We climbed part way up Esja today. On the way back down, Steve saw a side path and said, “Why don’t we go back down that way?”

“Okay. But you know it’ll hit a point where it goes straight down,” I said.

Steve got a wicked grin and said, “Great.”

So down we went. At a certain point, Steve was ahead of me and stopped. The path, in fact, the ground in front of him had disappeared. “Hey, Mary. Guess what?”

“What?”

“It goes straight down.” And then my brother vanished over the edge.

I followed him, leaning back on my heels and trying to stay on the vegetation instead of the sheer gravel slide that the path had become. The thing is that I’d always thought of Steve as a sporty sort of guy, but not as particularly outdoorsy. I’m wrong. Who knew?

We had to cut the hike short because Tóti from work came over for dinner. I made ratatouile with goat cheese and pesto vinaigrette and served that with greens and the leftover potato salad. We had daim ice cream for dessert.

Found this on Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Not a journal.

13 - In 20 Epics there is some rain. We sold all the copies we had at Readercon. It was an epic job of salespersonship by interns, friends, us, others. Finding the epically designed books was a long sordid tale of hidden icons, misdirection, and dead letter offices which was only concluded when Mary “I live in Iceland” Robinette “Shimmer” Kowal tracked them down far into the Labyrinth past the Steaming Kitchens of Despair. The books sold grandly, richly, with bread and cheese and some ale. They found spots by the fire in inns, they were purchased by plucky, heartfelt, surprisingly good looking kids who in a certain light looked like writers. The books were prizes, ill-gotten gains, kept in saddlebags, used as hats, ripped in two and kept by distance-separated lovers. There are at least twenty epics in the book but you only have to buy one. Lulu. Powells.