#the rowan

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

The Rowan Cover Art by Romas Kukalis

[grimnirs-child]

cannot recommend enough just walking around your neighbourhood, noticing the plants, trees, birds, creepy-crawlies, mammals, rocks, watercourses, etc that are around you. looking them up and learning about them, how they behave, their seasonal rhythms and changes. learning about their presence in folklore and mythology and culture.

these are your neighbours. if you take a few minutes to learn about them, if you make the small effort to notice them, be mindful of them on a regular basis, honour them and respect them - this is animism. this is re-enchantment.

we all live alongside and in community with a myriad of spirits. it is truly so beautiful and life-affirming and sacred to appreciate that and the unique character of your neighbour-spirits.

[meat-loving-meat]

I think I read The Rowan by Anne McCaffrey too young to really appreciate the subversion of typical awakened-psychic-power fiction. Like yeah these people can teleport shit with their mind and can communicate faster than light! How cool is that!!! They even fight aliens from time to time!! But mostly they just work 9-5s transporting cargo between planets

[thethistlegirlwrites]

Faebruary/Febuwhump Day 27

Prompt: “I wish I had never given you a chance”

(Second to last day already? How’d that happen? I’m gonna miss these...This one’s another character I’ve never written from the POV of before...but this one might be the strangest yet, since it’s the Rowan! I’ve NEVER written from the perspective of a sentient tree before, but it was fun to think of ways the Rowan would experience the world around it and how it would try to understand fae and humans. Hope you enjoy! Spoilers for the book below the cut!)

Humans have magic too.

The Rowan has known that since it met Serenity. Since her fingers wove together with his when they planted the tiny cutting in its new home. For the first time, the Rowan had felt the magic of human hands, mixing with its own as it grew and thrived and made itself a home for those it was bound to protect.

When a second time one of its inhabitants brought a human to its branches, the Rowan did not feel threatened. Humans had been part of every moment of its existence in this place. Adam brought joy to the house the way Serenity had.

He belonged.

When Adam took Ellie away, the Rowan felt empty, like someone had cut the leaves from its branches. Hamish and Serenity seemed emptier too. Things had changed, and for the first time in this place, the Rowan watched someone it had protected leave its world.

Such things had happened before. Part of it, the part of it that carried ancient magic across generations, knew this. But here, it was young, and the cut was as fresh and deep as if made with the blade of an axe.

But like birds in springtime, Ellie came back. Not forever, but for days and weeks. Sometimes alone, sometimes with Adam. Soon, with a small child of her own. A child who played with its leaves and laughed when the Rowan touched his hair. A child who learned to walk and run with the help of the Rowan’s branches as well as human hands.

Another loss, of another kind, shook them all like a storm the day Serenity died. The Rowan was the first to feel that she was gone, her human magic fading from the air, but trapped and remembered forever in the rings of its growth, in the print of her hands on its branches.

Nothing was quite the same, but life went on around the Rowan. The little boy, Robin, grew taller and stronger, climbing into the Rowan’s branches to see the world beyond the tiny glamoured place they all called home.

But one day, when Ellie came back, her magic was strange. Wounded, bleeding, a raw gap in it like a branch when the wind tears it away. Robin’s magic felt the same.  

And when Ellie leaned her head against the thick trunk and whispered that Adam was gone, the Rowan felt her tears fall like rain.

The loss had done more than tear away something from her, it had split her heart in two like a lightning-struck trunk. The Rowan felt her fade, even as Hamish tried to save her with his magic. But what had kept Serenity with them for far longer than her failing body would have allowed was unable to save Ellie. It was not her body that was wounded, and the Rowan could feel it. It was her heart.

A row of stones grew across the Rowan’s branches, emptied from Robin’s pockets into his mother’s hands. Another tried and failed attempt to reverse the autumn change. Until one day her magic faded too, leaving only Robin and Hamish and the Rowan with its memories.

And then, in the same manner as everyone before him, Robin too brought a human to the Rowan’s doorstep. Humans meant heartbreak, Hamish had said, but the Rowan remembered that humans also meant laughter and smiles and a new kind of magic. And the boy with the funny pieces of glass on his face and the books full of words in his knapsack was magic.

As always, though, things changed. The Rowan was no stranger to loss and leaving, and this time, when Robin left its door and took his magic with him, it held onto hope. Sometimes, people came back. And the Rowan would be ready if Robin did.

Seasons turned into years, and Robin never came close to the Rowan again. Hamish faded, his magic of youth and health spent first on his wife and then on his daughter. Robin’s human, Cody, left too, saying he was going to a mythical place called a ‘library’, but coming home often enough that his magic never quite left the Rowan’s walls.

And then Hamish was gone too, and the only magic left was a human’s.

And then...Robin came home.

Just like Ellie, he was broken. Like a tree after a storm. Hurt and afraid, skittish like one of his animals that he rescues. But unlike Ellie, he healed. Or at least he started to.

And then…

And then Adam took him away.

Because the Rowan let him come home too.

Fae trees are loyal. Once they trust someone, that bond is for life. The Rowan had accepted Adam. Trusted him. And for the first time, its trust has been betrayed.

It believed in humans. Saw the good in them. Let them into its world. Let them become part of its life. Of its magic. It believed in their potential. And it saw the value in them, even in their brief lives, like the butterflies or the birds or even the tiny fireflies that found their way to its branches the moment the first blossoms unfurled. Even the fae come and go, under the watch of the trees who guard them. And all of those centuries are contained in the Rowan’s memories as surely as the life it has lived in this land.

The Rowan has seen hurt and pain and loss. But this is the first time it has seen its own magic turned against it.

And it knows that the next time it sees Adam, it will make sure that he understands one very simple thing. It may not be able to speak, but there will be no denying the point it needs to make.

The Rowan wishes it had never given him a second chance.

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[melissatreglia]

Markiplier Moodboard: “The Rowan” Fan Cast

Fan casting of Anne McCaffrey’s epic science fiction romance novel “The Rowan”. Featuring Amy Nelson (Peebles) as The Rowan and Mark Fischbach (Markiplier) as Jeff Raven.

“The morning does us no good. NOW is when we need [ ‘germdogs’, ie. medical drones]. We’ve got to have as many healthy bodies as possible. Can’t you sling the medics... no, you can’t, can you, not with Jupiter’s mass in the way. Sorry, I just found the data on your station... But look, if six viruses don’t constitute armed attack, what does?”

“Missiles constitute armed attack,” the Rowan said primly.

“Frankly missiles would be preferable. Them I can see. Can’t you turn your sweet little mind to a solution?... My family, my friends, my planet are dying!”

“Look, after hours here means we’re behind Jupiter. But... wait!  How deep is your range?”

“I don’t honestly know.” And his firm mental tone lost some of its assurance.

“Hang on, Deneb. I’ve got an idea. I can deliver your germdogs. Open to me in half an hour.”

The Rowan was only a child of three when tragedy first struck in her young life. Her psychic scream for help ensured that she was the only survivor of an avalanche in a small mining village on the planet of Altair. Her power ensured that she would grow up to be lauded by many as a T-1 telepath and teleporter, the rarest combination of talent... while also remaining isolated from others because of her powers.

Years later, as the Prime Talent of a key FT&T base on Jupiter’s moon Callisto, the Rowan receives a telepathic distress call from a powerful but untrained Talent named Jeff Raven. Deneb, the most distant system humans have yet colonized, is under attack by alien invaders. Jeff's been under an exhausting vigil to protect the tiny population of his home planet, trying to gain medical supplies for his people... then later, as he telekinetically deflects a barrage of missiles from the hostile extraterrestrial force.

With light-years between them, and all Prime Talents like themselves cursed with a deep phobia of space travel, the Rowan cannot physically reach him to help... and she also can’t help falling in love with the charismatic, charming man who’s so far away and needs her so desperately.

Where power fails to span the distance, love can build a bridge.

Available in paperback, hardcover and audiobook (though, regrettably not as an ebook) at Amazon.

[therealbohemian]

The Rowan, Palm Springs

[thelibraryofmars]

I swear I’m not dead, just going through a lot of life changes right now (including moving in with this precious and only sometimes obnoxious kitty). The Rowan by Anne McCaffrey is a mixed bag so far. I love the concept of the universe (telepathy and telekinesis are the powerhouse of space exploration), but I’m not thrilled with the story or characters.