#she knew it loosely even before verne's novels - knew it even more when his books were published and she devoured each new one

[doctorbrown]

MCFLY JULY ‘24 ⸺ 「 26 / 31 * CLARA'S DIPHTHERIA 」

March 1866

The telescope starts angled down, fixed on the patch of grass where she could watch life go on around her. While her throat is on fire, every other breath a struggle, her friends run around without a care in the world, playing and laughing and heaving exhausted breaths that, admittedly, flare a pang of jealousy in her chest that could even rival the pain.

The entire world goes on out there while she is unable to do much more than sit and languish in this pseudo-prison.

Clara watches sometimes, half-longingly, half out of boredom, and sometimes they catch her all-seeing eyes trained on them. Emily smiles, lifting a branch that has been repurposed into some fantastic tool in a story that she no longer has a part in. Brandon spots the tell-tale shine of a star in the window and grins up at her for a moment until his attention is called elsewhere.

It's all terribly mundane, she realises, detached and observing from her vantage point on-high. The same old thing.

A few days later, she no longer looks down and envies the kids out there. She can’t explain why, but she doesn’t feel like she belongs down there. Not anymore. Maybe she never did.

She has had far too much time to think about that lately.

—

Sleep doesn’t come easy some nights. When her body isn’t trying to kill her—or at the very least drive her to madness—her mind won’t quiet, taking the brief reprieve to run wild, even at the cost of what little fitful rest she could manage. Clara drags herself over to the window and draws back the curtains, throwing herself onto the chair that she’d set up there by the golden telescope.

The cool air feels wonderful against her flushed skin and Clara reaches for the telescope, pointing it skyward in search of companionship in the stars. The moon winks at her from behind a passing cover of clouds and Clara smiles, waving back at the man on the moon before he disappears.

She wakes the next morning to a violent coughing fit and sand in her throat, folded over uncomfortably in the chair next to her telescope.

—

Her father brings the kindly older doctor again to check on her, Doctor Hubbard, and she grabs onto her knees to force herself to sit still through the whole affair. He makes all those infuriating, non-committal noises that tell Clara absolutely nothing, pokes at her and gives her the most foul-tasting concoctions to choke down, and though he’s apologetic about it—or at least he appears to be—she still wants to push him away.

He comments about the new position of her telescope. Clara says she found more wonderful, interesting things in the sky.

—

Clara begs her father for a book about the constellations and after fourteen seconds of being subjected to the most wide-eyed pleading look from his daughter who can barely speak, he agrees, and for a second, she feels as if she could scale mountains.

Two days later, her father slips into her room bearing gifts—a star chart and an old book that may be too difficult for her to read about another world right up there on the moon.

Her telescope finds a permanent place pointed up at the stars.

[talesfromthebookdragon]

Women of Means

Welcome back to Whimsical Wednesday my Wonderful Wordy Wyverns. Today’s Gem is a Diamond the size of the Ritz with just as many facets and in the light will knock your eyes out. It is all too often envied more than the Sorcerer’s Stone or the Arkenstone of Thrain. Women especially delight over it and men will do everything to capture the woman who has it, killing for it, to bask in it’s glow. It’s curse makes the Hope Diamond look like a mere spell taught by a teacher of The Black Arts to his Hogwart’s First Years. This is “Women of Means: The Fascinating Biographies of Royals, Heiresses, Eccentrics and Other Poor Little Rich Girls, ” cultured, created and formed exquisitely by Gem Maker Marlene Wagman-Geller. I was asked a question today. “What would you do if you had a billion dollars?” A week ago, a week before I read this book, I can assure you my answer would have been quite different. Dear Marlene has pulled the, pardon the pun, scales from my eyes. “Women of Means” is a book filled with the stories of the richest royals, heiresses, eccentrics and other ‘poor little rich girls’ in history. Many you know. You have heard their names, bought their products (whether you knew it or not) or watched their lives play out in the evening news. If you are over 40, you have probably salivated, wanting what they had. Let’s do a bit of name dropping here: Gloria Vanderbilt heiress to a fortune, designer of the first designer jeans, and mother to the now famous Anderson Cooper. For the over 50 set, remember Sunny Von Bulow? I love the way she is portrayed as the modern Sleeping Beauty. I had never thought of her that way until now. The Guggenheim Museum? Ah, there is little Peggy Guggenheim, who grows up to discover the famous Jackson Pollock and collect dogs and paintings and lots of men. Let’s try one more. Do you love Downton Abbey? What a silly question, you are my Book Dragons, of course you love Downton Abbey, so you have of course heard of Almina Victoria Marie Alexandra Wombel, dear Julian’s basis for Lady Cora Crawley. What did all these women have in common? Money, inherited money, the vast sums of which would make most women pass out if they thought about what they could do with it, if they thought about it longer than as a passing fancy. Imagine being born to wearing silk’s, satin’s, lace, only ever leather shoes, fur coats, never cloth, the best of everything. Never ever watching your parents trying to make ends meet. But then perhaps rarely ever seeing your parents at all. These women often knew their nannies, butlers and chauffeurs better than they ever knew their parents. Often shuffled off to boarding schools they often lost touch with grandparents or extended family they might have had a relationship with. Or worse yet, over protective or tight-fisted family who held everyone a slave simply with purse strings instead of balls and chains. Some of these women tried to marry their way out. One took up such a bohemian lifestyle her parents completely disowned her. One painted portraits of her mother as beheaded. Another was killed by her own offspring when he ran a knife through her heart. One sat on the vast L’Oreal Empire quiet and reserved until her 90th year when all Hell broke loose in a scandal. In the pages of this book are extravagances beyond imagination and heartaches beyond bearing. Adventures that would have made Jules Verne envious and parties that would have made Paris Hilton at her height weep with joy. Sorrows that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy and tragedies that only Job, himself, would have understood. If you only read one true book this year with stories of real women, doing real things, and sometimes actually thriving, this is it. It’s like walking into a closet in an old manse and finding a pile of famous diaries. You will be sorry if you don’t. I guarantee it. It’s currently available on Amazon.  If you have that person on your gift list who loves steamy romance novels, hot gossip, can’t get enough of day time talk shows or Hollywood News…this is the book for them! And check out Marlene Wagman-Geller’s other titles. I know I’m going to! Until tomorrow, I remain, your humble Book Dragon, Drakon T. Longwitten I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.