(side note: I have a new story out in July/August issue of the teen magazine Cicada as well another story out in the August issue of The Sun. Also a short piece I did about my broken finger, casts and parenting is now out in this lovely print version of Penny)  

I just finished reading Uprooted (Naomi Novik), a fantasy novel and a great summer read. I loved a lot about this book–the narrative voice is funny and true, the narrator is super likable, the descriptions of the creepy woods are excellent, the plot is exciting. Though I’ll admit I was disappointed that the book eventually succumbs to a rather traditional romance (young girl falls in love with cranky older–in this case 150 years older–man, but he doesn’t look old, so maybe it’s okay–and underneath his crankiness, there is rare glimpses of kindness, like maybe he has a heart of gold but just doesn’t show it) (but I don’t know, I still questioned why she loved him so much–is the heart of gold there or is she just imagining it?) (and if someone has a heart of gold but pretends they don’t, will that be satisfying in a relationship later on?) (perhaps she loves his magic more than his personality–I like this idea best, that she falls in love with his magic more than him) (or maybe she adores the crankiness?) (it would have been interesting had he actually looked 150 years older–would she still have loved him in the same way then? I would really like to read that version of the novel!). 

Anyway, before all that traditional romantic stuff happens, there are some really lovely scenes where Agnieszka (young narrator) and Sarkan (old magician who doesn’t look old) do magic together. Sarkin practices a very traditional, rational magic, and Agnieszka’s magic is more intuitive and wild.  I’m always on the look out for examples of love that look different from how we usually describe it, and I was kind of blown away by this scene. 

“A month into my new training, he was glaring at me while I struggled to make an illusion of a flower. “I don’t understand,” I said— whined, if I tell the truth: it was absurdly difficult. My first three attempts had looked like they were made of cotton rags. Now I had managed to put together a tolerably convincing wild rose, as long as you didn’t try to smell it. “It’s far easier just to grow a flower: why would anyone bother?”

“It’s a matter of scale,” he said. “I assure you it is considerably easier to produce the illusion of an army than the real thing. How is that even working?” he burst out, as he sometimes did when pressed past his limits by the obvious dreadfulness of my magic. “You aren’t maintaining the spell at all— no chanting, no gesture—”

“I’m still giving it magic. A great deal of magic,” I added, unhappily.

The first few spells that didn’t yank magic out of me like pulling teeth had been so purely a relief that I had half-thought that was the worst of it over: now that I understood how magic ought to work— whatever the Dragon said on that subject— everything would be easy. Well, I soon learned better. Desperation and terror had fueled my first working, and my next few attempts had been the equivalent of the first cantrips he’d tried to teach me, the little spells he had expected me to master effortlessly. So I had indeed mastered those effortlessly, and then he had unmercifully set me at real spells, and everything had once again become— if not unbearable in the same way, at least exceedingly difficult.

“How are you giving it magic?” he said, through his teeth.

“I already found the path!” I said. “I’m just staying on it. Can’t you— feel it?” I asked abruptly, and held my hand cupping the flower out towards him; he frowned and put his hands around it, and then he said, “Vadiya rusha ilikad tuhi,” and a second illusion laid itself over mine, two roses in the same space— his, predictably, had three rings of perfect petals, and a delicate fragrance.

“Try and match it,” he said absently, his fingers moving slightly, and by lurching steps we brought our illusions closer together until it was nearly impossible to tell them one from another, and then he said, “Ah,” suddenly, just as I began to glimpse his spell: almost exactly like that strange clockwork on the middle of his table, all shining moving parts. On an impulse I tried to align our workings: I envisioned his like the water-wheel of a mill, and mine the rushing stream driving it around. “What are you—” he began, and then abruptly we had only a single rose, and it began to grow. 

And not only the rose: vines were climbing up the bookshelves in every direction, twining themselves around ancient tomes and reaching out the window; the tall slender columns that made the arch of the doorway were lost among rising birches, spreading out long finger-branches; moss and violets were springing up across the floor, delicate ferns unfurling. Flowers were blooming everywhere: flowers I had never seen, strange blooms dangling and others with sharp points, brilliantly colored, and the room was thick with their fragrance, with the smell of crushed leaves and pungent herbs. I looked around myself alight with wonder, my magic still flowing easily. “Is this what you meant?” I asked him: it really wasn’t any more difficult than making the single flower had been.

But he was staring at the riot of flowers all around us, as astonished as I was. He looked at me, baffled and for the first time uncertain, as though he had stumbled into something, unprepared. His long narrow hands were cradled around mine, both of us holding the rose together. Magic was singing in me, through me; I felt the murmur of his power singing back that same song. I was abruptly too hot, and strangely conscious of myself. I pulled my hands free.”