Among Others

Gramma’s cancer, though he wanted to and we wanted him to. It may reach back into time, but it can’t make Mor alive again. I remember when she died and Auntie Teg told me and I thought, She knows, and I know, and other people are telling other people and more and more people know and it spreads out like ripples on a pond and there’s no undoing it without undoing everything. It’s not like falling out of a tree and nobody seeing but the fairies.
    W EDNESDAY 28 TH N OVEMBER 1979
    Gill sneaked into the dorm last night to bring me her scientist book. She sat on my bed, and as we were talking she put her arm behind me, as if casually, but I could see how carefully she was doing it, and that she was looking at me all the time. I jumped up and said she ought to go, but Sharon gave me a very strange look afterwards and I think she saw. Could I have done something to encourage Gill? Or anyway, to make her think I might be interested in her in that way? It’s very awkward, as she’s one of the very few people who are actually talking to me. I think I need to talk to her, but not in the dorm! And I’m afraid to say I want to talk to her privately in case she takes that for more encouragement, which would be hurtful when it turned out not to be.
    In I Capture the Castle , which isn’t what I expected it to be at all, there’s a bit where the heroine is in love with one man and a different man is in love with her, and she thinks she’ll make do with him, maybe, but she also knows it won’t work and it’s pointless and she doesn’t want to hurt him. The way she feels about it and not wanting to hurt him is a bit like I feel about Gill and this. I honestly don’t think it would be any different if it was a boy who was my friend. I’ll say this to Gill when I get the chance. Maybe Saturday, or tomorrow after chem?
    One of the stones was knocked off the windowsill, but I put it back. This is only a temporary fix, but it’s holding for now. No more visitations.
    T HURSDAY 29 TH N OVEMBER 1979
    Terrible dreams. I really do need to do something about this. I can’t go on this way. I’ll do it tonight if it’s not raining.
    Why aren’t I like other people?
    I look at Deirdre and her life is completely unruffled. Or does it just seem that way to me? She came up to me at break and drew me aside and said, “Shagger said that she saw Gill coming on to you,” and she looked at me entirely trustingly.
    “Shagger may have seen that, but I’m not interested in Gill and I mean to tell her so,” I said.
    “It’s wrong,” Deirdre said, utterly sure.
    “I don’t think it’s wrong if both people want it, but in this case, I don’t.”
    Deirdre looked confused and backed away, but later she offered me a Polo mint to show there were no hard feelings. I should buy her a bun for Sunday.
    No chance to talk to Gill after chem. I think she may have been avoiding me. Maybe we don’t need to have a conversation after all.
    F RIDAY 30 TH N OVEMBER 1979
    I got up in the deep heart of night and did magic. I climbed down the elm into the grounds, found the circle I’d made last time, and put it back together. The moon was making fitful appearances through the clouds. I didn’t make a fire this time.
    I don’t want to write down what I did. I have a superstitious feeling about it, that it would be wrong, that I shouldn’t even have said so much as I have said. Maybe I should write it not just backwards but upside-down and in Latin? I think I know now why people don’t write real magic books. It’s just too difficult to put words around it when you’ve made it up yourself. Even so, even at the end I still felt as if I didn’t really know what I was doing and I was improvising like mad. It’s so different from doing what you’ve been told to do and you’re pretty sure will work. The moon has always been my friend. But even so.
    Always before, they’d told us what to do. Glorfindel had told us about throwing the flowers in the water, told me about sinking the comb in the bog. Standing there in my circle I felt very inexperienced, and as if I was half playing and it couldn’t possibly work. Magic is very weird. I kept looking up through the bare branches at the moon in the clouds and waiting until it was clear for a moment. I made up a sort of poem to sing, which at least helped me get into the right frame of mind.
    I was using things I remembered and things I was making up and things that seemed to fit. I was trying to