by Lou Aronica
“The palace calls to order this congress of the wondrously conceived people of Tamarisk. Let all be heard.”
Becky turned the pages of the journal she’d been writing in since she was eight. Before then, she hadn’t thought of the idea of putting down everything she knew about Tamarisk, but it was great to have all of it on paper. It helped when she needed to remember the name of an amphibian from the bloat marshes or to remind her father about the rules to a game that they’d invented – especially when he was trying to change the rules to fit a story. When she finally came up with the naming system for everything in Tamarisk, she wrote it here. When she told a story about a letter that Miea sent from college or an important palace decree, she would write the complete text here the next afternoon. Only when she decided that Miea should have a secret diary did she write the entries elsewhere. It was especially fun to do so after Becky had come up with the idea of giving Miea a boyfriend in college.
The last few days had been weird. Going to school on Monday and telling people that her parents had split up was the most awkward thing she ever remembered doing. Of course it helped that her best friend Lonnie – who Becky had called Sunday night – had started telling people before Becky got to them. Sometimes Lonnie's big mouth made Becky angry. In this case it actually made things easier because it meant she didn’t have to have the same terrible conversation so many different times.
Today had been basically normal. People weren’t asking her about Mom and Dad getting a divorce anymore, and that was totally fine with Becky.
The weirdest thing had been the nightly calls from her father. She was still incredibly angry with him, and he was still trying to talk to her like everything was okay. She attempted to get it into his head that everything wasn’t okay, but that didn’t seem to be working. She would just have to keep making her point. At least Mom was treating her like a real person.
She turned a page in the journal to find a lengthy description of the properties of okanogan, the crystal you could mold. Dad had come up with that one when Becky was having trouble thinking of a special way to decorate the walls of the great hall, and she remembered thinking that it was one of the coolest ideas he’d ever had. She kind of overused okanogan all over the palace until Dad came up with a few more materials.
They’d been a great team that way.
Becky touched the page and tried to read the description, though her thoughts were far away. She had no idea how long she drifted off, but when she focused on the words again, she realized she’d been spending more time on this tonight than she should. It was late, and she had to present a project tomorrow.
She closed the book and stood up from her desk. She moved to put the journal back on her bookshelf. Before she did, though, she kissed the journal’s spine.
“Until again,” she said before sliding the book into its place.
Another Note from the Author
This story jumps forward four years in Blue. In that novel, Becky and Chris have drifted further apart and both are experiencing significant crises. Chris believes that he has lost his daughter and he feels disconnected from his life while he pines for the past. Becky has bounced back from the pain of divorce better (Polly has remarried and created a stable home for her daughter) but she’s starting to feel dizzy spells and other reminders of when she was sick.
Meanwhile, Tamarisk, separated from the storytellers who created it, has continued to evolve. Miea has grown into the role of queen, though the challenges of guiding a kingdom like Tamarisk are never easy. Her biggest challenge is that a blight similar to the Great Blight that nearly destroyed Tamarisk has been spotted. The kingdom’s greatest scientists can’t say what’s wrong, and the blight is spreading.
At the height of their desperation, Becky and Miea reach out for answers – and somehow discover each other. Miea finds a way to bring Becky to Tamarisk and Becky marvels at seeing the world her father and she created when things were better between them. She makes several trips to Tamarisk, each proving wondrous. The discovery that Tamarisk has come to life gives Becky and Chris the opportunity to reconnect. Eventually, Becky even finds a way to bring Chris there.
Circumstances, however, have not changed. The blight continues to ravage Tamarisk, and Becky is feeling increasingly sicker. Becky, Miea, and Chris have come together at this remarkable juncture – but what does it mean for their future?
I’m currently in the process of revising my first two novels, both of which had been published under the name “Ronald Anthony” (“Ronald” for “Aronica” and “Anthony” in honor of my father). The first, The Forever Year is the story of Jesse Sienna, a man in his thirties, and Mickey, the elderly father Jesse’s never really gotten the chance to know. When Mickey shares a story with Jesse from his distant past, Jesse learns things about his father that none of his siblings are aware of, and he learns something about romantic love that he never believed possible. New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas called it, “Wry, tender, beautifully written,” and the novel has been translated into several languages, but I frankly think it needs work. I’m planning to have a cleaned-up version of The Forever Year out under my name early in 2012.
The other Ronald Anthony novel that I’ll be republishing under my name is Flash and Dazzle. This is the story of Rich Flaster (“Flash”) and Eric Dazman (“Dazzle”), two guys in their late twenties who have been best friends since college and who have become emerging stars in New York’s advertising world. Things could not be better for them, until Eric gets sick. Then they discover how much they truly mean to each other while also discovering how little they really knew each other. I’m planning to have Flash and Dazzle out in revised form in the spring of 2012.
Neither of these novels has any magic of the Tamarisk variety in them. If that’s the only part of Blue or Until Again that you’ve liked (assuming, of course, that you liked anything in these stories at all), then The Forever Year and Flash and Dazzle aren’t for you. However, many of the themes I’ve explored in the Tamarisk stories are in the earlier novels as well – family dynamics, relationships put to the test under difficult circumstances, dealing with crises, and redefining connections, to name a few. If you get the chance to read them, I’ll be interested in your thoughts.
As always, you can reach me at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or interpretations.
Thanks so much for reading.