Authors: Pat Murphy
A beeping sound woke her. Tom stirred in bed, flinging out an arm to silence the alarm. Four
A.M.,
still dark. He had warned her that he’d have to be up early. They were leaving Faial that morning.
He clicked on the bedside light, and she blinked at the room. Their brandy glasses were still on the table in the corner. On the wall above the table were a few photos: Tom’s brothers, his mother, his father.
She looked back at Tom. He was watching her. “Good morning,” he said. “Trying to figure out what you’re doing here?”
“I thought that was pretty clear last night,” she said, and then bit her lip, wondering if she had been a little too bold.
He laughed. “You’re right. It was.”
She sat up in bed. It had all been so easy last night. Now she felt very awkward. Having thrown off the covers, she was aware of her nakedness—her clothes were tossed over one of the chairs.
“I know you have to work this morning,” she said. “You warned me about that last night.”
“I do,” he said. “We sail in four hours. Lots to do.”
“Well, I’d better be going,” she said, reaching for her clothes.
He sat up and put his arms around her, stopping her before she could get out of bed. “Did I tell you that you are a woman of startling talents?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “You told me that last night, when I won the platter.”
“I didn’t know the half of it then,” he said, grinning.
Tom walked her to her stateroom. He insisted on it, even though she assured him that she could find the way. The corridors were empty except for a lone steward bringing coffee up to the bridge. Tom greeted him. “Good morning, Osvaldo.”
Susan gave Osvaldo a big smile. She knew that she looked like a woman who had just crawled out of her lover’s bed. In movie love stories, the woman’s hair was always ever so charmingly tousled the morning after, and she chose to imagine that her hair was tousled in just that way. She knew that Ian and Geoffrey and anyone else who was interested in Tom’s love life would know how his date with her had turned out.
She didn’t care. That startled her. She didn’t care what anyone thought; she didn’t care that her love life was a matter for public gossip. Her mother would be appalled. But she didn’t care.
Tom kissed her good-bye at her stateroom door. He wished her a happy Halloween and warned her that he’d be busy that night. “I figure if Clampers are normally out of control, Clampers in costume will be worse,” he said.
She slipped inside quietly, so as not to wake Pat. She undressed quietly and got into her bed, still feeling warm and sleepy.
Ian poured Max a cup of coffee and offered him a biscotti from the tray Osvaldo had brought that morning. While Max sipped his coffee and nibbled the biscotti, Ian considered the note Max had received.
Tom wasn’t in the office yet. From what Ian had heard, Tom had had a fine night. Osvaldo had reported spotting him in the corridor with Susan very early in the morning. They both, according to the Osvaldo, had looked very happy.
“It was under my door, just like the others,” Max said. “I thought I’d see what you and Tom thought of it.”
He looked weary, Ian thought. As if he hadn’t slept well.
Ian considered the note. A hexagram, of course: a stack of six lines, alternating broken and unbroken lines with a solid line at the top. Beneath it, someone had written, in a looping, exuberant handwriting: “Disorder prevails. One must move warily, like an old fox walking over ice.”
“The lower trigram is K’an,” Max muttered. “K’an, the abysmal. Its image is water. The upper trigram is Li, the clinging. Its image is flame. The fire and the water meet. The hexagram indicates a time of disorder and transition.”
Ian called up the relevant page from the
Book of Changes
on his computer. He scanned the text quickly. “The hexagram indicates a time of transition,” he said, “but it’s a hopeful sort of transition. The Book compares it to spring, which leads out of winters stagnation to the fruitfulness of summer.”
“Yes, but hopeful for whom?” Max asked, frowning.
Ian read from the screen. “‘When fire, which by nature flames upward, is above, and water, which flows downward, is below, their effects take opposite directions and remain unrelated … We must first investigate the nature of the forces in question and ascertain their proper place. If we can bring these forces to bear in the right place, they will have the desired effect, and completion will be achieved. But in order to handle external forces properly, we must above all arrive at the correct standpoint ourselves, for only from this vantage can we work correctly.’ ”
Max nodded vaguely. Ian went on reading. “‘ … One must engage the energies of able helpers and in this fellowship take the decisive step. … Then completion will become possible.’”
Max nodded again, frowning. “I suppose that makes some sense,” he murmured. Then he glanced at the clock. “Almost time for workshop,” he said. “I’d best be going.”
He wandered out the door, taking a biscotti with him and leaving crumbs behind.
Susan woke to the sound of the door to the corridor closing. Pat stood by the door, holding a tray, on which there was a pot of coffee and a plate of sweet rolls. Pat smiled when she saw that Susan’s eyes were open. “Would you like some breakfast?” Pat asked. “Seems like you need to keep your strength up.”
Susan grinned and stretched, the memory of the night before returning to her. “I did manage to work up an appetite,” she said.
Pat sat at the foot of the bed and set the tray beside Susan. She poured coffee and Susan sat up in bed and helped herself to a sweet roll. Outside the sliding glass doors, the sky was overcast. Susan could see the island of Faial, but the ship was moving, leaving the harbor and heading back out to sea.
“So what’s the story?” Pat asked. Her tone was light, but she was studying Susan’s face, obviously concerned about her friend’s feelings.
Susan hesitated, thinking about all that had happened the night before. She was feeling confident, happy, sure of herself. “We drove through the village and met a herd of goats in the street,” she began. “The taxi driver told us that was a good omen. He was right.”
She told Pat about the taxi ride, about the green flash, about the carnival, about the dinner. She got to the part where they were returning to the ship, and she said, “Then one thing led to another.”
“That’s the part that I like,” Pat said. “The part where one thing leads to another. And I assume the other thing led to his cabin.”
“Well, yes, it did.” Susan grinned.
Pat leaned back in her chair, studying Susan’s face. “Wow. You’re not even blushing. You head off into the wilds with this guy and you come back a changed woman. That’s amazing.”
Susan laughed. She was startled by her own audacity, and pleased that Pat recognized it.
“So is he the kind with a girl in every port?”
Susan shrugged. “I don’t think so. Can’t say for sure.”
Pat stared at her, astonished and delighted. “This is so out of character,” she said. “I love it. So what are you going to do next? Are you going to run off to sea and become a pirate? Dance on the table at dinner? You’re a changed woman.”
Susan thought for a moment. “The pirate option sounds pretty good,” she said. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
“What about Tom? You think he’s interested in being a pirate?” Susan helped herself to another sweet roll, considering the question. “I don’t know what Tom thinks.” She poured herself more coffee. “And this may sound callous, but I don’t really care.”
“You don’t care?” Pat was staring at her in amazement. “Wait a second. You always care. When you were with Harry, you seemed to care more about what he thought than you did about what you thought.”
Susan laughed. “Uncharted waters,” she said. “Unexplored territory. Maybe I’m really a loose woman at heart and I’m just realizing it now.”
Pat smiled. “Not loose, but looser. I think it’s great. Let me know if you need a first mate on your pirate ship.”
“You think I’ll be captain?”
“The way you’re heading, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The workshop was smaller that day. The knitting lady and the surly teenager hadn’t shown up. Cindy blamed the rough weather.
The sky was overcast and the movement of the ship had changed. Susan couldn’t describe the new movement as rocking—that was too definitive a word to describe such a subtle motion. This was a slow, almost imperceptible shifting. She found herself leaning ever so slightly in her seat, compensating for a tilt in the floor. Then she realized that she was leaning too far. Gradually, she shifted back to an upright position. Then, moments later, she found herself leaning in the other direction.
All this took place over the space of several seconds, slow enough that she could almost ignore it—except for the moments when the direction shifted and she almost overbalanced. Such strange sensation. It was a strange, dreamy, vertiginous sensation. It made her a little dizzy, a little disoriented.
“Today,” Max said. “we are going to explore the power of the imagination.” Max didn’t seem to mind—or even to notice—that his class was dwindling.
“To write a story that others will believe, you have to believe in it yourself.” Max cocked his head and considered the group around the table. It seemed to Susan that his gaze lingered on her. “You have to believe in your story, no matter how unbelievable it may be. And your belief will bring your story to life.”
Alberta raised her hand, looking skeptical. “How can you believe in something that you know you made up?” she asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Oh, it’s even more difficult than that,” Max said. “Much more difficult. I’d like you to believe in things that you made up that most people think are quite impossible. As for how—well, believing in impossible things takes practice.”
Susan stared at him, remembering what Mary Maxwell had said in her dream. “Are you saying that you can’t believe in impossible things?” Mary had said. “Maybe you just need a little practice.”
“To believe in something that’s quite impossible, you have to consider it in great detail,” Max was saying. “You must be very specific. The more unbelievable a situation, the more carefully you have to describe it. If you are writing a story that takes place on a sunny summer day and the sky is blue, that’s easy. But if you are picnicking on Mars and the sky is pink, you need to be more specific in your description. Exactly what shade of pink do you mean—the pink of bubble gum? The pink of a freshly cut watermelon? Or the faintest flush of pink, like the Earth sky at sunrise?
“To make a story believable, you must create all the details in your imagination. The reality of your story depends on the power of your imagination.” Max gazed around the table. “I want you to think of something unbelievable and make it real. A situation, an event, an object.”
“What kind of event?” Alberta asked.
Max regarded her steadily. “Something that you don’t believe in,” he said mildly. “I can’t tell you what it should be, since I don’t know what you believe in.”
“Like what?” she persisted.
Max shrugged. “Like a Scrabble tournament at which someone beats you and Bill. Whatever you like, as long as you find it difficult to believe.” He looked around, but no one else had any questions. “Sit back in your chair,” he said. “Close your eyes and think of something unbelievable. If it helps, start by thinking of a familiar place where this unbelievable thing could happen.”
Susan closed her eyes obediently, wondering what she should imagine. Sleeping with Tom seemed unbelievable, but she didn’t want to write about that. So she started with a place. She imagined standing on the observation deck, looking down on the sundeck at the bow of the
Odyssey.
What could happen there? She looked into the distance and saw a golden light on the horizon. A UFO, she thought. A flying saucer could land.
“Before you turn your attention to the unbelievable thing, consider the details of the environment surrounding it,” Max continued.
Susan thought about the maze of windscreens. The saucer is landing at night, she thought, so the deck chairs had been put away. It was, she thought, a dark and stormy night—that’s when unbelievable things always happened in stories. Rain pounded on the deck. The ocean was rough. She imagined a wave splashing up against the side of the ship, sending an arc of spray over the railing. Lightning flickered in the sky, and thunder rumbled overhead. The ship’s engines were humming, laboring to push the ship through the rough seas.
“Now think about the unbelievable thing,” Max said. “See it in your imagination.”
Susan imagined a glimmering golden light, blinking in the distance. Just a pinprick of light at first, like a star gleaming through the clouds. It grew larger—to the size of a grape, the size of her fist. Still it came closer—a glowing golden saucer, hovering over the sundeck. The saucer was shaped like a Frisbee—a little thicker in the middle than the flying toy, but generally Frisbee-shaped. It was about twenty feet across.
“Think about details now,” Max said. “You’ve got an image of this thing in your mind. Now look at that image carefully.”
There was a band of paler gold light around the saucer’s center line. Staring at that band, she realized that the saucer was spinning—she could hear a high-pitched humming as it spun. Portholes, set on the saucer’s center line, blurred in her vision as the saucer spun, creating the band of pale gold.
“Have you got it?” Max said. “Keep picturing your impossible thing for a moment, to get it settled in your mind.”
In Susan’s mind, the saucer’s spinning slowed, then stopped, as the great ship came down, crushing three windscreens beneath it. The glass shattered, the metal frames crumpled.
The saucer’s glowing form reflected in the remaining windscreens. Its hum blended with the hum of the ship’s engines.
“Open your eyes,” Max said.
Susan blinked at him.
“Now open your notebook,” he said. “Write down what you imagined,” Max said.
Susan opened her notebook to a blank page and uncapped her pen, eager to begin.
The workshop ended at 11:30. By the time they left the library, the waves were slapping the sides of the ship with increased vigor.