Ah, looking at the stars again, are you? I remember just last year you were talking about capturing light from a star. That would have been hard, right? Light takes about ten minutes to reach us here on Earth, but that's just from the sun. Stars way out in space, like those few you can see out the telescope, their light takes days to reach us. But it can still have a lasting effect.

Like when your Nonna left us for that great beyond for example. She seemed to leave so suddenly-Goddess bless her-but she took a while to get up there. She is the tiny greenish one you see in late Winter...I'm sure of it.

How am I sure? Well, she was born in late Winter, first off. She also told me she always wanted to be able to watch over her dear family like we did her. She promised me...promised us that she would keep an eye on her children. What better place to do that than straight ahead out the window, right? You may call it creepy, but it suits her needs.

Can you believe that it's been eight years already since she passed? Time has a way of making you feel like you're moving at the speed of light. But when you grow old, it will be hard to make it last. Savor each day while you can, child. You will never know when it will end.

You want to know what life was like when I met Nonna? It's been about thirty years, so you must excuse me if my memory is foggy. Oh come now, don't pout at me like that; I'm not senile just yet. I will try to remember as best I can for you.

The land was nowhere near as vibrant as you see it today. You never saw any wildflowers around and the crops were mediocre to say the least. The waves, they didn't move at all. The wind was not even strong enough to nudge a pinwheel. I don't know why the land was so dead but that is how life was for a decade or so. Oh yes, I tried to research solutions, but then none went right. The witch in Fugue Forest, Vivi, she tried to heal the land, but ended up turning herself into a frog. (I shall get to that later.) Me, I ended up turning my hair gray.

Haha, yes, you thought I was always like this, did you not? Because your Nonno Gale is an old fart? No, this happened when I tried to bring rain back to the island (which in hindsight could have been better planned). I had to gather a whole bunch of strange plants and materials and do a whole tribal rain dance. Even then, I threw out my hip. And for what?

It was the dead of winter and I thought I saw snow coming down, so I thought I'd done alright. Instead, I'd conjured up magic flakes which discolored everything it touched overnight Oh you should've seen how pissed off the mayor was! So for a while everybody looked like elderly aliens and I swear they wanted to shoot lasers at me from their eyeballs-including Nonna and Mamma. Everyone else is obviously alright now, but since I attract magic like picnics do ants, I never really recovered. But of course it doesn't matter now-I'm old.

Oh, my funky eyes? It's just a cataract, nothing spectacular. It's a real pain-don't go ruining your eyes with electronics 24/7 or you'll certainly never be any better off than I am.

Oh, right. I was supposed to tell about life with your grandmother, wasn't I? Well, it really started when a different woman changed the island's state. You could say this girl was my archenemy...and my best friend.


Well, ah...interesting prologue. This chapter describes him talking to his grandchildren. For the record, their names are Zeta Giustina ("little girl" and "fair, just") and Agapito ("beloved"). We will be visiting this period as a real third-person scene from now on. The rest of the story is in first person otherwise. To further avoid confusion, I shall use boldface for the first couple words in each transition.