb in a bog?” he echoed. “What did that do?”

“It made somebody go away and die,” I said, looking away guiltily, sorry I’d mentioned it.

“Are you always going to be doing this stuff?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I always have. But I’m less use now. And I think—I think children might be better at it because there are fewer shades of grey.”

“I could help,” he said.

“I’ll see. If I think you could help, I’ll let you know and you can rush down then.”

He settled for that, thank goodness.

We walked back across the fields to the Old Hall. There’s a footpath, which Daniel had shown me on the map, and which was easy to find, all except for one bit where a sign had been taken down. It’s all boring fields and crops around here.

The aunts were very nice to Wim, in a revoltingly patronizing way. They asked him what his father does. I was rather surprised to discover that he’s a farmer. Wim isn’t the way I imagine a farmer’s son at all. His mother works part time cooking at the hospital. He has two younger sisters, eight and six, called Katrina and Daisy. I hadn’t heard any of this, while he knows everything about my peculiar family. I knew I talked too much!

The food was awful, heavy fruitcake, dry scones, watery tea and, because it was High Tea, dry slices of ham. The bread was good, Daniel brought it back from Shrewsbury.

They did not attempt any magic on Wim, I’m sure I would have noticed. They approved of him, and of me being with him. It was normal, which was what they wanted from me. Nice Niece would have had a boyfriend, and if he wouldn’t be exactly like Wim, Wim would do. As long as I was going to grow up and go away and not rock their world, they could put up with me. They weren’t evil, after all, they were just odd in a very English way.

I went to the station with Daniel to drive Wim back. “Remember, phone every day, and if you need me, I’ll come straight down. I can be there in three and a half hours,” he said. It’s so sweet of him, really it is. I’ll see him again in just over a week.

On the train.

Inverted World is weird. I’m not sure it’s even science fiction. It doesn’t make sense in the end. To begin with, I thought I really liked it, but now I’m not sure at all.

Auntie Teg is meeting me in Cardiff station. But if she doesn’t, I’m fine. I’ve got six pounds seventy-two. There’s a way that money is freedom, but it isn’t money, it’s that money stands for having a choice. I think that’s what Heinlein meant.

This train line skims along the Welsh border all the way. One day I must go to North Wales, or even over the Welsh border Wim says is only a couple of miles from Oswestry. It’s marked on my map, now I know. I wish they taught us maps in geography instead of stupid Glaciation all the time. Though I suppose Glaciation helps me see the landscape, or at least where the glaciers have been down it. In some parts of the world the glaciers came so often the mountains were worn down to stubs and everything is like a flat lake bottom except with plugs sticking up where volcanic cores of mountains were left. That would be cool to see, but I’m glad it didn’t happen here. I love the mountains the way they are.

Sweeping past Abergavenny (and over the border into Wales) there’s a sudden rush of primroses along the embankment. I must remember to tell Grampar. The daffodils will be out in Cardiff, well in advance of St. David’s Day.

I’m adding this in Auntie Teg’s flat, just before bed.

We went up to see Grampar for visiting time. To my horror, when we got there, Auntie Flossie was there, which would have been all right, but with her was Auntie Gwennie, one of my least favourite people in the world. There’s not much that’s worse than a ward full of senile and dying old men, but there she was. Auntie Gwennie knows nothing about tact, and nothing about kindness. She’s rude and annoying and prides herself on speaking her mind. She’s eighty-two, but it isn’t because she’s old and impatient that she does it. Gramma used to say she was the same when she was six years old.