The Midnight Circus, стр. 51

Itstarted with three of us that spring in Massachusetts—all the bestfairy tales start with threes. We flew in the night before PBBC startedin earnest and had rooms reserved for us at the inn. Jane extended aninvite to join her on her daily walk early the next morning (the MasterClass didn’t officially start until later that afternoon). The twoolder students declined, as they were best friends and had a lot ofcatching up to do, but the youngest student, full of energy andenthusiasm, took Jane up on the offer.

I’dread the fairy tales. I knew. When wise fairies ask you to walk withthem through the woods, you say yes.

Ieven wore my tiara.

Iwas always going to be the cuckoo in that nest of students. The goalof every PBBC attendee was to utilize Jane’s and Heidi’s tutelage toraise their picture-book prowess to the next level. Every single one ofus had published at least one picture book, but they all knew Janeexclusively through SCBWI. I was a chemistry major who’d been raised inthe publishing industry, and at Dragon Con. AlphaOops mighthave been the first publishing contract I signed, but by the time itwas released, I was a bona fide active member of SFWA.

Myconversation with Jane during that first walk covered a little bit ofeverything: her time as an editor at Random House, her stint aspresident of SFWA, Shakespeare, shoes, ships, ceiling wax, the wholekit and caboodle. By the end of that walk, I had a true mentor, andJane understood I wasn’t the kind of princess who signed away herfirstborn because she didn’t take the time to read the fine print.

Sheknew (from one of my manuscript submissions) that my family had escapedfrom its own holocaust, during the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. Adifferent dark wood, but a dark wood from which Jane had all too muchexperience telling difficult tales.

ButI didn’t tell her my whole story—that week, it was my job to hear farmore stories than I told. She noted that I listened with the heart of ayarnspinner, that I saw with the eyes of a talesmith, that I dreamedwith the mind of aweaver. She was familiar with the nightmares whence I came, althoughshe did not know the exact paths I had walked to get to this place. Idid not tell her in so many words that she was also my Baba Yaga,allowing me to seek refuge from a past where I had been abused by men.None of that mattered at Phoenix Farm. Baba Yolen challenged me until Iwas confident enough to triumph on my own.

But I think maybe, deepdown, she knew all this anyway. Because sometimes kindred spirits andbenevolent fairiesknow things without having to say a word.

Itwas never Jane’s job to save me from anything—by the time we becamefriends, I had already saved myself. Nor was it her task to remind mehow strong I am; once forged, it is impossible for a sword to forget itis a sword. But she reminded me in personal emails and poetry what itwas to be real, to be Truth, both within fiction and without. She gaveme tools so that I could better tell the hard tales. She encouraged meto investigate the wild wood that birthed me, so that I might discoveranimal friends in that darkness, or wings of my own, or even love. Shetaught me, by example, that the whirlwind inside my brain could beharnessed and even tamed, in time. She believed in me when I spreadmyself so thin that I forgot to believe in myself anymore.

Shestill believes in me. And takes great pride in telling me so, over andover and over again.

Afterthat one morning’s walk, Jane and I were destined to be friendsforever, but it was the poem that sealed the deal. We were having lunchat the Eric Carle Museum a few days later on a Master Class field trip;there were giant postersacross one wall of the cafeteria featuring the subjects of pastexhibits.

“Iwould have loved to have seen the Quentin Blake one,” I sighed. “Hisillustrated Ogden Nash book was one of my absolute favorites as achild. All my friends loved Shel Silverstein, but I always thoughtOgden Nash was far more clever.”

Janeturned and stared at me. “If called by a panther . . .”

“Don’tanther,” I finished.

That’sright. Jane Yolen started a quote from an Ogden Nash poem, and Ifinished it. To the best of my knowledge, that sort of scene onlyhappened in movies or television, when a teacher of greatintelligence tests his or her student, and the student rises to theoccasion. That thing that only played out in fiction had just playedout in my actual life. With Jane Yolen.

Wealways dream of meeting our heroes, forging bonds and becoming the bestof friends. I’m here to tell you that you’re never really prepared forwhen that actually happens.

Itwas even scarier for me on some level because Jane wasn’t just acolleague, mentor, and fairy godmother . . . she was me. It wasas if I’d been handed a looking glass into the future. I was already aPrincess Who Did Too Much, but here was the Queen of Everything,telling me there was no reason it couldn’t be done. Because she’d goneand done it. All she had to do was point the way to the eighth squareand send me on my way.

Ialways wished I’d met someone like Jane when I was a kid—it would havehelped a lot to have known that beinga Queen of Everything was a legitimate Life Path. This is why I mostenjoy meeting middle schoolers—I can be for them the person I didn’thave when I was twelve, a washed-up television actress in the middle ofmy first novel, with dozens of poems shoved in the shoebox under mybed.

ButI have Jane now, better late than never. She is the goal. She is who Iwant to be when I never grow up. She is the reason I venture forth intothis upside-down world, sad and strong and optimistic and constantlyinspired, sword and head held high, unafraid because I know it ispossible to do Everything. No bar has