Today’s post marks 365 daily posts in a row, an entire year’s worth of daily posts. I have now achieved this posting streak milestone three times. The other two were both January 1st to December 31st, both intentional achievements. This time came about from the end of last year’s Big Freeze disruption to the present day in February that respresents me getting back to daily blogging a year ago.
This new year of 2022 also marks the publication of my 21st book. I am offering a free copy of the e-book from now until Tuesday, February 22nd on Amazon. It is a fairy tale occurring in a fairy castle disguised as a willow tree. It is the reason I have fairies as the illustrations in this post. The book has an illustration for every chapter.
Anneliese’s favorite Gingerbread Boy, Johan of Dusseldorf, found us as we were passing Tornhilda’s Towering Townhouse in the lower part of the castle.
“The Butterfly Child you had me watching is up near the wasp nest asking questions about the Wasprider Cavalry and Captain Bobkin.”
Anneliese frowned at that news.
“Why would she be doing that?” Bob asked me.
I shrugged. “Was she asking about where to find us?”
“Not unless she was intending to look into the iron spikes that the cavalry uses to make the wasp stingers more deadly to the Unseely Court in order to find you.” Johan’s peppermint candy eyes were expressionless, so I couldn’t tell if he was joking or being suspicious. I know I didn’t like the sound of that, and Dolly was my friend.
“Lead us to where you left her,” Anneliese ordered Johan. Over time, the Gingerbread Boy had developed a more Sylph-like shape to make him faster and more agile than the standard waddling cookie-shaped boy.
We found ourselves quickly climbing upward on the castle’s winding central staircase. We passed many Pixies with various animal and bug-like shapes. There were large numbers of Sylphs and Elves and Brownies and Butterfly Children also. I wondered if anybody had ever counted how many lived in this tree-castle. Bob had told me that it had an extensive underground city in the roots of the willow tree too. Could Dolly have been counting them for some reason?
I heard Dolly giggling in that girlish way she did as we reached the topmost landing of the central stair. She was hanging over the shoulder of an older Sylph grown fat and round with age. He wore a captain’s uniform that was tight on him because of his generous belly. He was laughing too, apparently at whatever the two of them had been talking about.
“Ah! Derfie! I’ve found you at last! Have you met Captain Bobkin? He’s in charge of the military defenses of Cair Tellos.” Dolly was smiling at me, but I’m not sure I was very quick to smile back.
“Well, well, I know Anneliese and young Bob quite well. I am even acquainted with Johan the Gingerbread Boy. But who is this charming Sylph who is the friend of the lovely Dollinglammer?”
“This is Derfentwinkle. She’s potentially going to be Master Eli Tragedy’s third apprentice,” said Bob, pulling me forward by the hand and placing my hand om the fat fairy captain’s gloved hand.
“Well, aren’t you sweet.” He kissed me on the cheek. His handlebar moustache was apparently waxed and felt slightly sticky on my cheek.
“We have all been looking for you, Miss Dollinglammer, since the Wizard Pippen arrested and nearly executed Miss Derfentwinkle, and Bob the Apprentice,” said Anneliese with what I took to be a guarded smile.
“Oh, my! Are you both okay? I thought surely the crows would rescue you both!” she said, seemingly surprised.
I wasn’t sure if Dolly was being straight with me, or just pretending. As far as I knew, she had never lied to me before. But Kronomarke can make a girl do horrible things whether she wanted to or not… Though I wondered what memories of evil the Magic Hat had removed from my head that made me think that in spite of not remembering.
And when Dolly mentioned Homer and Bert, I finally realized that I could no longer hear their continued presence in my mind or see what they were seeing through my eyes when I attempted to see through theirs.
I whispered in Bob’s ear, “I can’t feel my crow familiars in my mind anymore.”
Bob whispered back, “That was a special instruction that Master Eli gave to Bibby Joon. No mind can touch yours when you are wearing that cape.”
“Oh.”
I honestly didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Did they not trust me yet? Of course, I didn’t trust me either, not knowing how the necromancer had screwed up my mind before I got the cape.
“Well, Dollinglammer, now that we have found you, we need to get you back to Master Eli’s tower where you will be safe.”
“Oh, yeah… okay.” Dolly turned to go into the stairwell leading into Captain Bobkin’s command center. “It’s the other way, Miss,” said Johan politely. And so we headed down the stair taking us back to the castle.
As we walked out of Master Tragedy’s Sorcerer’s tower toward the crafting district of Cair Tellos, I was carrying the huge jar of midnight shadows that Master Eli had given us to have a cape made from for Derfentwinkle. She was carrying the bottle imp, Kackenfurchtbar, in case I needed to test the truthfulness of what Derfie was telling us. But once on the stair to the Stitch-Witches’ Fabric and Sewing Shoppe, I turned to Derfie and set the jar down on a wooden step for a moment.
“Um, ah… Derfentwinkle?”
“Yes, Bob?”
“Can I… um… give you… ahem… I mean… would it be okay if I… gave you a…” I opened my arms before I said the actual words’
“A hug, Bob?”
I nodded silently, and she grabbed me with both arms and pressed my face against her bare bosom. I felt awkward, but I didn’t pull back. I put both of my arms around her and squeezed her just as hard.
“Because the Erlking’s Wizard nearly cut our heads off before we ever got a chance to…”
“Hug each other like this?” she finished my sentence. She used her empty hand to stroke the back of my head.
“Yeah…”
We held each other tightly for a few long minutes. Then, suddenly, Anneliese was there.
“Ah, Derfentwinkle, I see you’ve discovered how huggable the nicest Sylvan boy in all of Cair Tellos really is.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Of the hug, maybe. But I can surely share my best boy.”
“Best boy? Not, boyfriend?” Derfie asked.
“Anne is a Storybook and much older than me,” I said, reluctantly releasing my hold on the necromancer’s apprentice.
“Oh, right. Old enough to be your mother, I suppose?”
“Or his grandmother,” said Anneliese with a wrinkling of her nose above a puckish grin. “If you like my almost grandson, then that pleases me.””
“Did you come seeking us?” I asked her.
“Yes, I did. Master Eli told me where to find you two. A pretty little Butterfly Child named Dollinglammer has been asking about you in the residential towers. She seems intent on finding you. Especially you, Bob,”
“We have to go to the stitch-witches to get a cape made for Derfie. But if you come with us, you can take us to her afterwards,” I suggested.
“That would be lovely,” Anne said. “I have been interested to get to know this new Sylph friend of yours, Bob.”
Anneliese, nude as always, was absolutely beautiful. She had longish blond hair which curled wildly, and she never combed it. She was shaped like the fourteen-year-old human girl she was when the Nazis put her to death at Auschwitz. She was now an immortal Storybook thanks to a story her mother told about her, so her beauty would never fade or change.
She put an arm around my neck as I picked up the jar of shadows, and she put her other arm around Derfie, drawing us both close to her.
“Derfentwinkle, my powers as a Storybook are openness and honesty. If you ever need to talk to about the shadows that are inside of you, I’m your friend. I will talk about it with you as honestly as anyone can. And I say this as a guarantee, I can help you.”
Derfie looked down at the ground as we continued into the shop of the stitch-witches.
Bibby-Joon, the elder stitch-witch met us there. She was a Pixie with the upper torso of a youthful woman and the abdomen and spider legs of a large spider.
“We will have the cape done for you in a matter of minutes,” Bibby said. “It will be a very special Batwing Cape just as Master Eli ordered. It will not only protect you from mind control and influence spells, but it will turn into bat wings on command so you can fly. And if you wrap it all the way around you while standing in shadow, you will disappear and remain invisible as long as you do not move.”
We came out of the shop with Derfentwinkle wearing her new protective magic cape.
“It looks very becoming on you,” Anneliese told her.
“Kack? Is the necromancer’s mind control working on Derfie in any way?” I asked the bottle imp just as Master Eli had instructed me.
“No, Bob. Any evil she does now will be entirely her own doing.”
I think that answer made me frown or something. Anneliese put a comforting hand on the back of my neck and said, “Don’t worry, Bob. Everything is as it should be.” Derfie was smiling at the ground. And I couldn’t help feeling how beautiful she was… to me, at least. And worrying about how much control that gave her over me.
I was a middle-school teacher for thirty-one years. That, of course, basically means I have to be wrong about everything. Principals have told me so. Parents have told me so. And students who have heard them say so take it completely to heart because, well… Who has the most authority to declare someone else completely wrong?
Yes, I have it on good authority… I am wrong about everything, always.
.
But it is very useful to realize that I am in good company. Galileo was wrong about the sun not going around the Earth. The College of Cardinals said it was so, and the Inquisition forced him to confess he was wrong. Giordano Bruno was so wrong about Copernicus being right that the Inquisition had to burn him at the stake. One would almost think that it is a bad thing to be wrong.
But it’s not.
Science, in fact requires its greatest practitioners to find out all the ways that they are wrong. How else do you create a theory of what is probably right?
It is fundamental to the scientific method to be as right as it is possible to prove. Of course, every scientific theory yields up a lot of anomalies that somehow defy the rules of the currently understood correct theory.
Isaac Newton got thumped on the brain-top by an apple and realized that the same thing that made the apple fall to Earth was making the Moon fall to the Earth, although the Moon is falling at the same rate as it is going around the Earth, so it never finishes the falling.
Later, Albert Einstein would realize that Newton’s gravity would even bend the light of distant stars around the edges of the Sun. And so, he found where Newton, genius that he was, was wrong. And so, the Theory of Relativity was born.
Guess what. Einstein was wrong too.
So, ultimately, it is okay for me to be wrong about things. It is necessary to be wrong before you can find out what is right. So, when I say something stupid like the following…
Comedy is good for you.
You should be naked more.
Fairies are only real if you believe in them.
You must take a leap of faith and live in the world like a Navajo, in tune with the natural world and comfortable with other people living in your world too. Moment by moment in the present moment.
…and eventually, I may stumble upon what is right and true. Or get burned at the stake like Bruno. That happens too.
I woke up to find myself in the red-velvet interior of one of Master Eli’s coat pockets. I was obviously considerably smaller than my normal two and a half inches of height.
“I’m sorry, Master. I know I am not supposed to misuse the Magic Hat. But I couldn’t help it. It was there. And I wanted a girlfriend so badly…”
“Mickey, I don’t even have to punish you. You’ve already gotten the consequences you deserve. You can’t have sex with one…”
“Master? How do I stop these aggressive brooms?” the quiet boy said sounding on the edge of desperation.
“…let alone TWO brooms! You should have used the animate object spell on one of those limestone statues Dizzyglitter is always carving. At least they are supposed to look like Sylphs. What are the brooms’ names, Mickey?”
“Merrydew and Cannabis,” Mickey squeaked.
“Give them new orders by name, Bob.” The Master’s voice seemed to be suppressing a slight chuckle.
I climbed up to the edge of the pocket and looked out.
“Merrydew, sweep the floors. Cannabis, alphabetize the potion bottles.”
I saw the two brooms stop chasing Bob and take up their new tasks. Mickey was laid up on the exam table, his body naked except for fur and a huge bandage on his personal love parts. I was pretty sure that was the consequences the Master spoke of, but I didn’t want to think about how it came to be.
Then I looked up and saw Master Eli looking down at me and picking me up in his gloved left hand. He lifted me up in front of his scowling face.
“You, I believe have been a very naughty girl, Derfentwinkle. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I am very sorry, Master Eli. I was always planning to return to your service. But the crows contacted me by telepathy and told me where to find my friend Dollinglammer. And she had news of my poor sister.”
“You left with some of the magic given you by the Magic Hat, but none of the training you were supposed to get from me.”
“Are you going to punish me?”
“Well, of course not. What did a student ever learn from being punished beyond how much they should hate their teacher? You saw the White Stag inside the hat. That means you were chosen and must stay with me until your quest is completed.”
“My quest? Is it to free the village of Mortimer’s
Mudwallow?”
“No, of course not. I mean, the Stag doesn’t tell me much about the future. Just that you have a quest and we are tasked with helping you.”
He put me gently down on the cold stone floor, took a vial of purple liquid from one of his other pockets, and sprinkled some on my head. With dizzying suddenness, I was normal-sized again.
“We need to dress you in an apprentice’s robe like Mickey is supposed to be wearing if the sex-crazed brooms hadn’t torn it off him.”
“No. I don’t wear clothes. None of my family ever has.”
“It’s not an option. You need to wear a protective enchantment, both from Bluebottom’s mind control and Master Pippen’s influence spells.”
“Does it have to be a robe? Bob doesn’t wear a robe.”
“Do you want an enchanted leather jerkin like Bob wears? Complete with magical advertising signs for our Sorcery business?”
“No, ah… can it be a necklace, or a hat?”
“Not to hold the spell powers I will make it with.”
“You can wear your apprentice robe open in the front like I do. I like to show off my manly abs,” said Mickey.
“I can probably make a cloak or a cape,” Master Eli suggested.
“Why do so many Sylphs prefer to be nude?” quiet Bob asked Master Eli.
“Sylphs are naturally immune to heat and cold, so they don’t need clothing to protect them from those things. And they like the freedom of movement they have with nothing binding to wear. They don’t need clothes the way Elves and Slow Ones and Brownies do. There are even Elves that make magical necklaces, collars, and rings to keep them warm or cool so they can be nude also.”
“But some of us just like to be naked all the time,” I said, not really understanding why Bob didn’t know that already.
Bob was looking at me as I stood there naked in front of him. He had a shy smile on his cute face. It gave me an unexpected thrill to realize it.
On the way back to the willow castle Bert and Homer were reciting some kind of comedy routine they had seen on some Slow One’s tele-bish-yawn set at what they called the Nurse-Sing Home. It was something done by two Slow Ones named Cabbit and Klaustello. It was talking about a bees-ball team. And the dumb guy, Klaustello wanted to know the name of the guy on first base. But the other guy didn’t understand the question because the team had stupid names. And then they both got really mixed up, but the dumb guy got boiling mad about Who’s on First? It really wasn’t all that funny.
“Why does Klaustello care if the first guy’s name is Who?” Derfentwinkle asked.
“What kind of game is bees-ball anyway?” I asked.
“It is the All-Mermerrican Sport,” said Homer.
“I think they take a bunch of angry bees and make them into a ball to throw at the players of the other team,” said Bert
“And the other team takes their bees-ball bat and try to defend themselves from the stings by swatting the angry ball of bees,” said Homer.
I began to think it was funny when I pictured in my head the expression on the face of the bat when the stupid Slow One grabbed it by the feet and swung it at a ball of bees.
But most of the time, only the two crows thought it was funny.
And then we all landed safely on the roof of Cair Tellos’s main keep.
“Arrest them all immediately!” shouted the Wizard Pippen. The pentagram on his chest-plate was glowing with bright blue protection magic.
“Not Bob the apprentice. He’s Master Tragedy’s loyal student,” argued Prinz Flute, the faun-child who was Pippen’s only son.
“If he was supposed to be guarding the prisoner and let her escape, then he deserves the punishment too. Set up the chopping block right here, right now.”
The crows took off almost instantly. Dollinglammer used her butterfly wings to follow them before the Sylphs with the halberds could grab her. But Derfentwinkle and I were both caught.
The Executioner of Cair Tellos in his jet-black hood and black-banded armor set up the wooden chopping block right in front of us. A guard pushed me down to it so that my neck was against the place on the chopping block carved to fit it. I was about to really lose my head, and I was not happy about it.
“Father, please, they were returning to the castle. How do you know that Bob didn’t recapture her, and was bringing her back to us?”
“You are right, son. We shouldn’t cut his head off first.”
The Sylphs with the halberds picked me up again and forced Derfie down to take my place.
“Here, now! Those children belong to me. You overstep your authority in doing this!” shouted Master Eli as he showed up, red-faced and huffing with the effort of his climb up to where we were captured.
“If you punish them yourself, we’ll just end up with more pigeons around here. What’s the lesson learned from that? More fat pigeons?”
“A better lesson learned by far than if you cut off their heads. Students learn nothing without their heads attached. At least when they have their heads still on there’s a chance of beating sense into them. Or do you have a head-reattaching spell I don’t know about?”
“Okay, but I won’t have young Sylphs who are supposed to be prisoners flying out of here to go tell my secrets to the evil elves in the swamp. Or that Bluebottom friend of yours.”
“Oh, believe me. They will tell me more secrets of his than they will ever tell him about you.”
Then Master Eli tilted a vial of potion over Derfentwinkle’s head, instantly shrinking her down almost to nothing before picking her up and putting her away in a side-pocket of his red overcoat.
“Be warned, Sorcerer. You are not above suspicion yourself.” Growled the Wizard Pippen.
“Come with me, Bob. We have lots of work ahead of us.” Master Eli stormed away from the fuming wizard and I scurried after him with one hand on my recently-threatened neck.
My heart fell as I saw Bob dropping through the air, destined to splat on the ground like a fallen fruit. I knew it was my fault and I would fall into despair at the loss. But, somehow, the two crows knew my every thought. As Bert carried me off towards the fairy ring near the abandoned barn, Homer dove after Bob, grabbing him by his left foot a mere ten inches above the dirt.
Soon, Homer and Bob were winging next to us, poor Bob hanging upside down by one foot.
“Ah, Derfentwinkle, we meet again,” said Bob.
“I didn’t mean for you to leap off the balcony. I was going to come back after this temporary escape.”
“My master told me to protect you. And I knew you wouldn’t let me die.”
“But I didn’t know I had the power to save you!”
“Never fear, Mistress. Bert and I will always do your bidding the moment you wish it.” Homer the crow blinked his eye on the side that could see me.
“Which one of you is actually my familiar?” I asked.
“We both are equally. I wrote a contract and Bert signed it.”
“No, we didn’t… that I can remember,” said Bert.
“Don’t you remember? I wrote it in the mud on the riverbank. You signed it with your bill.”
“No, I didn’t. I was digging for a worm. Besides, that wasn’t writing. It was just random scratches in the mud.”
“You don’t know the truth of it because you can’t read.”
“Well, yes. But you can’t read either.”
“What’s your point?”
“Okay, stop arguing,” I said. “You are both my familiar, I guess. And you can read if you look at the writing and let me see it through your eyes.”
“Oh, good, that makes me feel smarter already,” said Bert.
“Your crows are funny,” said Bob.
It wasn’t far as the crow flies. I hope that is something I can say at this point because I know that is used so often it becomes meaningless. But it was literally only a mile and a half north of the willow castle, and we were flying in a straight line as crows do, and we were in the grasp of literal crows. Not literate crows, mind you, but literal ones.
“So, you kidnapped me to bring us to a bovine sanctuary on a Slow One’s private kingdom?” Bob asked.
“I didn’t kidnap you… intentionally. I was going to meet my contact here, but I had always planned to return to my captivity with Master Eli… and you.”
It was embarrassing to even hint to him that I admired the shape of his buttocks… and his gentle, quiet ways. You must understand… I liked him in more than one way.
Circling to the northeast of the ruined barn, we came down next to the fairy ring of white toadstools. Homer dropped me on my feet. Bert dropped poor Bob on his head.
She was there to meet me already. Dollinglammer was a raven—haired butterfly child with beautiful blue, black, and green wings.
“Derfentwinkle! You’re alive!” she exclaimed with a surprised smile.
“Yes, and I am more than a little lucky that it is so.”
“How did you get the birds to bring you here? Necromancy?”
“No. I somehow seem to have acquired wizarding skills on this adventure. The birds are my familiars.”
“You’re kidding! And who is this lovely lad you have brought me?”
Bob walked up beside me, expecting, I believe, to be introduced.
“Dollinglammer of Mortimer’s Mudwallow, meet Bob, the apprentice of the powerful Sorcerer Eli Tragedy.”
“Sorcerer? Really? As powerful as the lamented Yens Sidd?”
“I really don’t yet know the answer to that,” I said with a sigh. “What do you think, Bob?”
“I don’t know the sorcerer you speak of. And Master Eli is, as you have seen, more a master of parlor tricks, Slow One Lore, and chemistry than actual sorcerous magics.”
“Still, he’s powerful in the way of treating people better than they probably deserve.”
“You only say that because you have never yet been turned into a pigeon by him.”
“Pigeon? Where? I hate pigeons!” declared Bert.
“Why are we meeting here? Be honest with me,” Bob pleaded.
“Derfentwinkle was taken by the evil necromancer. The one who slew Master Yens. We are part of a plot to drive him out of our village of Mortimer’s Mudwallow.” Dollinglammer put a hand on each of Bob’s shoulders and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Derfie sacrificed herself to try and free her sister from the villain’s clutches.”
“And I failed, Bob. I would’ve had to destroy Cair Tellos to succeed and free her. And all I could manage was to get captured.”
I let the tears flow at the thought of what Kronomarke was probably doing to poor Poppensparkle.
“So, what’s the next part of your plan?” Bob asked. He was looking at me with smiling eyes, as if he were amused by our plight.
“We don’t have a next part of the plan. I thought I would only make this meeting if, by some miracle, I actually succeeded in destroying Cair Tellos. I really thought I would be dead by this point.”
“We shall have to think of something,” Bob said with a smile. I couldn’t believe what a kind and helpful boy Bob was.
“When we need a plan, we take wing and just fly by the seat of our pants, Bert and I,” declared Homer.
“Homer, we never wear pants.”
“We never make plans either, so what’s your point?”
“My boyfriend, Torchy, had a suggestion,” offered Dollie.
“Really? That Fire Wisp? He’s your boyfriend now?”
“Derfie, he’s a good boyfriend. And he used to live in Cair Tellos.”
“Oh, I know… I just don’t want you to get burned in the relationship.”
“He has his powers under better control than most Wisps.”
“I remember Torchy. He’s a relative of the great Wisp hero Gariss the Overheated,” said Bob. “So, what was his plan?”
“He knows a Slow One that could help us.”
“No way!” I said.
“Let’s all go back to Cair Tellos and talk it all over with Master Eli,” suggested Bob.
“Even me?” asked Dollinglammer.
“Especially you with Torchy’s plan. Master Eli was always fond of the way Torchy would burn up things the Master didn’t want around anymore.”
It was settled then. Homer and Bert would take me back to my prison with a glimmer of hope that someone might actually help me for a change.
Once Master Eli placed the Magic Hat on my head, I immediately felt something probing deeply into my brain. It wasn’t some passive little look-see either. It was a painfully grinding drilling sensation that caused a massive pain between my eyes.
“Ah, you have been abused, child,” said a voice from within the hat. “You must forgive me, but I will have to remove the life-draining sex spells and take away your memories of Kronomarke’s insidious abuse.”
“Help yourself,” I silently told the voice in my head with my own voice in my head.
The memories of the naked necromancer hitting me and harming me began to dry up, shrivel, and disappear from my conscious memory. I was not unhappy to see them float away into darkness.
But I was no longer seeing the room in the Sorcerer’s Tower where I knew I physically still was. Instead, around me there was little beyond darkness.
Then the darkness parted and a glowing white stag, a white male deer with an eighteen-point rack of horns and an extremely regal bearing walked up to me. Towered over me, in fact.
“Child, speak your name.” He spoke directly into my head without any lips moving or obvious speech forming in his deer mouth.
“But that will give you power over me.”
“I already have that. I am here to help you, not do you further harm.”
“I am Derfentwinkle the lowly necromancer’s fifth apprentice. But who are you?”
“I am what you might call a demigod. I was the master and teacher of the wizard Dezmodotto. And I am the friend of Eli Tragedy. If you must name me, I am called Father of Many Erlkings.”
“That’s impressive.”
“I have no need to impress you. I am only here to help you.”
“How will you do that?”
“I have already cleansed your memory of most of the badness that Kronomarke has taught you. He is an evil man. You must not return to him. I will make certain that you continue to belong to Master Eli.”
“Like a slave?”
“Like a daughter. And I will give him to you as a father.”
I was stunned. No one had ever been so kind before. And his voice filled me with warmth and confidence. It would be right because Father… of Many Erlkings, made it so.
“Is Eli Tragedy really magical?”
“You ask because your magic intuitions tell you most of his magical effects are really Slow-One science and technology disguised as sorcery. You are a true wizard, and Eli is a very clever manipulator of many things.”
“Um, yes, I… guess so…”
“You must listen to him well and learn his ways. They will make you stronger.”
“Yes, okay…”
“And I sent the crows Homer and Bert to be your familiar… one of the two, at any rate.”
“Why full-sized crows?”
“You will need to ride them as steeds in the air. And they can be quite entertaining, those two.”
“And what is it that I feel you have put into my head?”
“Spells, beloved. Spells to keep you and yours safe. And help along the quest I must give you.”
“What are these spells you speak of?”
“You will need to discuss them with the apprentice Bob. He is known to me as a very wise and capable young man. He will transcribe them on parchment for you so that you may learn them in the way of non-necromantic wizards.”
“Can you tell me now what the spells are? By name?”
“The ones I am allowing you to keep from your necromantic training are the Ghost-Light Spell, The Turning Spell of the Undead, and the reverse of the Harming Spell, which in your hands will instead be a Healing Spell.”
Going through my old drawing portfolio, I found my children’s book project from my undergrad college years. I have no idea now looking at the illustrations what the story was even about. I lost the actual story, and I never made a cover for it. But here is a look at old hopes and dreams and a way of seeing the world that begins; Once Upon a Time…
I have no earthly idea what the heck this story is even about, but I do like the pen and ink work, and probably couldn’t repeat it if I had to.
When Mickey and I heard that we were going to use the Magic Hat, Mickey got really excited. It was his turn to put on the ceremonial robe and bring out the hat.
“So, you do have the Magic Hat?” the girl Derfentwinkle asked while frowning.
“You know about that? What did Bluebottom tell you about it?”
“Nothing. But I read it in a letter he was writing. It’s a rare magic item that used to belong to Dezmodotto the Scroll and Sword Wizard. He believed you got hold of it when Dezmodotto died.”
“When Bluebottom killed him, you mean.”
“I didn’t know that part, but yes.”
“Everything that Derfie just said is true. Master Eli, however…” began Kack.
“Shut up, Kackenfurchtbar!” ordered Master Eli.
Meanwhile, Mickey had run to the vault-closet, used the key, and came back wearing the red apprentice robe and carrying the red, conical Magic Hat.
“I did it, Master! I brought the hat, and it didn’t turn me into a pigeon, and it didn’t suck out all my brainpower and make me stupid.”
“You mean it didn’t make you more stupid,” said Master Eli with a chuckle.
“Yes… um, I guess so.” Mickey put the hat on the floor between Master Eli and Derfentwinkle.
The hat itself was impressive. It was tall and stiff and red… covered with golden-yellow sigils and symbols.
Master Eli picked it up and immediately pulled another hat out of it. Another exact copy of the original hat.
“Here, Derf. Put this on your pointy head.”
“What is it going to do? Sort me into the proper house in the castle?”
“Ha! No! It’s good that you know about Slow Ones’ children’s literature, especially all the way from England. But this hat will judge whether you are evil or not. It may empty all the magic out of your head. Or it may turn you into a pigeon. I am interested to see.”
He put one of the two copies of the hat on Derfentwinkle’s head. Then he put the other on Mickey’s head.
“Why on my head?” Mickey squeaked.
“Because there may be secrets and spells that can alter the brain, and I don’t want them transferred into my head.”
Mickey looked at Derfentwinkle with horrified eyes.
“I know it is your turn to be the apprentice for this,” I told Mickey. “But if you are afraid, I will take the hat… if you need me to.”
“No, quiet boy. There won’t be anything that the mouse-boy won’t like. He’ll be okay.” She looked at me with what I hoped was a trustworthy look.
The hat on Derfentwinkle’s head began to hum… sort of. And at the same time Mickey’s eyes began to cross.
“MMMM! There it is! The sex magics!” crowed Mickey as his rat tail began to stiffen and twirl in small circles behind him.
Derfentwinkle appeared to be in pain. She dropped the plastic bottle containing the bottle imp, and held her stomach with both arms as if that’s where it hurt the most. I was concerned for her. Especially when her eyes dilated and she seemed to be staring through all of us with black orbs for eyes.
Then, mercifully, it all came to a stop.
“Aw, no! Where did the sex magics go? They were right here in my head. I knew how to do wonderful things.”
“Mickey, the hat absorbed all the evil spells. And then it recorded all the good ones. Just like it was meant to do,” said Master Eli.
“Oh, but I wanted to…”
“What? What did you want to do?”
“Um… I don’t know. The Magic Hat took it all out of my head again.”
“Just like it was meant to do. You were too young for any of that nonsense anyway.”
“Um, I am not feeling well,” said Derfentwinkle. “Can I lie down and sleep a little?”
She began to topple over, and I caught her up in both arms. She was really rather light to carry for a girl who was actually slightly taller than me.
“Well, the poor girl has just been through a wringer,” Master Eli said.
“Do I lay her down in the Harpy cage?” I asked, looking sadly at her unconscious face.”
“No, Bob. Take her to your bed… um, on second thought, take her to my bed. Let her sleep on the soft mattress there. But stay next to her. If she tries to escape or do something evil, you will need to kill her. But don’t get blood on my nice blankets.”
“How will she do evil in this state?” I asked.
“Oh, she won’t. Most likely you will just need to guard her and make her comfortable. If she has the wizard-skill I think she does, then she is going to be a very valuable property. So, be kind and take good care of her.
“Why does Bob get to do that good stuff, and not me?” complained Mickey.
“Because, although he’s not very bright. He’s smarter than you are, Mickey.” The stinky little wererat grumbled darkly as I carried the limp girl up the stair to the upper tower and gently placed her on master’s nice, soft bed.
Catch a Falling Star 
On the Problem of Always Being Wrong
I was a middle-school teacher for thirty-one years. That, of course, basically means I have to be wrong about everything. Principals have told me so. Parents have told me so. And students who have heard them say so take it completely to heart because, well… Who has the most authority to declare someone else completely wrong?
Yes, I have it on good authority… I am wrong about everything, always.
.
But it is very useful to realize that I am in good company. Galileo was wrong about the sun not going around the Earth. The College of Cardinals said it was so, and the Inquisition forced him to confess he was wrong. Giordano Bruno was so wrong about Copernicus being right that the Inquisition had to burn him at the stake. One would almost think that it is a bad thing to be wrong.
But it’s not.
Science, in fact requires its greatest practitioners to find out all the ways that they are wrong. How else do you create a theory of what is probably right?
It is fundamental to the scientific method to be as right as it is possible to prove. Of course, every scientific theory yields up a lot of anomalies that somehow defy the rules of the currently understood correct theory.
Isaac Newton got thumped on the brain-top by an apple and realized that the same thing that made the apple fall to Earth was making the Moon fall to the Earth, although the Moon is falling at the same rate as it is going around the Earth, so it never finishes the falling.
Later, Albert Einstein would realize that Newton’s gravity would even bend the light of distant stars around the edges of the Sun. And so, he found where Newton, genius that he was, was wrong. And so, the Theory of Relativity was born.
Guess what. Einstein was wrong too.
So, ultimately, it is okay for me to be wrong about things. It is necessary to be wrong before you can find out what is right. So, when I say something stupid like the following…
Comedy is good for you.
You should be naked more.
Fairies are only real if you believe in them.
You must take a leap of faith and live in the world like a Navajo, in tune with the natural world and comfortable with other people living in your world too. Moment by moment in the present moment.
…and eventually, I may stumble upon what is right and true. Or get burned at the stake like Bruno. That happens too.
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