Authors Interviewing Characters: Rosemary Drisdelle

In Follow the Shadows, teenage Wiccan Marise Leeson wants a crystal ball so badly that she goes to unscrupulous lengths to acquire one. In her mission to learn how to use the crystal properly, she visits The Witch’s Cupboard, a Wicca and magic shop owned by the mysterious Lupin. Lupin somewhat reluctantly provides advice and magical supplies, but then Marise is on her own with a crystal ball that isn’t what she thinks it is.

Her first attempt at scrying catapults her into Moerden, an earth-like world where dragons rule the skies. Thus begins an adventure of peril, survival, and friendship. She meets Javeer, a young male dragon, and the two team up to confront a slew of enemies including hostile dragons and microscopic villains that threaten to wipe out dragonkind. In a race against time, she must turn to Lupin again for wisdom and help. Can she save the dragons or will Javeer and his kind become extinct, leaving the skies of Moerden empty?

Rosemary Drisdelle in conversation with the enigmatic Lupin 

I’ve chosen to explore behind the scenes with Lupin. She’s a lesser character in Follow the Shadows but a crucial one, and I think she can tell us things that others can’t. Or won’t. That was certainly Marise’s experience.

Lupin strides in wearing powder blue harem pants and a billowy ivory-coloured blouse. A flowing knee length sweater tops the ensemble. The velvety fabric looks as though it has pictures in the nap, especially when seen with peripheral vision (are those eyes?), but when I look at it directly it’s not looking back, it’s just a muddle of colors.

I lift my gaze to find her appraising me with her pale blue eyes. She’s taller than I expected, and her hair is gray, almost silver. Its short waves crown an expressionless oval face. Expressionless, except for one raised eyebrow, which jolts me out of my silence.

Rosemary: “Lupin! Welcome and please sit. I appreciate you agreeing to talk to me today. You’re a hard woman to find.” 

When she offers no comment, I’m momentarily caught off guard and start the interview awkwardly.

Rosemary: “You’ve been to Moerden. How would you describe it?”

Lupin: “The best thing about it is that there are no people.” Her tone is eerily monotonous, but as always, she emphasizes the odd word.

Silence. It stretches on, but just as I open my mouth to take another stab at conversation, she speaks again.

Lupin: “It’s a wild uninhabited place – uninhabited by people! An unfettered wild place. A place to be green. It’s vast. Much bigger than the part that Marise explored, and infinitely variable. Rivers and rainforests, bogs and sand dunes, deserts and grasslands. Humans have been there, they’ve left their mark, but there’s little to show it. Not like here.”

Rosemary:“And the dragons?”

Lupin’s face really lights up for the first time: “Magnificent creatures! Intelligent. Wonderful that Marise stumbled upon them. Crashed in on them you might say. And do you realize they account for every dragon story here on Earth? Beowulf. Saint George and the dragon. Puff! They’ve been coming here. And if they’ve been coming here for eons, where else are they going? It’s fascinating to think about. So tempting to explore, but dangerous of course.”

Rosemary: “Ah. You believe they’ve been coming here. Lupin, do you know where Moerden is? Do you think it’s on Earth somewhere? Another planet? Another dimension?”

Lupin: “Well it’s … clearly it’s …” she waves her hands around in the air. “No, it’s … well if you don’t know, no one knows. You’re the expert. But I’ll say this. If you think about the apparent time difference between Cadogan Mills and Moerden, Moerden would have to be out in the middle of the Pacific somewhere. So. Unless there’s a continent we haven’t discovered yet, it’s not anywhere on Earth.”

Rosemary: “That’s a very good point. It sounds like uncharted continents are your kind of place, but you had an interesting history even before Moerden. You told Marise that you’d been a surgeon, but that it ‘drained your life force.’ What did you mean by that?”

Lupin: “You know that feeling you get when you stand knee-deep in water, very still, like a heron in a pond?”

I blink. For a heartbeat I see a great blue heron before me, its chilly eyes fixed on mine. My breath catches, I blink again and the woman is back.

Rosemary: “I can’t really say I do, no.”

Lupin: “No. It’s like being in a picture. Still and, just, complete. I think the Green Man is that feeling. You know the Green Man. Maybe he came from Moerden too, and I took him back there. He keeps to himself and is still, and complete. Surely healing the sick should be that feeling. I hoped it would be, but  I couldn’t find it at all when I was studying medicine. The opposite. So I stopped.”

Rosemary: “You just stopped. You came to Cadogan Mills and after that you were the owner of The Witch’s Cupboard, a witchcraft store, at least until you traveled to Moerden. So very different from an operating room. What was it about The Witch’s Cupboard that gave you that feeling you craved?”

Lupin: “It was a quiet place. A magical place. I had my things, my embroidery and my herbs. No one bothered me. Almost no one. Marise and Celeste were my best customers.”

Rosemary: “It sounds meditative. During that time you created an embroidery of the Green Man, stitched with human hair. Was that meditative work? Spiritual?”

Lupin looks away into the distance and I turn my head as well. Experimentally I peek at her sweater out of the corner of my eye and once again see, or imagine that I see, a pair of watchful eyes. I turn my head to look directly and they’re gone. Lupin simply nods.

Rosemary: “And what about the magic and the witchcraft?” I press on. “Do you call yourself a witch? Does Marise call herself a witch?”

Lupin: “I am a witch, yes.” She seems uncomfortable, shifting about in her chair. “A solitary witch. I don’t need to advertise it. I think if you’re going to do magic, you should just do it, and not talk about doing it. I can’t speak for Marise; you should ask her yourself.”

Rosemary: “I will. I went to Airlie Lane, looking for The Witch’s Cupboard, but there’s a candy store at that address now. Why did you close it and what are you doing now?”

Lupin’s restlessness subsides and she leans toward me: “I no longer live here. Having a street address is so inconvenient. The sweet shop is alright. I pop in for dessert now and then, but do not tell.” She actually winks at me. “I go at night when it’s closed up and there’s no one about.” 

With that she draws a glassy sphere from somewhere in her clothing, peers into its depths, and vanishes.

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Rosemary Drisdelle hails from eastern Canada. Perennially unable to really choose between science and writing, she keeps one foot in both worlds. She enjoyed a full time career in a medical microbiology lab for a quarter century, ultimately specializing in parasitology, before returning to university studies in the social sciences and embracing writing. Her first book, Parasites: Tales of Humanity’s Most Unwelcome Guests was published by the University of California Press in 2010. It is the result of her fascination with both parasites and the human world, and the crazy ways they intersect.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing