FIRE - How much do they know of their home's history? Is their knowledge right? (for gideon!)
this is SUCH a good question for gideon specifically! it's gonna be a two-parter.
firstly, gideon's dad is a member of the siksika nation in AB, canada. he's not involved with gideon, (through no fault of his own; he has no idea gideon exists) but gideon's mom told him enough that he's done a little research on the area and knows that his ancestry goes way back. he knows that he only knows part of the history, because he only has access to the side of history that got put in the books.
secondly, when it comes to gideon's literal house, he and his sister live with a foster family on a farm on the edge nanton, AB. the house happens to be of special interest to gideon, because he found a collection of journals in the walls right when he was having a crisis of faith about his own identity and sexuality. reading about a boy named andrew (who lived in that very room in the 1930s) processing his own feelings about his best friend helped gideon to come to terms with himself. since then, he's been combing through the history of the town trying to find out how andrew's story ended, convinced that he and his best friend had a happy ending.
(he's right, they did. those familiar with my novel he called me finch will know.)
“andrew’s quiet laughter was a rush of joy meant just for us, a secret sound that tore right through me, the sun coming out from behind a cloud, always, always.”
he called me finch | a.elenko | excerpt from BOYHOOD
(image id under the cut!)
I think I willfully ignored a lot of things in the early years. Sometimes it was easier not to wonder until the answer was right in my face and there was nowhere I could go to run from it. But that usually meant that when I did stumble into the truth it hurt a lot worse than if I’d been looking from the beginning.
It was like that with Andrew’s mother.
I knew that I wanted to pretend she was alright, after I found out. That was the first moment of my life that I recall wishing I could go back to before it had happened and smooth out the creases of the whole day so that I could arrange not to know about it.
Andrew and I were sitting on the floor of the sitting room when it happened. There were papers scattered around us, because we were trying to sort out the details of one of Andrew’s marvellous ideas, which this time was a jacks tournament that we hoped would last the whole summer. Andrew had been in Nanton almost a whole year by then, and I’d made the mistake of making him collect names of players, and now we had too many, because when Andrew was the one asking, everyone said yes.
Outside, snow drifted aimlessly against the window in an impressive late-March display of winter’s refusal to let go, and Mrs. Fletcher was in the kitchen. I think she was probably listening to us, because she liked to do that. We always pretended we didn’t know so that she wouldn’t feel as though she ought to stop.
The two of us were in the middle of arguing over the merits of two or three person teams when there was a terrible crash.
Andrew was up and on his feet in an instant. I was after him a half-second later, so I was right on his tail when we skidded into the kitchen.
Mrs. Fletcher was on the ground.
For a singular, terrible moment, I thought she was dead. There was a teapot—or, pieces of it—scattered across the kitchen floor and she was lying there like she’d just collapsed where she stood, head lolling to the side, one arm out like the wing of a broken baby bird. And she really did look dead, because I couldn’t see her chest moving.
But then the next moment she opened her eyes.
Beside me, I heard Andrew start to breathe again.
“Oh,” Mrs. Fletcher said from on the ground, and then she started to cry.
There was something terrible about seeing a grown up cry like that. I glanced wildly at Andrew, but he was already in action, darting to her side and helping get an arm around her.
Between the two of us, we managed to get her standing, and I realized that my hands were shaking even though it had turned out alright.
Mrs. Fletcher didn’t stop crying even after she could walk, and Andrew led her into the sitting room while I picked up pieces of the teapot just to have something to do so I wouldn’t have to think. I used the crocheted dishrag that Petra had made for Mrs. Fletcher that Christmas to wipe up as much of the tea as I could, and by that time, Andrew had come back.
He jerked his head toward the mudroom and so we slipped out carefully. Andrew shut the screen door but left the wooden door open.
I waited for him to speak first. The mudroom was bitterly cold, and I was in my sock feet, but I didn’t think the dread I was feeling in my chest had anything to do with temperature.
“She’s lying down,” Andrew said, voice low and quiet.
I glanced into the sitting room. I could see the corner of her foot hanging over the arm of the chesterfield, but the rest of her was hidden from view. “What happened?”
“She fell,” Andrew said.
There was an extended pause. The wind made a violent show of rattling the windowpanes behind him.
After a moment, Andrew said, “It happens a lot.”
“Well—” I stood there and shivered, hands wrapped around myself. “Why?”
“We don’t know,” Andrew said, and his voice was tiny and tremulous. “Father told me the doctors don’t know either.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I didn’t know she was sick.”
“I know you didn’t,” Andrew said, and he sounded miserable. “I didn’t tell you.”
I wanted to ask him why. I didn’t.
But I saw it all the time after that. I hadn’t known to look before then, but after I saw the way Mrs. Fletcher’s hands couldn’t quite stay still, and how she just kept on getting thinner and thinner until Mother started sending me over with extra food so Mrs. Fletcher wouldn’t have to worry about getting it ready. I saw the way she hugged Andrew longer, like she didn’t want to let go.
I knew Andrew didn’t want to let go either. I just hoped she knew it, too.
hi alex! the sotm stuff looks so great. i hope the writing is going well! any updates on hcmf? i love that one and cannot wait for more updates
hey, anon! thanks so much! it's going super well, now that i'm back into it! it's been a bumpy year, but i'm back in the flow now :)
i'm still working on hcmf (as recently as yesterday!) and i actually hit 50k the other day! hcmf has been a really interesting project, for two reasons.
1. it's a historical fiction piece that centres around a very real event, so it requires a buttload more research than i usually have to do for my projects. it also spans more than a decade of one character's life, and will absolutely be the first project i complete and have to go back and cut a significant amount of scenes to make it at all publishable if i go that direction with it.
2. i tend to start projects and finish them before they get the opportunity to lose impetus, so i got really nervous when i petered out of writing entirely around this time last year and thought it would be lost to the wind. but to my delight, it has made a thoroughly encouraging recovery!
all that to say - yes, there will be updates shortly! it's just going slowly. the more i think about it, the more i'm glad this has been my first project to span more than a couple of months in first draft stage, because it's been such a delight to grow with finch as he comes into his own. it's nice to know that people still think about it! i'll have to post an excerpt soon.
(and if anyone is interested in alpha reading, 3/6 sections are done and ready to be read :) )
i love the stage of a new project where everything about it grabs hold of me and i have to wrench myself away from writing, drawing, scribbling notes to do anything else at all. this is a boy in progress from a book in progress.
