Realizing what happened to Gilly Lund

Broken hearts, mended hearts; some of last night's Warm Hearted hand-quilting....

A year ago I wrote the first of four sections of On Being Brave, the next Enran Chronicles book. Part One focused on Tama Zanetti, her cousins Bobby Tranler and Marcus Wentz-Sorenson a few years after Tris went missing. I'd planned to continue with Parts Two, Three, and Four, but none of those emerged, though over the last year plenty of ideas about two of those installments have emerged. I still don't know what's happening with Squee, Yamist, Jale, Da'Nota and the rest, but this afternoon I came up with why Gilly Lund hasn't figured heavily in her family's tale.

When things of that magnitude occur, I gotta give thanks. Then blog about so hopefully I won't forget, LOL.

Because I have yet to make any notes about this plot point, other than pulling out the scant notes made for Home and Far Away, finding I'd erred on one character's birth date. Fixed that. Then moved onto this entry, because a part of me has been kicking myself for not going forward with Part Five, leaving that series to languish. Yet (YET!), I'm also FULLY AWARE the muse will provide at the perfect time and today was it.

If at the age of six and a half you learn the woman who has become like a mother isn't from Earth (though she looks human enough), but actually from a faraway galaxy, yet she IS your mom AND suddenly you alter slightly in your genetics to appear more like this mom, well, you might want to live right next door. Or maybe, if you happen to become telepathic with her, you might find yourself feeling freed to step away from your hometown that's more like a hamlet. Like maybe you go to college in France, where your Uncle Dardram and Aunt Dominique live. Dardram is actually human, but from the same galaxy as Suze Lund, who changed the spelling of her first name once Gilly claimed her. I'm giving away a few hints to the end of Home and Far Away, which is VERY HAPPY despite all the drama within the novel proper. Because despite being slightly sci-fi, and definitely based in the early 1970s of California, it's steeped in current events and at times feels like Sooz and Richard, well.... I won't say more, as I've revealed enough about the Lunds in 1971 and 1972. But what happens to them later on, after Gilly grows up, moves to France, realizing the European continent is still too close to her American roots.

I mean, if your true mom traveled millions upon millions of miles to find you, and you can talk with her via telepathy at any time both of you are awake, and you want to be JUST LIKE HER, maybe France wouldn't be far enough to explore. If you grew up on the West Coast of America, maybe Australia or New Zealand would cool.

When I was eager to travel, say a few years ago, going to New Zealand appealed. Australia would be fine too, but then my tinnitus became irritating and the idea of sitting on a LOUD plane for MANY HOURS no longer felt good. But (BUT!), it's still a cool notion, one I can foist upon Gilly, hah! So Gillian Dianne Lund meets her forever love in France, but he's from Melbourne. And while Suze wholly understands and supports her daughter, Richard is, well, disappointed. Gilly doesn't come home often enough for his liking. And yeah, he understands why she doesn't, and here I won't say much more because I don't wish to spoil that section of On Being Brave. Only that maybe I can begin to ponder writing it because Gilly was never going to be part of it, and now I know why.

Why live in a tiny, seemingly boring town with a harbinger of doom waiting when there's France and Australia? Why live close to home when your mom was flung through the cosmos to find you and the only thing impeding that continued communication is the International Date Line? Why wrench your heart further from your chest if you don't have to?

Because while Suze is Gilly's forever mom, Celia was Gillian's natural mother, and had a rough go of merely having Gilly. Gilly has no kids because she can't fathom losing them.

Not exactly a spoiler, but more for me to remember why Gilly and her boyfriend/maybe spouse still to be named don't have kids. Which doesn't bother Suze or Richard right now. Later, well....

Again, no further spoilers. Merely me making notes in a blog post. Not that this is how I write my novels, but previously I didn't leave a year's gap in the middle of one, ahem. I still don't know what's going to happen to Squee and if Dorvuun will turn up in that section, but I certainly have a better grasp on Noth and Roon than I did at this time last year, and of course now I know why Gilly's not in Jumpville.

She's in Albert Park, or a close facsimile, where Wendy Saddington, also known as Gandharvika Dasi, died on this date in 2013. I read about her while my husband grilled chicken for lunch, and was struck at how Australia still piques my interest, how it seems as far from the North Coast as Enran is from Earth. Or maybe for Gilly, living in France, it's even further. It's safe. Yes, that's it. It's a safe haven from the heartache she knows is coming.

In Part Two of On Being Brave, heartache reigns in Jumpville. Gilly will come home, I'll give that away. She has to, not that Suze pleads with her, nor does Richard. Gilly comes home because she's the eldest, no matter where she lives.

(All of this is dedicated to my mom, who passed in 2018. Bless you Mum!)