know. Guess I just happened to be in the right place at the right time
.
O flipped the page: POETRY – front room, center aisle, left side, just past CHILDREN’S BOOKS .
She walked the aisles with the list in one hand and a pink feather duster in the other, locating each section as she read it off the list. They were identified by hand-lettered cardboard labels, thumbtacked to the shelf. She ran her eye over the contents of each section, pulling out a title or two that caught her interest, running the feather duster over the tops and the spines of the books.
If the shop had a mouth, it would have laughed at the feather duster. The shop was way beyond feather-dusterstage. Dust lay thick over everything. What they really needed was a huge vacuum cleaner – or a small hurricane. All the duster did was stir the stew around a little.
O ran her eye over the contents of the poetry section. She recognized some of the “biggies,” like Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Whitman, and Eliot, but many she’d never heard of before. There were even a couple of Emily’s books tucked among the masters. She pulled out one and looked at the black-and-white photo on the back cover. A very young Emily looked back. There was a touch of the otherworldly about her even then. It seemed she was not so much looking
at
you, as
through
you.
She was suddenly aware of Emily staring at her from the desk. Sliding the book back in place, she moved on. The last thing she needed was to show that she had an interest in poetry. That was her secret, and she intended to keep it that way until she was ready.
That morning, she had tangled with Emily over her smoking. It wasn’t like her to lash out like that, particularly at an adult. It had been the fatigue talking.
In the three weeks she’d been at the Green Man, O had gotten into the habit of leaving the door at the foot of the stairs to her room open a little at night. She wasn’t exactly afraid of being alone up there, but she’d heard noises – noises she couldn’t put a name to. They’d startup as soon as the house was still. It was probably nothing more sinister than mice moving in the walls or raccoons scampering across the roof. But her imagination had different ideas.
Last night she’d gone to bed, as usual, with her copy of
A Treasury of Great Poems
. She had made her way safely through the seventeenth century without so much as a mention of madness. But as she entered the eighteenth century, all that changed.
It was the Age of Reason. Poetry was considered a decorative art. Those poets who dared search for deeper truths were scorned. Isolated and ignored, they did the one thing any sane person would do – they went mad.
Suddenly mad poets were everywhere – William Collins, William Cowper, Christopher Smart, William Blake. An epidemic of madness. Christopher Smart composed his long poem
Song to David
while confined in a madhouse. Denied the use of pen and paper, he scratched the verses on the walls of his room with a key.
William Blake claimed to be in communion with the spirit world. He spoke in a matter-of-fact way of the spirits of dead poets who visited him and inspired his own poems. He said everybody had the ability to experience visions and simply lost it through neglect. Most people thought he was mad, and he lived in poverty and obscurity for most of his life. Despite that, he wrotesome of the most beautiful lyrics in the English language.
O drifted off to sleep while she was reading. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sleeping, when suddenly she woke with a start, her heart pounding. There was a smell of roses in the room. Could it have drifted up from the back garden? she wondered. Or had Emily crept into her room to check on her while she slept and left a lingering scent of perfume behind?
She fumbled for the lamp by the bed and switched it on. The book was lying on the floor. The sound of it falling must have woken her. She lay back against the pillow, trying to
.
O flipped the page: POETRY – front room, center aisle, left side, just past CHILDREN’S BOOKS .
She walked the aisles with the list in one hand and a pink feather duster in the other, locating each section as she read it off the list. They were identified by hand-lettered cardboard labels, thumbtacked to the shelf. She ran her eye over the contents of each section, pulling out a title or two that caught her interest, running the feather duster over the tops and the spines of the books.
If the shop had a mouth, it would have laughed at the feather duster. The shop was way beyond feather-dusterstage. Dust lay thick over everything. What they really needed was a huge vacuum cleaner – or a small hurricane. All the duster did was stir the stew around a little.
O ran her eye over the contents of the poetry section. She recognized some of the “biggies,” like Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Whitman, and Eliot, but many she’d never heard of before. There were even a couple of Emily’s books tucked among the masters. She pulled out one and looked at the black-and-white photo on the back cover. A very young Emily looked back. There was a touch of the otherworldly about her even then. It seemed she was not so much looking
at
you, as
through
you.
She was suddenly aware of Emily staring at her from the desk. Sliding the book back in place, she moved on. The last thing she needed was to show that she had an interest in poetry. That was her secret, and she intended to keep it that way until she was ready.
That morning, she had tangled with Emily over her smoking. It wasn’t like her to lash out like that, particularly at an adult. It had been the fatigue talking.
In the three weeks she’d been at the Green Man, O had gotten into the habit of leaving the door at the foot of the stairs to her room open a little at night. She wasn’t exactly afraid of being alone up there, but she’d heard noises – noises she couldn’t put a name to. They’d startup as soon as the house was still. It was probably nothing more sinister than mice moving in the walls or raccoons scampering across the roof. But her imagination had different ideas.
Last night she’d gone to bed, as usual, with her copy of
A Treasury of Great Poems
. She had made her way safely through the seventeenth century without so much as a mention of madness. But as she entered the eighteenth century, all that changed.
It was the Age of Reason. Poetry was considered a decorative art. Those poets who dared search for deeper truths were scorned. Isolated and ignored, they did the one thing any sane person would do – they went mad.
Suddenly mad poets were everywhere – William Collins, William Cowper, Christopher Smart, William Blake. An epidemic of madness. Christopher Smart composed his long poem
Song to David
while confined in a madhouse. Denied the use of pen and paper, he scratched the verses on the walls of his room with a key.
William Blake claimed to be in communion with the spirit world. He spoke in a matter-of-fact way of the spirits of dead poets who visited him and inspired his own poems. He said everybody had the ability to experience visions and simply lost it through neglect. Most people thought he was mad, and he lived in poverty and obscurity for most of his life. Despite that, he wrotesome of the most beautiful lyrics in the English language.
O drifted off to sleep while she was reading. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sleeping, when suddenly she woke with a start, her heart pounding. There was a smell of roses in the room. Could it have drifted up from the back garden? she wondered. Or had Emily crept into her room to check on her while she slept and left a lingering scent of perfume behind?
She fumbled for the lamp by the bed and switched it on. The book was lying on the floor. The sound of it falling must have woken her. She lay back against the pillow, trying to
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