Free Among Others by Jo Walton Page A

because apart from a letter from my father I haven’t had any at all this week.
    S UNDAY 21 ST O CTOBER 1979
    James Tiptree, Jr. is a woman! Gosh!
    I never would have guessed though. My goodness, Robert Silverberg must have egg all over his face. But I bet he doesn’t care. (If I’d written Dying Inside I wouldn’t mind how much of a fool of myself I made about anything ever again. It might be the most depressing book in the world, I mean it’s right up there with Hardy and Aeschylus, but it’s also just so brilliant.) And the Tiptree stories are good, too, though none of them quite up to “The Girl Who Was Plugged In.” I suppose I can see doing that so as to get respect, but Le Guin didn’t, and she got the respect. She won the Hugo. I think in a way Tiptree was taking the easy option. But think how fond her characters are of misdirection and disguise; maybe she is too? I suppose all writers use characters as masks, and she was using the male name as another layer. Come to that, if I was writing “Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death” I might not want people to know where I lived either.
    I was the only person not to get a bun today, not that I care. Even Deirdre got one from Karen. Deirdre looks at me in a strange puzzled way, which is actually worse than anything. I understand Tiberius’ reliance on Sejanus much better now. I also understand how he became peculiar. Being left alone—and I am being left alone—isn’t quite as much what I wanted as I thought. Is this how people become evil? I don’t want to be.
    I wrote to Auntie Teg, trying to sound cheerful. I also wrote to my father, hoping I might persuade him to take me to see her, maybe, and see Grampar in hospital. They’re the only people I have left now. He wouldn’t want to see them, but I could and he could wait in the car. It would be really nice to see some people who like me. Five more days to half term and getting out of this place for a week.
    M ONDAY 22 ND O CTOBER 1979
    In chemistry today, Gill came and sat by me. It was very brave of her, actually, considering how everyone has been behaving. “So you don’t think I’m a voodoo leper?” I asked straight out at the end of class.
    “I’m a scientist,” she said. “I don’t believe in any of that. And I know you got in trouble for sending me a bun.”
    It was lunchtime, so we went to the dining hall together. I don’t care what people think. She says she doesn’t read fiction much at all, but she’ll lend me a book of Asimov’s science essays called The Left Hand of the Electron . She has three brothers, all older. The oldest one is at Oxford. They’re all scientists too. I like her. She’s restful.
    The Magus is very weird. I’m not sure whether I like it, but I can’t wait to get back to it and I keep thinking about it all the time. It’s not about magic, not really, but the atmosphere is just like. It’s an odd thing to read, because he’s always walking for miles across the thyme-scented island, like we used to do. We’d think nothing of walking miles on the dramroads, up to Llwydcoed, or to Cwmdare. We’d usually get a bus to Penderyn, but once we were there we’d walk out across the tops for hours. I loved the views from up there. We’d lie down on the grass and stare up to see the skylarks, and we’d pick up bits of wool the sheep had dropped and card them and give them to the fairies.
    T UESDAY 23 RD O CTOBER 1979
    Leg very bad today. I have days when I can sort of walk, and then other days. I suppose I could say days when stairs are bad and days when stairs are torture. Today is definitely one of the second kind. I got another letter, dammit. I need to burn them or something. They’re so malign they almost glow with it. I can see them out of the corner of my eye, though it might just be the pain doing odd things to me. Friday is half term. My father’s going to pick me up at six. He didn’t say where we’re going, but it’ll be away from here. I can’t