Chapter Fourteen
The sun had cleared away the clouds by mid-morning on Sunday, and May and Patricia had decided to cut short their writing session to go for a lunch downtown. That had put May close to the skytrain she needed to take to get to the ferry later in the afternoon, and Patricia close to the coffee shop where she was supposed to meet with Kara and PJ.
They finished up their sushi quite quickly, after May gave her grandmother a suspicious look for ordering quite a bit of vegetarian sushi. Japanese cucumbers and deep-fried yam wasn't quite the same as carrots and lettuce, but it was closer than she was used to her grandmother getting – but they both ended up laughing over it and enjoying the food. Still, they finished earlier than expected, and Patricia invited May over to Trees for a tea before her journey back to Victoria.
“Patricia!” Kara's warm tones greeted her as she walked in the door, and Patricia smiled at the beautiful woman. She had forgotten to send May the description of her outfit the previous week, but this week she was decked out just as well, with a butter yellow blouse embossed with circles covered with a dark wool sweater vertically striped in shades of turquoise. She was just wearing dark wash jeans, but over them she wore knee-high leather boots in a bright blue that complemented the colours of her top half. Patricia grinned more broadly in appreciation, and waved to her.
“Kara, this is my granddaughter May,” she introduced, “May, Kara.” She left the two to greet each other, and went to order teas for herself and for May.
“It's lovely getting to know you, May,” Kara said as Patricia joined them at their small table in the corner, half-hidden behind the tall tree and its branches that graced one of the centre columns. “But I must admit, I really want to hear what happened with your grandmother's dreams last week. Patricia? Care to enlighten me?”
“You aren't going to wait until PJ comes?” Patricia asked, teasingly.
“At least throw me a bone, here!” Kara demanded, laughing.
“It was the rabbit, and his name is Alfalfa, and I have since met a few of his friends,” Patricia told her. “And that's all I'm saying until PJ is here, unless he's late.” Both she and Kara laughed. “Besides,” Patricia added, “May can't stay very long. She has a ferry to catch, or she'll be late for school tomorrow.”
“Alright, alright,” Kara said cheerfully. “Then tell me more about yourself, May! You said you're working on a novel too?”
“Yes, but it isn't going very well.” May smiled. “Grandma's is going much better – she's way ahead of the word count she needs to be at this point in order to make the 50,000 word goal.”
“Really?” Kara asked. “Can I ply you about your novel before PJ gets here, Patricia?”
“Nope,” Patricia grinned. “But mostly because he's just about to walk in the door,” she said, waving past Kara, whose back was to the front window, to the man in the fabulous coat. “Look quick, May,” she said to her granddaughter. “You'll want to see as much of PJ's coat as you can before you take it off.”
“Wow!” May exclaimed, staring at the man who walked in the front door of the coffee shop.
“Hi ladies,” PJ greeted them cheerfully. “Who's this?”
“My granddaughter, May,” Patricia answered. “May, this is PJ, who reads dreams and has a fantastic coat.”
PJ laughed. “Let me order a coffee and I'll come sit with you, ladies.”
"Grandma, I'd better head out," May said, glancing at her watch. "Mom will kill me if I miss this ferry."
"Okay, dear," Patricia said, standing to hug her granddaughter goodbye. "Give me a call tonight to let me know you made it home okay, and let me know if anything happens that I should know about." A slight shadow crossed her face. "Especially if it's something to do with Alex and Chrissie," she added.
"Alright grandma, but I'm also going to call you every day to make sure you aren't eating too many carrots."
Patricia laughed. "Thanks for visiting, May!"
"Nice to meet you both," May said to Kara and PJ, who was just bringing his Americano to their table. "Bye grandma!" She waved and scooted out the door into the early afternoon sun.
"She seems nice, Patricia!" Kara said cheerfully, while PJ pulled off his lovely leather coat and settled into May's now vacated chair. "But now: tell us all about everything!"
"Hmm," Patricia hummed happily to herself late that Sunday afternoon, as she let herself into her apartment.
She had enjoyed spending time chatting with Kara and PJ. Both had been surprisingly accepting of what Patricia had told them about the past week, though she still hadn't told them anything about her novel, or the new love triangle story in Alfred and Alfalfa's line of stories, nor had she learned anything more about their own lives.
They had both been convinced that Patricia had somehow been chosen. The plot bunnies had come to her, and from what she was able to tell them, that meant they were in the midst of a lot of flux.
"After all," PJ had asked her. "Hasn't Alfalfa as much as spelled out that plot bunnies have been helping human creative endeavours for decades, if not centuries? But we didn't know, except in that we had a few myths and metaphors about them. They're willing for you to know they exist - at least one of them is, at any rate - that has to count for something. Especially given his apparent willingness to expend energy to contact you - how much did you see he slept? That must be due to sending you those dreams."
All of which made a lot of sense, Patricia conceded. But why her, she couldn't help asking.
Except she knew the answer to that too: she hadn't been chosen. Alfred had. And that she could understand; she had chosen him herself as well. And, while she had told Kara and PJ that Alfalfa had said he had shown up in that apartment in search of Alfred, she had not described the part of the dream where Alfalfa had shown her his memories of Alfred. That was between the two of them... but it also meant that perhaps Kara and PJ did not understand the depth of the affinity between her husband and the plot bunny.
Regardless, they thought she had been chosen, and Alfred wasn't around, so it was as if she had been chosen. If Alfalfa had had another option, surely he would have left by now, to meet up with that more suitable person. But he hadn't. Either he believed in Patricia, or she was his only option, and whichever it was, that meant whatever needed to be done was up to her.
Not that she was sure anything needed doing, or whether or not she would even want to do it. Alfalfa had seemed to have a few things going on - whatever was making him hide with her, and whatever was going on between the plot bunnies and the NaNoWriMo novelists - and if he wanted her to do something that would be bad for NaNoWriMo, would she do it? Patricia wasn't sure.
In the meantime, what she needed doing was making a cup of tea. Patricia went to her kitchen, put the kettle on, and pulled out some of her autumn spice tea. She felt the need for something cozy. Vancouver was getting pretty brisk. She hummed to herself as she went through her usual routine, which now included checking the whereabouts of the rabbits while she waited for the water to boil.
None of them had been immediately visible when she had come in the door. She checked the cage; nothing. Perhaps they weren't in at all, which was strange. She hadn't had a rabbit-less apartment since Alfalfa had first arrived, although which rabbit or rabbits were present had changed since the others had arrived.
Patricia heard a slight scrabbling from the window and she pulled open the blinds. Oh, she thought. They've just decided to go outside. Or perhaps they've been out and are just now returning the same way Alfalfa arrived - she opened the balcony door and let them in, shivered against the brisk air as the two black rabbits and the familiar brown of Alfalfa hopped past her, and closed the door again, just as the kettle boiled.
"Hallo, all," Patricia greeted them cheerfully, nodding at the ear twitches that served as their replies. The rabbits headed for the couch, and she headed for the kitchen. "Care for some carrots, my rabbit friends? I have lots," she laughed. Alfalfa signalled yes, so after starting her tea steeping, she cleaned a carrot for each of them and set them on a plate on the floor.
They seemed happy enough, so Patricia took her tea to the computer. She needed to get some writing in - but she also wanted to take another look at the forums May had shown her. She wanted to see if the worldwide message board for NaNoWriMo novelists had any indication of the conspiracy by plot bunnies that Alfalfa had indicated existed.
Patricia had logged in and browsed for nearly an hour, and she was flabbergasted.
There had been hundreds of thousands of novelists who had signed up. The number who were still updating their word count had dwindled to five digits. In Vancouver alone, only 6 of the original 1500 were still involved.
Something was very wrong.
There were posts on the message board, yes, but the replies had dwindled with the numbers, and many of them had no updates at all. The staff of the Office of Letters and Light, which she gathered was the headquarters for NaNoWriMo, had almost stopped responding to posts, and what posts there were seemed nearly incomprehensible.
Patricia had also discovered the stash of emails sent by OLL staff. The first few, from before November and on the first of November, were catchy, clever, full of crazy ideas that suited the month perfectly, and yet each one managed to tell a coherent message and to sound encouraging and interesting and, if Patricia had read them earlier, would probably have inspired her to sign up for the challenge.
There were three since then, and they were all... miserable. She couldn't think of another way to put it. There was no structure to them that she could see. The grammar was correct, and so was the spelling, but the meaning was unclear. Nothing in it made sense. Patricia had sense enough to imagine what the message was supposed to be - nearly identical to the originals, but with added encouragement, updated anecdotes, more aimed at people who had written something than at people who were just starting with a fresh word processor file.
Unfortunately, whoever had written the emails had failed miserably. Patricia wondered to what extent that failure had contributed to the sudden sharp decline in participation in the event, and how much whatever else the plot bunnies were up to was doing. The combination had obviously been devastating... but there was no indication that anyone from the OLL had any idea what was going on, let alone any idea how to stop it, or even that something needed to be done.
Thinking back to the afternoon, Patricia wondered if perhaps there really was something that she had been chosen to do. More than just catering carrots to an apartment full of plot bunnies.
"Alfalfa," she said, still staring at the NaNoWriMo website. "How did this happen? What have your people been doing?"
She glanced over at the couch. "I suppose that's too complicated for a turn of your ears. Never mind."
Patricia drank her tea.
What would Alfred do?
There wasn't any doubt, really, she supposed. He would do everything he could to fix things. It was obvious that something was seriously sabotaging NaNoWriMo, and that meant a serious drawback to creative endeavours. He wouldn't stand for it.
Patricia sat up straight and set down her tea. So the plot bunnies had chosen her, had they? Well, whether they intended to or not, they had also gotten her involved on the other side.
She wouldn't stand for it either.
Patricia looked at the one section of the forums which was still showing regular updates: the Night of Writing Dangerously.
She was going to San Francisco.
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