True to his word, the gentleman is waiting by the tree, his fair hair and white suit pale against the darkness of the wood. His arms are folded, and he taps his fingertips upon his jacket sleeve in impatience. Around him, snowdrops are blossoming upon the newly-bare ground.

One night, as Buzz is walking alone (perhaps returning from dinner, or perhaps from the library), he will find that he is very suddenly not walking alone. In fact, he is walking beside a gentleman with a thin, pale face and hair like thistle-down, and the gentleman is conversing with him as though they have been at it for some time. "But of ( Read more... )

He is playing with the leftover eggs from Curio's ill-fated pysanky-making attempt, changing the eggshells from shell to clear glass or paper-thin marble. (The ones that he has changed to flesh, he liked less; they had quivered fitfully and then fallen in on themselves.) Go ahead and bother him, if you wish.

The gentleman with the thistledown hair is waiting at the crooked apple tree for Tom Jones. He hasn't been able to find him lately, for some reason, and it worries him--he is eager to continue their lessons, and he wonders if Tom is intentionally hiding himself with magic. Or, you know, possibly Tom is a dog.

At precisely three o'clock on Friday, there will be a table set for two by the lilacs in the garden. The tablecloth is made of shimmering grey spidersilk, and the tea service of the finest bone china; delicate silverware has been set at each place, and the table is positively brimming with pastries and delights. Tiny mincemeat pies spill from a ( Read more... )

The gentleman with the thistle-down hair walks the world's edges--between Earth and Faerie, between kindness and cruelty, and now, between both day and night, mansion and wood. As the sun sets in the west, he leans against a crooked apple tree at the very edge of the woods and waits for Tom to give his answer. If a certain magician's wife should ( Read more... )