[Protect, Update]

  "We’re Off to see the Wizard!"

  We were about a mile from Tranquility when I turned to Lu and said, “There’s something I’ve been keeping from you, and it’s been bothering me…”

  “Me too,” Lu said. “ I lied to you because I’ve been keeping something from you, and I was planning to tell you today.”

  “Ok, Lu on the count of three, we both say our thing at the same time, would that be OK?”

  “Sure, sounds good to me.”

  “One, Two, Three.”

  “My characters aren’t just characters, they actually live in my head.”

  “I’m a werewolf and before we met for the first time, I used to follow you through the woods, because you’re so beautiful, and you smell so nice but not in a I want to eat you kind of smell, just a wonderful scent. I’m sorry I guess I had two things to confess.”

  “Ok so you're a werewolf, who used to stalk me.”

  “Yes, that's true on both counts, and you have characters living in your head.”

  “Yes, also true.”

  “How many characters, I mean one day a month I’m a wolf so technically I have a wolf living in my head.”

  “As near as I can tell, a couple of hundred, but I don’t know all of them very well.”

  “A couple hundred?”

  “Or maybe five hundred, I think that’s the size of their village.”

  “You have a whole village of people living inside your head.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow, it must be noisy.”

  “That’s all you have to say, it must be noisy and you used to stalk me.”

  “Yes, I found you irresistible. I’ve never stalked anyone else.”

  “I don’t know what to say should I be proud or appalled, I’m the only one you’ve ever stalked.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  “Ok you know what could we just not talk until after lunch. I really need to think, so I just need a little quiet time.”

  “Um sure, are you going to talk to your village about me?”

  “No need, I just found out recently they can see everything I do.”

  “Wait.. What, you mean the other day, when we took that bath together, a whole village saw me naked.”

  “Yep.”

  After that we walked in silence.

  “Werewolf, stalker. It didn’t sound great. So you have a stalker who’s also a monster and now we’re out in the middle of nowhere, that’s just great, Rose. You really know how to pick them.”

  “Juliet get out of my head, I am trying to think.”

  "Seems to me, Rose, the only thing to think about is how to escape, get back to the village, warn the villagers and get out the pitchforks and fire, wolves don’t like fire so don’t forget the fire."

  “It’s not that simple, Juliet.”

  "Stalking, Monster, seems pretty simple to me, Rose.”

  “Look, Juliet, everyone has flaws. You don’t have to tell me, you fart in your sleep and it smells so bad I don’t know how you can sleep through it, once it was so bad I threw up."

  “Juliet, you have to stop joking around, I’m trying to think.”

  "All you need to think about is how to get away or or I could get the huntsman, he could tell you how to put her down."

  “Juliet STOP. I’m not putting Lu down, I’m not running away. I think, I'm pretty sure, I’m almost positive that I love her, Juliet, and when you love someone you don’t run away from them. You wouldn’t run away from Ivy. If Lu had any intention to hurt me, why would she tell me that she stalked me and was a werewolf? That’s exactly the kind of information you’d hold back from them.”

  "True, True, but what about when she’s a wolf, can she control that?"

  “I, I, I don’t know, maybe, maybe not. I’ll ask her. Wait.. Juliet, that wolf that saved my life then disappeared, that might have been Lu, protecting me. I’ll ask her, I just need some quiet time to let this all sink in, OK?”

  "OK, Rose, but if you’re wrong about all this, while you’re being eaten alive, I get to say told you so."

  “Ok Juliet, if that will make you feel better.”

  "It will, it really will. Now I can go back to worrying if she’ll forgive me for keeping this from her."

  [Misuse, Group]

  Why oh Why did this have to happen?

  A group, a village, every time I talk to her. I’ll feel like I’m on stage at the Black Dog. Forget the idea of a tender moment, again on stage. Bathing together might just as well take our baths at the Black Dog, I can hear the wolf whistles now. Ironic isn’t it.

  I’m not a particularly shy person but every person must have some kind of limit, right? They're probably all in there judging me right now. Telling her I’m a monster, and I stalked her, some kind of hunting monster. Oh why does it have to be like this, Rose is my ideal woman, I could search this whole world and all the other worlds as well and never, ever find someone even close to Rose.

  I wonder if I could just get over it, forget she has a village in her head, if she could look past the stalking, look past my monthly transformations. Maybe the only way to tell is just to live with it for a while, try as quickly as possible to get over an overt shyness, but otherwise just accept it as it is, refuse to feel used. Now I can go back to worrying if she’ll ever be able to forgive me.

  [Create, Fame]

  "What’s it like traveling together?"

  We are very polite to each other as we eat our lunch, but we’re both as shy as the day we first met. This is so awkward and we still have another full day of walking before we reach Wyldwood. I take out my lute, it’s the least awkward thing I can think of doing and begin to play. One of the Histories of Old, about a pair of star crossed lovers, the male love interest offends a vain and powerful sorcerer and gets transformed into a bear who kills the woman he loves.

  When I realize what I’ve just played I stop abruptly, put down the lute and walk into the woods. How could I be so stupid, of all the songs to play, now Rose is going to think that I want to murder her. I should just keep walking after that performance. She'll never want to speak to me again.

  I sit down on a stump and have a nice cry for myself. This was supposed to be our magical week together, instead it’s turning into a nightmare. Finally tired of feeling sorry for myself, I headed back to where we had lunch. When I’m almost there I can hear Rose singing the song we created together, then applause.

  When I step back into the clearing a traveling merchant and his family is sitting with Rose chatting away. When Rose sees me she says, "Here’s the real bard herself, perhaps she’ll play the song for you and your family as it is meant to be played. Lu this is Master Deeds and his family. They’ve just come from Quintessence, your song is a hit and you’re famous, do you believe it?"

  "Please play for us, Lu," the children cried.

  I smiled and thanked them, picked up my lute and sang and sang and that self pity went away. Imagine the song that Rose and I created being sung in Quintessence. When I finished, the merchant told me that Oberon wanted to meet the bard who created it.

  I said that Rose did more to create it then I did. The merchant said well then you’re both famous, take a trip to see the King and Queen. Quintessence is the model from which all other cities have been made, fey, human, gods or devils. All imitate but none can compare. I thanked the merchant for the kind words and he thanked me for the song saying he can’t believe he met some famous people so far from the capital.

  Then Rose and I started again for Wyldwood, a little lighter than before lunch. We walked again in silence and eventually as the sky started to darken, I suggested we set up camp. Rose agreed and started a fire to heat our supper, while I set up the tent, I put her pack and blanket inside and then I fixed up my bedroll on the other side of the fire.

  Rose asked me, "You're not sleeping in the tent?"

  I told her no, I thought I’d sleep outside under the stars.

  [Leave, Goal]

  I tossed and turned all night, just last night I’d dreamt of sharing a tent with Lu and then we had our disaster of a day. She was only across the fire from me but it felt like miles and I think emotionally it was.

  So I got up early, and as soon as I was out of the tent, Lu got up and rolled up her bedding. I went into the woods to relieve myself, by the time I’d come back the tent was down and the tea was ready. Lu really is an expert in the woods. Soon we were on our way, Lu said that we’d be to town by noon at the latest, and we could skip cooking a camp meal and eat at Madd Maggies Magical Bakery.

  That suited me fine, I’d never eaten at a magical bakery or at a magical anything. Tranquility doesn’t have a lot in the way of magic, wizards or witches. We both kept up a brisk pace as the awkwardness still ruled the day and any attempt at conversation soon sputtered out. Soon we were at the town gates where the town guards looked us up and down and deemed us harmless enough, letting us pass. When we arrived at the bakery, Lu said, "You go in first, if Maggie's there she likes to talk one on one with new customers and after a little talk she often offers them something special. I’ll wait out here until you’re done."

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  So in I went.

  "Hi, Welcome to Madd Maggie's Magical Bakery. I’m Lily, what can I get for you?"

  "Hi Lily, I’m Rose, and I’ll have whatever you recommend for lunch."

  "Well what did you have for breakfast?"

  "Just some beef jerky, we were camping."

  "We?"

  "Lu’s waiting outside, she said Maggie likes to talk to customers alone but I’ll go get her."

  "No, wait I’d love to chat and I do like to talk one on one, tell me about your trip."

  "Oh, it was horrible, we had both been keeping secrets from each other, we both felt guilty, we fessed up, now we’re barely speaking."

  "Well, Rose I might be able to help, if you feel that you can share your secret with me."

  "I don’t mind telling you mine, but I couldn’t tell you Lu’s."

  "Good because I wouldn’t want you to, that’s for Lu to tell if she wants to."

  "Ok, I’ll tell you mine, but you probably won’t believe me anyway."

  "Oh you be surprised, Rose, I’ve heard some very strange stories."

  "Ok, I’m here to deliver a manuscript to Wizard Brightspark, I’m a novelist or at least I hope to be a novelist and the thing is the characters live inside my head and if I ask them to they can take over my body and do things that I can’t do."

  "Like what?"

  "Well back in our hometown, Lu wandered off into the woods and I thought she was sick, so I tried to follow her but couldn’t. So I asked the Huntsman to help find the path and track to Lu."

  "Did you find Lu?"

  "No, I was attacked by wolves before I could find her, then I fainted and she found me and took care of me."

  "You don’t have any scars I can see, how could you fight off the wolves if you’d fainted?"

  "Oh I didn’t fight them off there was a large wolf chained to a tree, she fought the pack and saved me."

  "Well that was nice of her, just wait here I have to look in the back to see what I have."

  "Ok thanks."

  "Alright, sorry it took so long, but I wanted to find just the right thing. Before I give it to you I want you to promise that you will wait at least one week before eating it and I want you to tell Lu the story about the Huntsmans, Ok?"

  "Ok I promise but can I ask why you want me to wait a week."

  "Sure I was going to tell you why even if you didn’t ask. The reason I want you to wait is because once you eat the Erase Biscuits all the people in your head will be gone and there is absolutely no way to get them back. “

  “Does this kill them?”

  “No, doesn’t hurt them in the least, except if they were close to you they’ll feel a loss like you died. But you won’t remember them at all, so you won’t feel a loss. But I want you to wait at least a week to really consider what you’re losing when you eat this. You’ll never be able to use them as characters in any future novels. If you read your own novel it almost seems as if someone else wrote it, because in a way, someone else who had that vibrant inner world wrote the novel. By losing them you really lose a part of yourself. Remember these are magical so they’re never going to rot or anything, you could keep it a year and it’d still work for you. I just don’t want you to do something in haste you’ll later regret. Even though you won’t remember the people around you are going to notice a change in you, you won’t be as vibrant as you are now. Are you Ok with that?"

  "Oh yes, thank you so much, Lily, what do I owe you?"

  "Hmmm, let's see how about you dedicate your next book to me, and send me a copy."

  "Thanks so much, Lily. I’ll send in Lu."

  "Hi, I’m Lily you must be Lu, nice to meet you, let me just catch you up, Rose just told me her secret, I gave her something to deal with it, it’ll remove all the people in her head for good. It’s non-reverseable. I made her promise not to take it for a week, so that she really considers the gravity of what she’s doing. I presume she is doing it for you. The only problem is that it is going to fundamentally change her, that bright and bubbly personality is probably going to fade dramatically. If you like her the way she is now, don’t let her take the Erase Bisquits. Ok, she said you had a secret too, but didn’t tell me what, if you want I might be able to help.”

  “Yes please, I’m a werewolf and I kept that from Rose and I used to follow her around because I found her captivating not because I wanted to eat her."

  "Got it, she told me a story about how she was attacked by wolves and a big she wolf protected her, you’re the she wolf correct?"

  "Yes it was me but I lied and told Rose I just found her the next morning but we were getting closer and closer and I just couldn’t keep lying to her.”

  “Ok, I have something for you too, but it’s the same deal, promise you’ll wait a week before using it and you have to tell Rose the truth that you saved her from those wolves.”

  “You chain yourself every full moon?"

  "Yes I don’t want to hurt anyone."

  "But you didn’t hurt Rose."

  "No, I could never hurt Rose, I love her."

  "You need to tell her this tonight. If you take what I gave you it’ll remove the werewolf, but also a lot of your strength, a strength you’ve used to defend Rose. Your confidence level is also going to drop which will affect your profession, you're a bard I think. Magic is great but there is always a hidden cost, I want you going into this with your eyes wide open, ok?"

  "Here’s some pizza for lunch. You can eat it right away. The only thing it does is taste good and relieve your hunger."

  "Would you send Rose back in, I forgot to feed her."

  "Rose, here’s some pizza for lunch. I also wanted you to know I gave Lu something to change her, but it has the same unwanted effects. It'll change her too, she will be a lot weaker, her confidence will drop which will affect her performance ability. If you love her the way she is now don’t let her take the cookies I gave her."

  "Lily thanks so much for everything, I’ll write to you next week and let you know how everything turns out."

  "That pizza was delicious, that is a marvelous place. Thank you for bringing me here. I think we really need to have a proper talk tonight, do you know a good inn in town, granny gave me some gold to get us a room, and that’ll also give us the privacy we need."

  "Yes, I stayed at the Jack in the Green Inn last time I was here and it’s nice. But what about Enigmatic Parchments? Didn't you want to go there next?"

  "No you and I are more important than a book, I want to get us a room then if there’s time then I’d love to go to the bookstore. But you and I come first."

  "Welcome to Jack in the Green, I’m Jack the owner, room or food."

  "Right now we’d just like to get a room, but we’ll want supper later."

  "Oh sure, supper is included with the room as well as breakfast tomorrow morning. Room 2, top of the stairs on the left."

  After we dropped our things in the room we decided to go to the Enigmatic Parchments. We found the store easy enough with Jack’s directions but it was empty, well empty of people, plenty of books. I called out "Hello" a few times, a couple of "is anybody heres." But I got no replies just as we were about to leave a piece of paper came flapping at my head like a butterfly. I went to shoo it away and it just evaded my hand then dropped neatly into it. In big printing it said, I’m busy right now, if you want to buy a book, take it and come back tomorrow to pay for it, if you want me to read your manuscript leave it on the desk and come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you if it’s any good or not and if I’ll publish it or not. I plunked my book down on the desk and we walked back to the Inn.

  "Lu can we talk now before supper, I have something I wanted to tell you."

  "Sure that sounds good to me, Rose."

  "Well the thing is I told you about the characters in my head, and how they see what I can see and hear, but 'not sure if I told you they can also take over my body if I ask them to. Well that night I followed you into the woods because I thought you were sick, I had the Huntsman take over my body so he could track you, that’s how I really ended up in that clearing."

  "I see, so your characters can actually help you if you need them to, but they can’t just take over your body unless you ask, right?"

  "Yep, that’s right, now I need to know, are you the wolf that protected me in the woods that night I fainted."

  "Yes I always go to that clearing when I’m going to change so I can chain myself to the tree, I can’t unlock the lock when I’m in wolf form, once I wake up human again I can unlock myself and put my clothes back on."

  "Well thank you for saving my life a second time, Lu I don’t want you to change, Lily said if you take the cure, you won’t be you. So please promise me that tomorrow you’ll take your cure back and give to Lily."

  "I will Rose but only if you do the same, Lily gave me the same warning about you, you wouldn’t be you without that village in your head, you wouldn’t be the woman I fell in love with without that village so please keep each and every one of them."

  "Lu did you just say that you love me?"

  "Yes I’m sorry if it’s too soon, but it’s how I feel and I’m not keeping anything from you ever again."

  "Lu it’s not too soon I love you too."

  Then we had a nice intimate supper in our room, and then I got ravished for the very first time, and second time, and third time and then we kind of passed out.

  [Strange, Victory]

  "Will my book get published?"

  I’m really nervous as I open the door to Enigmatic Parchments, but the smell of books and dust and something sweet soothes my nerves at least a little still I walk timidly to the counter and no one is there. Is this a real shop? No one ever seems to be here. Another fluttering note dive bombs my head, then lands in my hand. Sorry had to pop out to Lily’s for another of these sweet buns. BBS.

  Who’s BBS? I thought the wizard's name was Brightspark, I said softly. There was a strange glow behind the counter and a loud popping noise, when from the glow emerged a very tall, thin man, with bushy white eyebrows and orangeish red hair that almost looked like it was on fire or at least glowing stood behind the counter and handed me a sugar bun.

  "Go on, eat it, it’s very good, from Madd Maggies. I already had four of them myself. Writers use their brains, the brain is a muscle, you need to feed a muscle. I find sugar works best, then tea. You must be Rose."

  "Grandmaster Brightspark, it is an honor to meet you." I said curtsying the best I could.

  "Stop, stop the names Brightspark but after reading your book and seeing your aversion to long names why don’t you call me Sparky."

  "I, I, could never sir."

  "Yes, Rose, I insist, besides I quite like it don’t you, makes me feel spry. Yes, Rose, you must henceforth refer to me as Sparky do you understand?"

  "Yes, I understand."

  "Come on, let's hear it."

  "Yes I understand, Sparky."

  "Perfect, now let’s get right down to it. I loved your book and I want to publish it. Today as a matter of fact, you’re not from Wyldwood correct? That way if I publish today I can give you some copies for your local bookshop in Tranquility. Is that ok with you?"

  "Yes sir, more than OK."

  "What did you just call me?"

  "Ummm, um, sir."

  "What’s my name?"

  "Umm, Grandmaster Brightspark."

  "Gods, for a writer you’re pretty dense aren’t you? It’s Sparky, not sir, not Grandmaster."

  "Yes, Sparky."

  "Perfect, now I’d love to meet Juliet, she’s such a vibrant character. I know people always throw that word around but she really is colorful. I bet she really pushed back on you, really made you work for it. Could you please bring her out now?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Yes, Rose, please be so good as to ask her to come and meet me."

  "I don’t understand."

  "Rose, it’s the most basic bibliomancy spell."

  "I don’t know any bibliomancy spells, I’m not a wizard, I don't know any spells. I’m just an author."

  "No, you’re not, Rose, you are a Bibliomancer."

  End Part I