MARY'S BIT or A BIT OF A MISTERY
The winds of fortune brought the two of us to Pennsylvania, but they couldn't dispel the heavy fog that morning.We'd not long arrived in the state and after several days of rain we awoke to the sort of really thick fog from which patrons of horror films would expect a mummy to suddenly lurch through the French windows, intent on strangling those who desecrated its tomb with its spicy-scented bandages, assuming its parchment-skinned hands were not up to the task.
A quick glance outside revealed that much was concealed by the thick, coiled miasma draping the landscape with swirling wedding veils of white silk. When we went out for our morning walk, we found ourselves in an eerie world, one where sounds were muffled and the light had a strange quality to it. As we ambled along the narrow road up to the ridge overlooking the valley, what little could be seen faded from view as we moved forward in a world of clinging mist. If we glanced back, the tall grass verges and trees marking field boundaries soon disappeared behind a pale wall of vapour, and looking ahead we found ourselves advancing into a curtain of white that seemed to move with us, as if it was subtly shepherding us along the stony road.
We walked onwards and upwards. Numerous spider webs, little parachutes in the wet grass or decorating vines hanging in garlands from telephone lines, were heavy with droplets. Oddly suggestive rustlings came from the undergrowth along both sides of us, where tangles of blackberry bushes grew and rabbits could be counted by the dozen towards sunset most evenings. It was as if something was pacing us. A fox? We'd once seen one cutting through a half-mown field. Perhaps it was a bobcat on its way back to its den, possibly the handsome specimen seen crossing the track up there one time.
We finally reached the crest, where the oil-and-chipped road poises to take a breath before plunging dizzily down towards civilization. In better weather we could have observed six or seven mountains playing footsie with each other on the other side of the valley, but that morning we could hardly see into the nearest field. We stood for a while listening as the clammy quiet thought about departing. Birds began to tune up for their morning concert and somewhere close by a crow with a sore throat started to engage in his usual morning croaking duel with his rival across the way. We looked a little longer into milky nothingness, and then turned back along the foggy way, leaving the hidden heights to honeysuckle and dark aisles of firs and whatever creatures were moving in them. Our little pocket of visibility moved with us. We never reached the barrier of fog hanging across the road ahead, no matter how far we walked towards it.
The philosophical will, no doubt, find this odd effect a perfect metaphor for life.
NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER
It's been a quiet couple of months but the ticker still has a little news to report, and here it is.
CHIPPING IN or IT'S ABOUT PLACE, NOT PLAICE
Michelle Moran, author of Nefertiti and The Heretic Queen, wrote the cover story for the November 2008 issue of Solander, the magazine of the Historical Novel Society http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/solander2.htm Her topic was The Power of Place and she interviewed a number of historical novelists about visiting the places in which their works are set. We are honoured to report we were included among them, and thank Michelle for her interest in our thoughts.
FORGOTTEN BOOKS or TAKING TIME TO REED
Patricia Abbott's blog features Forgotten Books each Friday, and a day or so ago Mary contributed a few lines about J. B. Bell's 1917 novel 'Till The Clock Stops. http://pattinase.blogspot.com As Mary said, the book could well have been subtitled The Wandering Green Box, for said receptacle appears and disappears more than once in mysterious fashion. Then there are the peculiar instructions left by a man now dead concerning the titular timepiece and that's not the half of it. Although written at a gentler pace than modern mysteries this and the other forgotten books reviewed on Patricia's blog are well worth a look.
MYSTERIOUS THOUGHTS or IF WE DID NOT WRITE
Jean Henry Mead is the author of A Village Shattered, a senior sleuth novel. In the middle of moving house, she found time to interview us for her January 30th Mysterious People blog http://mysteriouspeople.blogspot.com/ Among other topics we talked about what we'd do if we were not writing and real people who appear in our works. It was more fun than a trunk full of monkeys, so Mary returned to the scene of the crime next day to pass along comments on the genre from six historical mystery authors -- in a 500 or so word blog! It was a struggle to stay within the allotted space -- talk about writing lean! Our thanks to Jean for her interest and for allowing us all to air our thoughts.
