A Philosophy

"That is not what I meant. Of course you belong here, because you have offered me your friendship, and friends always belong together. But friends look out for each other's welfare, and I am concerned for yours. I wish only to protect you."

"It is I who must protect you!" she exclaimed, although she did not understand why she felt this so strongly. "You need protecting. I can look after myself."

"None of us can look after ourselves," he said after a moment. "We all have to look after each other."

From The Museum of Mary Child by Cassandra Golds

My review:

A creepy, old-fashioned tale, a mystery, a (non-romantic) love story, a magical fable. Something like that, at least. As someone who reads heavily, I find it particularly refreshing when I have trouble categorizing or describing a book, when I can say it is fairly unique and different. (Not every book has a secret pet network formed to do good called the Society of the Caged Birds of the City, after all.) Particularly when it's a good book that I enjoyed. If you want to be pleasingly intrigued, I suggest you give this one a go.

-----

In any case," she added, "as you ought to know by now, happiness is a Waste of Time. Let me hear no more about it."

-----

For this - this - was love! This closeness, this affection, this protectiveness, this respect, this cherishing, this friendship, this joy between Maria and herself was not charity but love. And this fear of losing her, and the sadness and loneliness that would come if ever she did - that too was love. Love was joy and love was pain. Love was allowing someone to matter to you. Not for their usefulness to you, or even for your usefulness to them, but for no reason, except that they were they and you were you. Love was everything, all that mattered. And yet, in a strange way, her godmother had been right. For love was a kind of folly, a losing game. The greatest of all Wastes of Time.

But then, that depended on what you thought time was for.

-----

And thus it was that Heloise discovered that there were stories apart from the ones in the Bible, stories of magic lamps, flying carpets and caves full of treasure.

But she was not surprised.

Stories were everywhere, she knew that now.

She was beginning to think that, in all the world, there were really only two things - just two. The stories you knew, and the stories you did not know.

-----

"How do stories that begin with 'Once upon a time' end?" she asked. . . .

"With and they all lived happily ever after," he said huskily.

"I don't know the end of the story," said Heloise. "Or at least, I don't know how to get to 'and they all lived happily ever after.' But you do. I know it. Please. Tell me how."