Yup. Validation, she is our friend....

Hokay. Today has been a complete fucking movie from hell, but here's the rest of it:

• * *

Sun, falling on my eyelid. The touch of warmth. I opened my left eye, and saw that I was still alive.

Within the field of my immediate vision, I saw my own legs and feet, their shape moulded under a light cotton coverlet. I was in bed, then, a comfortable bed, if a bit no-nonsense, with its metal frame. I saw sunlight in dancey shafts, fluttering as a pair of gauze curtains fluttered. Something in my left arm: an IV tube, attached to a bag on a wheeled stand. A telly, mounted high on the wall opposite.

I remembered. I had died. What in hell was I doing here, then? And where, precisely, was 'here'? I was in hospital, obviously, but why did I remember nothing of how I'd come here? How was I alive?

My right eye didn't work. I turned my head - it went slowly, but painlessly, with nothing more than a numbness and a tingling in my neck. I let my left eye focus on the window, doing the work of both eyes, gritting my teeth as it blurred and protested. After a long moment, the smear of blue and indistinct shapes framed by the sill and sashes cleared. I saw a bit of skyline, a silhouette that had nothing to do with the golden stone and dreaming spires of Oxford.

London. I was in London. Somewhere south of the Thames, from the look of it. How....?

I moved my head again, to take in my right arm. Both arms were lying on the coverlet; the right was bandaged, from bicep to fingertips. I let my vision move down the blanket, looking again and more closely at the covered humps that were my legs; the right was larger than the left. Most likely bandaged as well.

"You're awake! Oh, that's lovely!"

Had I been able to jump, I would certainly have done so. My right ear, facing the door, had registered neither the door itself opening nor the ward sister in her blue cap and pinny, coming up close beside me. If I could hear nothing on this side, I was in trouble.

The sister fussed over me, busy important little motions that accomplished nothing. I watched her as she checked the IV level, adjusted my coverlet, looked meaninglessly at the chart at the foot of my bed, all the while clucking and smiling encouragingly at me. I watched her and I gathered my patience, even as I tested my legs for mobility. My head was remarkably clear. There were things I needed to know. "Sister? Please, sit and talk to me for a minute. I'm - I'm awfully fuzzy." My voice was blurry, that much was true, but the blur was physical: the muscles around the right side of my mouth weren't in synch with the rest of my face. " Where am I? And, I'm sorry - I don't know your name."

"I'm Sister Anne." She pulled up a chair and sat. "This is St. Stephen's, dear, in the Fulham Road."

I was right, then; that bit of skyline was London. How, how in sweet hell, had I come here? Had Rupert come back for me after all? But why all the way to London?

"What - can you tell me what day this is?" How long had my spirit, my consciousness, been out in some pain-free hinterland, while my body wrestled with itself?

"It's the second of July, dear. 1971." She had a comfortable West London accent, bringing back the years before the Carolan for a sharp, poignant moment. "You've been here ten days."

Ten days past my birthday, my attainment of the magical eighteen. Rite of passage, trial by fire. I shuddered.

"How - I don't remember how I got here. I don't remember anything at all. What happened?"

It was true, at least the first part was. I was not going to tell anyone anything, if I could avoid it. I wasn't going to trust anyone, not now. I was going to trust myself, take care of myself; an idea, half-formulated, was adding to itself as I lay in bed. Unless my witchcraft had been taken, burned out of me by the ruined spell....

"A gentleman brought you in," the sister said conversationally, and I felt my heart leap. Rupert. It had to have been Rupert; there was no one else. He hadn't abandoned me then, he hadn't broken his oath.... "An older gentleman, French. Very handsome he was, too. Had half the casualty ward sisters in a regular flutter, he did. He left us your things, and by the time we checked you into the burn unit, he'd gone off. Never came back. Thing is, he left your clothes and your money, and we put it away for you, but there's no papers in there, no identification. We don't even know your name." She beamed at me, a smile of genuine warmth, and touched my left hand gently. "But we're all going to be awfully pleased you've come out of it. Can you tell me your name?"

"I wish I could." The lie came easily, through my astonishment. My father? My father had come for me, and brought me here, and seen that I lived? I would have to think about this, to understand it, to somehow process and make sense of it. But for now....trust only myself. "I don't remember. Is there - can I talk to the surgeon, please? I want to know things."

She was disappointed, but she went. First, though, I requested and was given a glass of water. I sipped, experimentally, while she watched me. It took a few swallows, before I realised that nothing in my throat had been damaged. The feeding tube was only because I hadn't been awake to eat naturally. Good. It was a beginning.

continued:

She returned with the surgeon, and he talked. He gave me everything I needed to know: the original extent of my injuries ("we were horiffied, we honestly didn't think anyone could survive it, sixty percent of your body with critical third degree burns"), the prognosis or what they perceived as my prognosis, the things that were now dead and that I must not expect to ever regain. He did say that they were flabbergasted - his word - at how fast and completely the parts of me that did heal had actually done so. I swallowed hard. Perhaps, without knowing, I had made a wish after all, when I blew out the candle on Mrs. Gollie's little cake. I remembered, too, that back in the shop, even though I'd renounced my status as Slayer, I'd wished to retain the Slayer's gift of quick, thorough healing. Happy birthday, Amanda....

"So." I brought myself all the way back, and summed up. "What you're telling me is that my right eye and right ear suffered severe and total damage, and will never work properly again. And that my right arm, and most of the neural pathways on the right side of my body, are damaged, but not enough to keep me from walking at some point?"

He looked uneasy for a moment, and I realised that my calm, professional assessment of my own handicapped future was not what he expected from someone he saw as a homeless, nameless, friendless teenager. I held his gaze with my own functional left eye, and waited.

"That's it." He decided - I could see him decide - to match my tone and play it my way. "You can walk now, I imagine. Do you want to try? Now you're awake, we can take the feeding tube out and bring you a light meal."

I did indeed. They helped me out of bed, brought me a short cotton robe to cover the indecent bedgown with its open back, and a pair of slippers, made of what felt like paper. I walked around the room, slowly, unsteadily, gaining strength with every circuit, letting my left side take the brunt and feed on the strength it needed. I had indeed kept the Slayer's healing gift. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy....

We sat down, after I'd gone by myself to the loo. I came back and ate, again under their watchful eyes, polishing off a bowl of soup, four fingers of dry toast, a glass of juice. I was absolutely ravenous.

When the food was gone, I got back into bed, listening to my body. Slayer no longer, that was certain; had I still been the Slayer, the Council of Watchers would certainly have done something to get me under their control. So I had actually died. That part, at least, I had not dreamed.

"Could I see what was left for me?" I hated lying as much I was having to, a lie is a tool of the weak, but it was necessary. "Maybe if I see some of my things, I'll remember better."

They brought me clothing: these were my clothes, from my room at Mrs. Gollie's. My overnight grip, with some of my favourite trousers, and cotton sweaters, all with long sleeves. Shoes, not my birthday shoes; they would have been destroyed in the fire. Lastly, a black purse. I sat up against the pillows, and held it a moment. I'd never seen it before in my life. My father had left this for me. He had come from somewhere, he had known. Carefully, slowly, I opened the purse.

Money, rather a lot of it, several thousand pounds, in a soft silk bag. I blinked, and offered up a momentary thanks that the hospital staff was trustworthy. Four small glass jars, each numbered: one through four.

At the very bottom of the purse, taped to the lining, a key. It was tiny, and dark, and made of some sort of metal that felt very strange to the touch. I thought perhaps that my sense had been damaged, but as I touched it a second time, my finger tracing the cut edge, it softened and faded, then solidified again.

I closed the purse, holding it, refusing to let it go. They patted me, sympathetic, warm, understanding the damaged homeless child with no family, and her desire to cling to something that might actually be hers. I let them believe that.

I left the hospital in the small hours, dressed, with my black purse over my shoulder and my grip in my left hand. No one saw me go; if I had come out of the disaster in the Woodstock Road dead and damaged and reborn, I had somehow attained something close to invisibility at will. I left an envelope for the staff, with money and a line of thanks for their care of me. My writing was clumsy, sprawling, and the effort made me sweat, for I was right-handed and would have to learn a whole new mode of functionality.

Into the London night I went, a ghost on these streets, not for the last time, but for the first time. Outside, people moved past me, walking in and around and through their lives: dowdy matrons with carriers full of tinned goods, longhairs, couples and veterans and dogs and cats. They saw nothing of me, because I had so willed it, and muttered my spell. This I still had, whatever else was lost to me.

I made the long walk to Hyde Park, cutting up through Knightsbridge, listening to my body, sorting out what lived and what was dead. When I grew weary, I rested against ambassadorial buildings, within inches of uniformed sentries. They never saw me; they never heard me. I knew where I was going, and I knew, too, what I was going to have to do when I got there.

It took me longer than I'd anticipated to reach Speakers Corner. I had never made this walk before, and had no notion how far it was. But I came to the northeast corner of Hyde Park not long before sunrise. I was thirsty, and tired, but these things were nothing, nothing at all, and would be remedied soon. The words of an old American spiritual came into my mind: All my trials, lord, soon be over. I remembered Rupert playing the song for me, Joan Baez and her clear mournful bell of a voice, and something in my heart cracked a little. It was better, far better, to not think of Rupert.

Marble Arch, a dull handsome gleam in the predawn light, held my good eye a moment, distracting me from things better left alone. I saw the sign for the Tube station, the marquee of the movie theatre. A street cleaning vehicle, its enormous brushes churning, jetted water as it moved down Park Lane. There was no one here, no nanny with a pram, no early runners, no beggars, no one at all. There was only me.

I went to Speakers Corner, and sat, opening the black purse on the ground. Four glass bottles, one through four. One tiny key. I took the bottles out and opened each, in order, setting them down.

I closed my eyes, and spoke. "Papa? Ecoutez, papa."

I am here, petite.

"Tell me how to do this, papa." I was sitting in silence; no one could have heard, no one could have seen. I was Speaker, and my father listened. "Tell me how to go, how to leave this behind. Tell me how?"

That is why I came. Ask yourself first: are you certain, that this is what you want? To go? Because the key to peace, to freedom, is there to your hand. But this is not an easy river to cross, petite. So you must be sure.

The river of Jordan is muddy and cold, it chills the body, but not the soul....all my trials soon be over....

"I'm certain, papa. Where will it take me, this key? What does it open?"

A little house, Amadee. I thought I heard a laugh, a warm loving sound, moving down the dead skin and fire-damaged neurons like a hug. A door to a little house, where you may be lost, or found. Your own little place, yours alone, to move at will between walls of this world and many others.

I drew a breath. "Show me."

It was an easy spell. Each jar, in order, a casting, repeat three times. It answered my nagging terror, put paid to it - my power, far from dissipating like ash in the sorcerer's wind that was the needfire, had grown stronger as I healed. I mixed my powders, I casted, I watched. When I had finished, I took up my belongings.

"Papa?"

Watch the Corner, Amadee, my darling girl. Take the key in your hand. Have it ready. Your moment is coming. And trust yourself, always. Au revoir, petite.

The air began to move. I could see it, molecules of spectral light, of shadow and solidity, the air shook and shuddered and shaped. A portal, a gateway, a door.

I took my bags in hand and went through without a backwards glance.

• * *

end:

• * *

Fifteen years have gone by. I have a certain measure of peace, and my house, Le Perdu, is all my father Alain promised me; a haven, a floating ship. Sometimes I direct it, to places where there exists something I need; sometimes I let it drift. I keep it anchored to this world, though, for every home must have some foundation, and mine is in the hills outside a small California town called Sunnydale. I had no idea why the house kept wanting to return to this spot, but return it did.

So I wait in peace, sometimes in yearning, always learning what I can. And someday, perhaps, there will be more to tell.

• * *

clap, clap, clap, clap! Brava!

Wonderful! Oh, it leaves so many little threads fluttering loose, so tantalizingly, even while it explains some things in The Pensioner. Did you know all this backstory on Amanda when you wrote The Pensioner?

The remarkable thing? You've done just enough to anchor this story in the late 60s and very early 70s. Just the way Mary Stewart anchored her stories postwar in England or in the mid-sixties in Greece and France. It isn't 'dated,' so much as anchored in the sensibilities of the time. Excellently, evocatively done.

woo hoo.

What Beverly said about anchored, not dated. And the other nice things, too!

Did you know all this backstory on Amanda when you wrote The Pensioner?

Nope. Only the bit about the confrontation in the shop on her birthday. No details at all, and none of the rest.

It's damned near 15,000 words long. Crikey.

Impressive, and sad.