Chapter Four

Two stories:

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The cat sat on her blanket in her favourite spot: the window seat in the front room of the house. From her perch she observed the comings and goings of all the residents of Appletree Lane, though for now the street was silent enough to allow the cat to devote attention to other things. A minute pair of gold-rimmed spectacles were perched on the tabby’s nose, in danger of slipping down the edge of her muzzle. The cat was immersed in Mr. Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers, having just finished Something Fresh by P. G. Wodehouse, the worn copy of which lay on the floor beside the window seat. Twitching her tail, the cat read on, waiting for the rest of the house to wake up.

Outside, the trees whispered to each other as they danced in the wind. Some fresh scandal had been committed, no doubt, so on they gossiped. Only an elderly birch held herself still, primly refusing to partake in the trees’ enjoyment of repeating secrets belonging to the private lives of others. If she had had a head she would have shaken it in disapproval at those foolish young trees less respectable than herself. Saplings, she sniffed, mere saplings who couldn’t keep their branches out of other peoples’ business even if threatened with an axe.

It was early, the pale grey light of dawn still not ready to give way to the sun’s warm glow. The cat was reading her book by lamplight. The trees’ roots were covered by the first frost. The people of Appletree Lane slept. No one realized it, not one living soul on the whole street could feel it, but it was there anyway. There was a subtle sense of a world waiting for something to happen, the feeling that something was amiss, that all was about to change and the natural way of things would not hold much longer before being disrupted. What was it?

Of course.

If someone was looking for it, it could just barely be felt: In the air there was decidedly the scent of magic, and where magic was present adventure was never far behind.

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She lived in a world of words.

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Everything she wrote became real. Slowly, slowly, as she wrote she could feel something beginning. A world was being created. Under her hand, in the space between ink and paper, lived thousands of animals and plants and people that she had created.

The sky was blue and it was made of words. The trees, strange as they were, were beautiful and unique and they were made of words. The grass was soft underfoot, the breeze warm, the air crisp, and all was made of words.

She had never seen this land, nor met its people, but she knew everyone who lived there and everything that happened.

Castles were built, destroyed, and they were made of words. Wars were fought and they were made of words. Words shaped and created and burned and erased this world.

Words were in the air here. Every action was described, every spoken sentence recorded. No one could think without it being noted.

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She was in the garden. She sat on a bench, her arms folded and her eyes shut. The word-flowers gave off a light, sweet aroma; the word-sparrows hopped and skipped and sang. The trees swayed in their word-breeze, their word-leaves rustling softly. The path was made of stone and cement and words. She awoke from her reverie on cue and got to her feet. Her feet were also made of words, and so was she, and the path she walked on and the air she breathed.

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He read. He followed her as she walked, though he never saw her. He imagined the word-flowers and the word-trees and the word-girl. He read her thoughts. He read as she followed her story. Her author was fond of rambling, he noted, and smiled. He couldn’t tell where the story began here, nothing had happened yet. Of course, he was barely past the first page. He would find her, he thought, closing his eyes gently. He could see her as she walked. She turned around, her eyes beckoning him closer, asking him to follow her, let her lead the way. He wondered where they were going.

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There was another girl, somewhere else. She sat and wrote. She wrote the word-girl as she word-walked. The boy was also made of words, though he did not know it. He was reading the word-girl’s story, but somewhere the other girl was writing his. She was the one who had written this world of words. She wrote it, he read it, she lived in it. He lived in another world made of words.

She stopped, tired of writing for the moment. She would write again later. She would make new worlds of words, and wonder if her world was of words as well.

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