The Warm Planet

Chapter 1

I was twenty-eight when I returned home, and already felt ancient, though of course this was ridiculous. By the world’s standards I had just graduated to adulthood — maybe — and as a woman I was not even near maturity until I had birthed offspring.

A woman had told me so once, flat-out. People didn’t learn maturity until they had children, she opined. I could have argued, but I was a guest in her home so I kept my mouth shut. For example, I could have asked her if that truth applied to someone like, say, Jesus. I would have enjoyed seeing how she talked herself out of that one. But my confounded manners kept me quiet, mostly because I didn’t like her and anything I said was going to come out with fire.

So here I was, arriving at home in our little town of Griffin, having failed my expectations of twenty-eight and feeling withered. I was newly single after a long engagement, practically bankrupt from a monstrous wedding I abruptly called off, and entirely alone. What a lovely résumé of my short adulthood.

I did not return to Griffin because of these unfortunate circumstances, however. I returned because Mookie, my mother, had grabbed me at her wedding two weeks before and made the announcement that she intended to leave Mossforge Hideout to me. She was planning to ride off into the sunset and turn the property over to me as I pleased. If you know Mookie — and few really do — this is so very like her.

I had dubbed the old Victorian mansion Mossforge Hideout as soon as I was old enough to speak. I blame Mookie for this. She is a wildly imaginative writer and everything is a story, a habit I quickly adopted from her and have never fully escaped in all of my years. I drove up that fall afternoon with my heart in my throat, gladder to see the ancient edifice than I thought I would be. The sun was setting and a cool breeze swept through the yard, rustling the massive elm tree that overshadowed the front of the house like a long-limbed, silent guardian. It shone with autumn colors, its fiery leaves sparking against the cloudless sky above. I sat in the driveway for a long moment and took the property in.

Mossforge had been my mother’s hideout for all of my childhood, buried in the center of Griffin. My name for it seemed almost prophetic, coming from the mouth of a four-year-old ignorant of Mookie’s history. Hidden within the expansive backyard, hemmed in by trees and shrubbery, were fruit trees, shade trees, and wild Japanese lilac bushes. It was, in short, our own little paradise.

The house itself was in remarkable condition. Mookie had faithfully preserved the old Victorian, with its green fish-scale shingles, stained-glass windows, wraparound porch, and square cupola. Taking it in now, it was easy to believe pet dragons and wood elves played in the backyard or a whirring time machine occupied the basement. The green carriage house still served as a garage, though with its sharp ridge pole and round stained-glass windows, it resembled a small laboratory for a mad scientist.

Most of Griffin had dubbed the mansion the Witch’s House, while some believed it was haunted by the restless spirits which my mother called up from the deep. When we were not being ignored entirely, my sister Treasure and I were known to some of the local children as The Witch’s children. I preferred plain Mossforge Hideout.

Looking at it now, after years around the world, I thought there was no place like it. It beckoned to me that fall afternoon like a sentry whispering to enter through its mysterious gates and discover the tantalizing beauty within.

As I crossed the broad porch and unlocked the door, I expected the old mansion to hold only sorrow. I had stayed away for this reason alone, and been less than thrilled when Mookie deeded it to me. But grief, dread, and pain were not what greeted me. I was stunned when sweet-colored nostalgia swept over me as I stepped inside.

The faint smell of cinnamon and warm bread rose in the air. This was Mossforge’s signature aroma, a scent Treasure and I had often commented was always here even when Mookie had done no recent baking. I reached for the light panel next to the doorway and stood blinking as the memories surfaced. In the music room to the left I could suddenly hear Uncle Alex's rich baritone voice singing from the baby grand piano whenever he visited... the patter of Treasure's feet as she ran light-footed across the maple floors overhead and down the winding opulent staircase to my right... her bright excited voice shrieking my name with some thrilling announcement or other...

Like a chorus moving through the house, other memories joined these as I stepped forward. Mookie's musical voice reading to us next to the ornate fireplace in the living room... My own voice, bold and strong, making declarations with the Chinese gong that still stood on the built-in buffet in the dining room… Our famous family meals during the holidays in the same dining room, with its long worn table, creaky high-backed chairs, and the built-in plate rack that circled the entire room, to which childhood scratchings and drawings authored by Treasure and me were pinned with wooden clothespins. I could hear my great grandmother, who swore she was French, heckling my grandfather, who swore he was Cherokee, though neither claim was true. Yet Gran always arrived in outlandish French costumes, and Gramps could speak the Cherokee tongue and often swore at her in this language. They were all gone now, all of them. Even Mookie had moved on in her own way.

With so many windows, the house was filled with natural light even as the sun fell outdoors. The eggshell-blue kitchen held a built-in flour bin and bread board, as well as a charming dumbwaiter large enough to transport Treasure and me upstairs before we grew too big. We often used it in games of pretend, as wanted refugees hiding from the law, or as explorers spelunking in hidden recesses of the earth. So many memories drifted through today, each more delightful than the last.

I wandered upstairs after a time, finding Mookie had made little change since I had been here. Treasure's room was exactly the same, as was mine, both left as we deserted them, as if we would walk back into them at any moment. Maybe that’s what my mother had hoped for.

One bedroom was used as our schoolroom; even our old wooden desks were still in place, left there to whisper and enchant these many years later. Bookshelves lined the tall walls, filled with dusty volumes, bursting with the thoughts and ideas we were raised on. At the back of this floor, beyond the bedrooms, was an enclosed sleeping porch that faced the backyard, complete with a bench swing where Mookie wrote many of her novels. Those novels had made her famous, both hated and adored, though I did not learn this until Max told me years later.

Growing up, I rarely used my bedroom. My den was the cupola, the part of the Hideout that stirred the imagination and provided endless hours of clubhouse meetings, girl talks, important conferences and wild games... as well as the creation place for my own slew of novels after I was bitten by the writing bug. At the age of fourteen, I begged Uncle Alex to drag up a simple cot and an old antique desk for me — the two most important pieces of furniture in a writer’s life. These and a single string of Edison lights were the only items I kept there.

This simple chamber of imagination was a sky loft reached by ladder, overlooking Griffin and the countryside beyond. The cupola was also accessible from the elm tree outside the house, a discovery Max made and often took advantage of when he visited. He didn't exactly sneak in; Mookie was very aware of his presence every time and she never had anything to fear, not with me as her daughter. Treasure, on the other hand, was a slightly different story and might have become very susceptible to temptation if she had been given consistent attention like this. But fortunately for my mother, Max wasn't climbing in to see her youngest daughter. I would have saved her the trouble and throttled him myself.

That first night on my return I chose to settle in the cupola. Here the memories were happiest and warmest, like white noise that kept out recent disappointments. I told myself that tomorrow I would visit Griffin Park, my second favorite place in the world. I wasn't afraid anymore, and this visit home was already doing me a surprising amount of good. I had needed it more than I knew. With a heart and mind finally quiet after many weeks of turbulence, I slept.

***

It had been fall then, too, the kind of day to stir even the dimmest imagination. A northern breeze had driven me outdoors early. Inspired, I had headed for Griffin Park, an excellent backdrop for my latest discovery from the library — a novelette about a princess, the goblin who enslaved her, and the rejected suitor who came to her rescue. Mookie was the one who had sent me in search of it; she had loved it as a child and knew my taste in books.

The story required a moody setting and I planned to re-enact parts of it. I’d even dressed for the part, in an old ball gown I’d meticulously pinned and arranged so it wouldn’t completely fall off of me. In my arms was the suitor’s sword and the goblin’s hood, props I planned to use for their respective lines.

At eighteen, I was well aware of the spectacle I created bicycling through town to its outskirts. I had never understood why Griffin misjudged and snubbed my mother so persistently, but I was certainly aware of it. We had lived with slight consequences as a result of this underpinning animosity all of my life. Because of this, I tried to be discreet that day, though this was hardly possible riding through the streets on a boy’s bike in an oversized evening gown.

I was in good spirits, even if Treasure had refused to come with me. She was much happier with her coffee and a good novel in front of the living room fire. But the park was calling today, the stirring north wind and swirling leaves were beckoning, and away I went.

Griffin Park is laid out neatly, built for quiet folk who liked green hills for a backdrop and the strong scent of pine. I liked to think it was built for me. No one visited anymore, and the stone walls, tiny turreted gazebos, and tall pines made it feel like a private garden. Since I’d discovered the park at the age of ten, when Mookie trusted me enough to allow me to wander from home without supervision, the only invader I’d seen in my lush kingdom was Charlie, an old bent man hired by the city to maintain the grounds.

To my delight, I discovered a thin mist hovering when I ditched my bike and opened the high wooden gate to step into the park. This would make my scenes perfect, I thought, and hitched up my skirts and scurried across the trimmed greenway. I had already deemed the central gazebo — with the highest turret — my demon lair. From this, a brick path twisted away and to the crest of a hill behind it, where a stone pool and bench beside it provided an excellent fortress for my unprotected Princess. In the center of the pool was a stone boy, stooped down, as if the water had drawn him here, but his gaze was settled thoughtfully across the distance of the park, as if longing for something.

Once I reached the pool and was situated on the stone bench, with my skirts spilled around me and ready to begin my lines, I had a sudden pang of loneliness and wished Treasure had come with me after all. We rarely did anything apart, in spite of our many differences. She was tall; I was short. She was lean and gentle; I was compact and robust. She had a gift for making people love her; I preferred to observe strangers long before I ever warmed up to them. But she was such a willing companion I could nearly talk her into anything. Today, I thought she would have made an excellent princess for this story.

I breathed a sigh, told myself to press on, and slowly opened the library book. I skipped to the section that interested me most: the goblin who lured the Princess from safety with promises of freedom, only to enslave her. Those were lines I could sink my teeth into.

I threw on the goblin’s hood and ran down the hill to the gazebo, with the low mist parting before me. I stared fiercely from the entrance of the little shelter, as if I, the evil goblin, was too superior to enter the room where the dirty Princess huddled tiredly in the dust after a long day of work.

“Furthermore,” I snarled gleefully, with great flourish, “Tomorrow you will come out and entertain me and my guests. What is that, you say? Yes. They are indeed goblins as well, important friends and neighbors. I wish to make an impression on them with my little princess… my dear little slave. They have heard all about how the Great Grindlin managed to trick her into leaving her father’s house and has bent her to his will. You need not be confused on this issue, either, my dear little slave. You are bent to my will, you poor defeated thing. Look at you – crawling in the dirt, obeying my every command as if you have no dignity left. By far this is my greatest accomplishment of all.”

Then, throwing aside the hood and moving into the gazebo, I huddled down in one corner and used a stone bench located there to lean my arms on. These lines I did not embellish with any extra drama, but improvised softly and meaningfully.

“I will never be free, never. There is no one to save me. I belong to Grindlin now, I am his property. I see no choice but to parade before his friends as his trophy, though it will break my spirit to do so. I am trapped here. Where, oh where, is my sweet rejected suitor, he who I spurned and refused, thinking he would only enslave and imprison me?” And with that, I muffled soft tears.

Captivated, I felt ready to introduce the suitor and headed back up the hill, jumping easily to part one. I had read the novelette a half dozen times and memorized most of the dialogue.

I grabbed the dull sword where I’d dropped it and knelt before the stone bench, looking up as if at a great distance, as if the Princess was standing on a balcony several floors above me. In some region of my imagination I pictured the humble suitor staring at a woman of great beauty, the woman who held his heart, and was able to feel what he must have felt, rejected by her independent spirit, yet wishing against wish that he could win her as his own.

“Alas,” I said softly in the morning air, “I cannot stay any longer in your father’s castle, good Princess. You have decided my love will only hinder you, and I cannot bear another day looking at your lovely face knowing you will never be mine. Therefore I came to tell you I am leaving. I but came to say goodbye.”

Switching roles, I dropped the sword and climbed up on the stone bench, looking down with a lofty expression. Deliberately, I projected my voice so it carried across the park, enjoying the ring of it in the morning air. “I wish you did not have to leave, Prince. You have been a faithful companion to me for many years. Surely you are safer here within the walls of my father’s castle than outside facing the perils of this world. But alas, I hear you insisting that I am too great a distraction and your love for me too deep to be contained. I hope you will allow me to say I will miss you. Thank you for your many kindnesses, your companionship, and your friendship. Farewell…”

Then I dashed back down the hill to the gazebo, kneeling once more as the Princess enslaved in the goblin’s lair, fast-forwarding to part two once more. I was thoroughly engrossed by now, enjoying myself with relish.

“If only my kind, rejected suitor were here,” I mourned; “He always knew what I should do and helped me through my trials. If only I had not spurned and rejected him. Surely he would not have left if he had known the dangers I would face. Surely the danger he was to me could not compare to this horrible outcome, the tyrannical master I now serve, the slavery I now face. I will never be free, never. I do not even have the strength to hope for freedom…”

I would have finished the lines and switched to the Prince’s rescue, but something happened in that moment — something that would change my existence in a dramatic way.

To my shock, a deep soft voice said from the doorway of the gazebo, “Not to worry, sweet Princess. I have returned. I have returned to tell you there is hope. I will defeat the evil Grindlin myself if you wish it and hang his head on a pike for all to see.”