I wanted to share this with you, what an adventure! Check it out! I have included the following information for you to get to know the book and author.
THE
TREE OF WATER
Elizabeth
Haydon
1
To
Go, or Not to Go
The
human boys had an expression back in the faraway city of Vaarn where
I was born. It went like this:
Curiosity
killed the cat
Satisfaction
brought him back
I
am a curious person. I was just as curious back in my early days in
Vaarn as I am now, perhaps even more so, because my curiosity had not
yet been given a chance to be satisfied.
The
first time I heard this expression, I was very excited. I thought it
meant that my curiosity could make me feel like I was dying, but it
would let up if I discovered the answer to whatever was making me
curious.
I
told my mother about the rhyme. She was not impressed. In fact, she
looked at me as if I had just set my own hair on fire on purpose. She
patted my chin, which was woefully free of any sign of the beard that
should have been growing there.
“That’s
very nice,” she said, returning to her chores. “But just in case
nobody told you, you are not a cat, Ven. Unlike you, cats have
whiskers.”
My
pride stung for days afterward.
But
it didn’t stop my curiosity from growing as fast as my beard should
have been.
My
name is Charles Magnus Ven Polypheme, Ven for short. Unlike the human
boys in Vaarn, I am of the race of the Nain. Nain are somewhat
shorter than humans, and grumpier. They live almost four times as
long as humans, and tend to be much less curious, and much less
adventurous. They hate to travel, don’t swim, and generally do not
like other people. Especially those who are not Nain.
I
clearly am not a good example of my race.
First,
I am very tall for a Nain, sixty-eight Knuckles high when I was last
measured on the morning of my fiftieth birthday. I’ve already
mentioned my uncontrollable curiosity, which brings along with it a
desire for adventure. I have been blessed, or cursed, with quite a
lot of that recently.
But
as for the curiosity, while I’ve had a lot of satisfaction for the
questions it has asked me, it doesn’t seem to matter. As soon as
one burning question is answered, another one springs to mind
immediately. As a result, I am frequently in trouble.
So
now I am about to lay my head on a chopping block, on
purpose,
and a man with a very sharp knife is standing over me, ready to make
slashes in my neck.
I’m
wondering if in fact instead of being a live Nain, I am about to end
up as a dead, formerly curious cat.
Because
now I have three whiskers of my own.
Ven
Polypheme had two sets of eyes staring at him.
One
set was black as coal. The other was green as the sea.
Neither
of them looked happy.
The
green eyes were floating, along with a nose, forehead, and hair on
which a red cap embroidered with pearls sat, just above the surface
of the water beneath the old abandoned dock. The brows above the eyes
were drawn together. They looked annoyed.
The
black ones were in the middle of the face of his best friend, Char,
who stood beside him on the dock. They looked anxious.
In
the distance a bell began to toll. Ven looked to his left at the
docks of the fishing village to the south of them, where work had
begun hours ago. Then he looked behind him. The sleepy town of
Kingston in the distance was just beginning to wake up.
Ven
looked back down into the water.
“Come
on, Amariel,” he said to the floating eyes. “I can’t really go
off into the sea without him.”
A
glorious tail of colorful scales emerged from below the surface,
splashing both boys with cold salt water.
“Why
not?” a girl’s voice demanded from the waves. “He’s a pest.
And he isn’t nice to me.”
Char’s
black eyes widened.
“I—I’m
sorry ’bout that,” he stammered. “When I first met you, Ven
didn’t tell me you were a mermaid—” He shivered as another
splash drenched him again. “Er, I mean merrow.
I’m sorry if I made you mad.”
“Hmmph.”
“Please
let him come,” Ven said. “Captain Snodgrass gave him orders to
keep an eye on me. So if I’m going to explore the sea with you, he
kinda has to come along.”
Char
nodded. “Cap’n’s orders.”
“He’s
not my
captain,” said the merrow. “I don’t take orders from humans.
You know better, Ven. My mother will fillet me if she finds out I’m
traveling with a human male. Especially
if we are going to go exploring. There are very clear rules about not
showing humans around the wonders of the Deep. And besides, it’s
dangerous. You have no idea how many sea creatures think humans are
tasty. I don’t want to get chomped on by mistake.”
Out
of the corner of his eye, Ven watched Char’s face go white.
“We’ll
be careful,” he promised. “Char will be on his best behavior.”
“I’ve
seen his best behavior. I’m not impressed.”
“Look,”
Char said. “If you get sick of me, you can always cover me with
fish guts and toss me out as shark bait.”
The
merrow stared coldly at him.
Below is the interview with the author:
Interview
with Elizabeth Haydon,
documentarian,
archanologist
and translator of Ven’s
journals,
including The
Tree of Water
Little
is known for sure about reclusive documentarian and archanologist
Elizabeth Haydon.
She
is an expert in dead languages and holds advanced degrees in Nain
Studies from Arcana College and Lirin History from the University of
Rigamarole. Her fluency in those languages [Nain and Lirin] has led
some to speculate that she may be descended of one of those races
herself. It should be noted that no one knows this for sure.
Being
an archanologist, she is also an expert in ancient magic because,
well, that’s what an archanologist is.
Being
a documentarian means she works with old maps, books and manuscripts,
and so it is believed that her house is very dusty and smells like
ink, but there is no actual proof of this suspicion. On the rare
occasions of sightings of Ms. Haydon, it has been reported that she
herself has smelled like lemonade, soap, vinegar, freshly-washed
babies and pine cones.
She
is currently translating and compiling the fifth of the
recently-discovered Lost Journals when she is not napping, or
attempting to break the world’s record for the longest braid of
dental floss.
We
had the chance to ask her some questions about the latest of Ven’s
journals, The Tree of Water. Here is what she shared.
- Dr. Haydon, can you give us a brief summary of The Tree of Water?
Certainly.
Ven Polypheme, who wrote the, er, Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme,
lived long ago in the Second Age of history, when magic was much more
alive and visible in the world than it is now. His journals are very
important finds, because they tell the story of ancient magic and
where it still may be found in the world today.
In
the first three journals we saw how Ven came to the mystical island
of Serendair and was given the job of Royal Reporter by the king of
the island, a young man named Vandemere. The Royal Reporter was
supposed to find magic that was hiding in plain sight in the world
and report back about it to the king. As you can imagine, this could
be a fun but dangerous job, and at the beginning of The
Tree of Water, we
see that Ven and his friends are hiding from the evil Thief Queen,
who is looking to find and kill him.
Amariel,
a merrow [humans call these ‘mermaids,’ but we know that’s the
wrong word] who saved Ven when the first ship he sailed on sank, has
been asking Ven to come and explore the wonders of the Deep, her
world in the sea. Deciding that this could be a great way to find
hidden magic as well as hide from the evil Thief Queen, Ven and his
best friend, Char, follow her into the Deep. The sea, as you know, is
one of the most magical places in the world—but sometimes that
magic, and that place, can be deadly.
The
book tells of mysterious places, and interesting creatures, and
wondrous things that have never been seen in the dry world, and tales
from the very bottom of the sea.
- The main character in The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme series is Charles Magnus "Ven" Polypheme. Tell us about him.
Ven
was an interesting person, but he really didn’t think so. He and
his family were of a different race than the humans who made up most
of the population where he lived, the race of the Nain. Nain are an
old race, a little shorter and stockier than most humans, with a
tendency to be on the grumpy side. They live about four times as long
as humans, are very proud of their beards, which they believe tell
their life stories, don’t like to swim or travel, and prefer to
live deep in the mountains.
Ven
was nothing like the majority of Nain. He was very curious, loved to
travel, could swim, and longed to see the world. He was actually a
pretty nice kid most of the time. He had the equivalent of a baby
face because only three whiskers of his beard had grown in by the
time The
Tree of Water
took place, when he was fifty years old [around twelve in Nain
years]. He had a great group of friends, including the merrow and
Char, who were mentioned earlier. It is believed that his journals
were the original research documents for two of the most important
books of all time, The
Book of All Human Knowledge and
All
the World’s Magic.
The only copies of these two volumes were lost at sea centuries ago,
so finding the Lost Journals is the only way to recover this
important information.
- What kind of research do you do for the series?
I go
to places where Ven went and try to find relics he left behind.
Usually this is with an expedition of archaeologists and historians.
I am an expert in ancient magic [an archanologist] so I don’t
usually lead the expeditions, I’m just a consultant. It gives me
the chance to learn a lot about magic and lets me work on my suntan
at the same time, so it’s good.
- What is/are the most difficult part or parts of writing/restoring the Lost Journals?
Here’s
the list, mostly from the archaeological digs where the journals have
been found:
1]
Cannibals
2]
Crocodiles
3]
Sunburn
4]
Sand flies
5]
Dry, easily cracking parchment pages
6]
The horrible smell of long-dead seaweed
7]
Grumpy members of the archaeological expedition [I could name names,
but I won’t]
8]
Expedition food [when finding and retrieving the journal for The
Tree of Water,
we ate nothing but peanut butter and raisin sandwiches, olives and
yellow tea for six months straight]
9]
When salt water gets into your favorite fountain pen and clogs it up.
This is very sad.
10]
Unintentionally misspelling a word in the Nain language that turns
out to be embarrassing [the word for “jelly” is one letter
different from the word for “diarrhea,” which caused a number of
my Nain friends to ask me what on earth I thought Ven was spreading
on his toast.]
- What do you enjoy about this series that cannot be found in any of your other books?
Getting
to write about a lot of cool magic stuff that used to exist in our
world, but doesn’t anymore. And getting to travel to interesting
places in the world to see if maybe some of it still does
exist. Also getting to show the difference between merrows, which are
real, interesting creatures, and mermaids, which are just silly.
- What do you hope readers take away from this book?
I
hope, in general, that it will open their eyes to the wonder of the
sea, which takes up the majority of our planet, but we really don’t
know that much about it down deep. There is a great deal of magic in
the sea, and I hope that if and when people become aware of it, they
will help take care of it and not throw garbage and other bad stuff
into it. I have a serious dislike for garbage-throwing.
Probably
the most useful secret I learned that I hope will be of use to
readers is about thrum. Thrum is the way the creatures and plants
that live in the ocean communicate with each other through vibration
and thought. As Ven and his friends learn, this can be a problem if
you think about something you don’t want anyone to know about when
you are standing in a sunshadow, because everyone gets to see a
picture of what’s on your mind. Imagine how embarrassing that could
be.
- Are there more books coming in this series?
Well,
at least one. In the archaeological dig site where The
Tree of Water
was found was another journal, a notebook that Ven called The
Star of the Sea.
We are still working on restoring it, but it looks like there are
many new adventures and different kinds of magic in it. The problem
is that it might have been buried in the sand with an ancient bottle
of magical sun tan lotion, which seems to have leaked onto some of
the journal’s pages. This is a very sad event in archaeology, but
we are working hard to restore it.
As
for other books, it’s not like we just write them out of nowhere.
If we haven’t found one of Ven’s journals, there can’t be
another book, now, can there? We are always looking, however. We’ve
learned so much about ancient magic from the journals we have found
so far.
- You are a best-selling author with other books and series for adults. What made you want to write books for young readers?
I
like young readers better than adults. Everyone who is reading a book
like mine has at one time or another been a young reader, but not
everyone has been an adult yet. Young readers have more imagination
and their brains are more flexible—they can understand magical
concepts a lot better than a lot of adults, who have to deal with car
payments and work and budget balancing and all sorts of non-magical
things in the course of their days.
Besides,
many adults scare me. But that’s not their fault. I’m just weird
like that.
I
think if more adults read like young readers, the world would be a
happier place.
- Tell us where we can find your book and more information about where you are these days.
You
can find The
Tree of Water
anywhere books are sold, online and in bookstores. There are several
copies in my steamer trunk and I believe the palace in Serendair also
has one. I also sent one to Bruno Mars because I like his name.
At
the moment, I
am on the beautiful island of J’ha-ha, searching for a very unique
and magical flower. Thank you for asking these interview questions—it
has improved my mood, since I have only found weeds so far today. I
am hoping for better luck after lunch, which, sadly, is peanut butter
and raisin sandwiches, olives, and yellow tea again.
All
the best,
Dr.
Elizabeth Haydon, PhD, D’Arc
