Graven Images (9 page)

“Lorenzo Ferrante?” he murmured hypnotically. Wide-eyed, the stone carver stared at the coin purse, begging to disbelieve his own words.

“Aye.” The ghost chuckled. “That’s the one. How else could he come to rule Genoa?”

Zorelli stood motionless. He felt chilled and stiff, as if his own flesh were turning to stone.

Slowly, he climbed back onto the wagon and settled his gaze on the ghost. Dazed and disoriented, Zorelli finally took up the reins, shook them, and left the ghost behind.

As if spellbound, the stone carver bounced along. While he entered Genoa, the moon rose in the east, illuminating the Boccas’ mansion, before which Zorelli paused awhile. It lit the Varentinos’ villa as well, where the sculptor halted once again. He passed the fine homes of his other fine patrons, then brought the wagon to a stop at the plaza. In the stillness he gazed at his statue of Lorenzo, astride his steed, glowing in the moonlight.

Shaking the reins, he drove on to the harbor. And there the sculptor climbed down from the wagon, shuffled out to the end of a wharf, and dropped the coin purse into the sea.

Ruing stone’s durability, he scanned the horizon and smiled to see clouds. Then he turned around, walked back to the wagon, mounted, and urged the horses homeward. And that night Zorelli the stone carver fervently prayed for rain.

I have two predictions to make: (1) Some of you reading this will write books of your own. (2) Those who do will be barraged with the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” Understandably. The mystery of something coming out of nothing fascinates us. Dr. Seuss used to reply that he bought his ideas from a supply house in Ohio. It’s a question with quite a few right answers. Consider the three stories gathered here.

I’d been writing a book about sealers — the men who scoured the South Atlantic in the nineteenth century for seals. That book struck a rock and sank in chapter 3. But one detail from my research stuck in my memory: the photograph of a binnacle boy. A binnacle is the metal housing for a ship’s compass. And in that age of ornament, rather than merely mounting it on a stand, sometimes it was held by a boy carved from wood. The boy in the photo wore a cap bearing the words
MIND YOUR HELM.
But it was the caption that captured me. It said that the eyes of this particular binnacle boy were believed by the sailors to move and follow them. The crew finally demanded that the carving be removed.

Like many writers, I keep a notebook of ideas. I entered the binnacle boy under “Story Ideas.” In biology, fertilization usually takes two parties; I’ve often found it to be the same with books. About that time, I chanced to watch a television show about South America — and what should I see but a long line of people waiting to approach the statue of a saint, into whose ear they whispered their prayers.

That statue heard wishes. But what about a statue that heard secrets, one that held an entire town’s hidden thoughts and deeds? I thought back to the binnacle boy. And then began that marvelous magnetism that writers exult in, when an idea draws toward it all manner of memories and materials that suddenly have a role to play. I remembered the year I’d lived across the street from a school for the deaf. I remembered my own years in New England, living in a house built in 1770. I recalled a mention of sailors’ prodigious tea-drinking. I was reading the Old Testament at the time and had an idea in my notebook for a character who took on godlike airs.

I wrote the story. But what was I to do with it? It was long for a short story, but far too slight for a book. It sat in my desk. Then something strange happened. From out of nowhere came another idea about statues: a statue commissioned by a ghost. Sometime that’s the way they come, without benefit of book, dream, or grocery store eavesdropping.

A collection with only two stories? And what about the repetition of statues? I couldn’t figure out what to do about that fatal flaw, until one day it hit me: Turn it to advantage. Write
another
story about a statue — a comedy of errors to provide variety of tone — and put the three together in one book. Some ideas are brought into being simply out of need, as writers soon discover. You might have little interest in writing about a butler, but if you want him to be one of the murder suspects, you find yourself adding him to the cast.

Graven Images
might have gone unpublished. Its length suggested grammar school, but its reading level was higher. Collections of short stories were quite rare. The mix of supernaturalism with historical research and comedy with tragedy was unusual. I was lucky in having Charlotte Zolotow as my editor — a believer in letting her authors’ talents unfold according to their own laws rather than the market’s dictates. When it was named a Newbery Honor Book, her vision was confirmed. At the time, she was considering an even stranger manuscript of mine — a book of poems about birds scored for two voices. She decided to take it, and a few years later published its sequel,
Joyful Noise,
which won the Newbery Medal. Some books open a door for the author onto another book.
Graven Images
opened onto the rest of my career.

This book holds a special place on my secret shelf for another reason. Though it was my third book published, it was the sixth I wrote, not counting the sealing book and others never finished. Every author is a melting pot of earlier authors, and for years I’d been reaching for this particular sound and style — a mix of Greek myths and Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe and Dylan Thomas, and many others. Finally, in this book, I’d grasped it. I can still recall that private jubilation. It’s a feeling no one else can give you, and no one can take away.

A third prediction: Some of you will know that feeling. Just typing those words, I find myself smiling for you.

P
AUL
F
LEISCHMAN
received a Newbery Honor for
Graven Images,
then went on to win the Newbery Medal for
Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
. Since then, he has crafted an ever more innovative library of books, including
Zap,
a play for high-school students that intertwines seven plays in one, and
Dateline: Troy,
which juxtaposes an absorbing account of the Trojan War with newspaper clippings of modern events from the First World War to the War on Terror. He is also the author of several picture books, including
Weslandia,
illustrated by Kevin Hawkes;
The Birthday Tree
, illustrated by Barry Root;
The Dunderheads
and
The Dunderheads Behind Bars
, illustrated by David Roberts; and
The Animal Hedge
and
The Matchbox Diary
, both illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. Paul Fleischman lives in Aromas, California.