And at the peak of the highest mountain in the Land-of-Almost-Awake, known as the Telling Mountain, the enphants open their nets and let the stories fly free. And that is how the stories find their way into the real world.
At first when Elsa’s granny started telling her stories from Miamas, they only seemed like disconnected fairy tales without a context, told by someone who needed her head examined. It took years before Elsa understood that they belonged together. All really good stories work like this.
Granny told her about the lamentable curse of the sea-angel, and about the two princelings who waged war on each other because they were both in love with the princess of Miploris. She also talked about the princess engaged in a fight with a witch who had stolen the most valuable treasure in the Land-of-Almost-Awake from her, and she described the warriors of Mibatalos and the dancers of Mimovas and the dream hunters of Mirevas. How they all constantly bickered and nagged at each other about this or that, until the day the Chosen One from Mimovas fled the shadows that had tried to kidnap him. And how the cloud animals carried the Chosen One to Miamas and how the inhabitants of the Land-of-Almost-Awake eventually realized that there was something more important to fight for. When the shadows amassed their army and came to take the Chosen One by force, they stood united against them. Not even when the War-Without-End seemed unlikely to end in any other way than crushing defeat, not even when the kingdom of Mibatalos fell and was leveled to the ground, did the other kingdoms capitulate. Because they knew that if the shadows were allowed to take the Chosen One, it would kill all music and then the power of the imagination in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. After that there would no longer be anything left that was different. All fairy stories take their life from the fact of being different. “Only different people change the world,” Granny used to say. “No one normal has ever changed a crapping thing.”
And then she used to talk about the wurses. And Elsa should have understood this from the beginning. She really should have understood everything from the beginning.
Dad turns off the stereo just before she jumps into Audi. Elsa is glad that he does, because Dad always looks very downhearted when she points out to him that he listens to the worst music in the world, and it’s very difficult not pointing it out to him when you have to sit in Audi and listen to the worst music in the world.
“The belt?” Dad asks as she takes a seat.
Elsa’s heart is still thumping in her chest.
“Well, hi there, you old hyena!” she yells at Dad. Because that’s what she would have yelled if Granny had picked her up. And Granny would have bellowed back, “Hello, hello, my beauty!” And then everything would have felt better. Because you can still feel scared while you’re yelling “Well, hi there, you old hyena!” to someone, but it’s almost insane how much more difficult it is.
Dad looks unsure about it. Elsa sighs and straps herself in and tries to slow her pulse by thinking about things she isn’t afraid of. Dad looks even more hesitant.
“Your mum and George are at the hospital again. . . .”
“I know,” says Elsa, as you do when something has not succeeded in allaying your fears.
Dad nods. Elsa throws her backpack between the seats and it lands lying across the backseat. Dad turns around and straightens it up very neatly.
“You want to do something?” he says, sounding slightly anxious when he says “something.”
Elsa shrugs.
“We can do something . . . fun?”