Out of McKillip’s later works, this is my favorite. First, it’s beautifully packaged, with gorgeous cover art that captures her sensibilities. Second, it’s so beautifully told.

And it’s about a book.

Sort of.

It starts with a war between a big bully country and a little magic country. The war is so loud it does two things: it attracts the denizens of a parallel dimension, the Queen of Elfland’s consort. Drawn to the tear between their worlds, he and his daughter get pulled into the human world.

Unfortunately, the sound of the war has also caught the attention of the Wizard, Atrix Wolfe, who confronts the attacking king, points out all the terror he is creating and asks him, very politely, to stop. Of course, the aggressor doesn’t listen. They never do, as we know all too well. They are too frightened of what will happen to them if they stop and so they keep going.

When this king refuses, Atrix uses his magic to generate a creature that embodies all the horrors of war, all the pain and loss it creates, and sends it against the king.* Atrix, lost in the casting of his spell, doesn’t realize that, when pulling ingredients from the things around him – the crow-picked bodies, the cold, the starvation, the pain of the dying, the children’s cries – he has accidentally caught the two onlookers from the other dimension.

The monster kills the attacking king and frightens away his army but the scale of the terror he has created reveals the dark side of his own power to Atrix. He vanishes from the face of the earth and, with his departure, the creature disappears, too.

Years later, Talis, a young student at a school for mages, discovers a book of spells hidden away in a broom closet, where no one would notice it. He barely has time to read even one spell before he is called home by his brother, who is regent for the kingdom Talis someday will rule: the kingdom that was under siege when the book started. Once there, Talis begins to experiment and learns that the spells in the book are… off… A spell for lighting candles breaks mirrors. A spell for opening a door sends a lightening bolt shooting through the castle. Something is not right and his brother decides it’s time for Talis to quit messing around with magic and act like a prince. Ride to the hunt and stuff.

When Talis disappears on a hunt, the king tears the kingdom apart searching for him. Meanwhile, a strange, silent pot-scrubber, Saro, who has grown up in the castle kitchen, begins to awaken and notice that there’s more to the world than dirty bowls and pans. Almost without realizing it, Saro begins to see the prince in dishwater reflections, and the other kitchen servants – cooks and spit boys, waiters, chefs, and plate-washers – begin to recognize her as a person and help her pursue her quest.

And then Atrix Wolfe’s monster reappears.

This book is so beautifully-written. I think McKillip must have been dieting when she wrote it because her descriptions of the feasts are so fantastically embroidered. Listen to this: “steaming silver bowls of soup with tiny saffron biscuits shaped like fish floating in it… long loaves smelling of onion and basil… Haunches of ham crackled and split on the spits, juices flowing into the dripping pans… rice flavored with lemon and mint…”

The descriptions of the kitchen staff are just as evocative. As Saro moves through the kitchen, retrieving pans, the servants move around her in a complex dance that seems flawlessly timed, like something out of a Wes Anderson movie. Their conversations – perfectly suited to the people who are speaking – weave in and out like the themes in a symphony. The plate-washers discuss the men who want to meet them in garden later; the spit-boys brag to each other; the head cook muses aloud about the banquet, improvising on the fly in response to delays and upsets; musicians tailor their musical selections to the pace of the feast; pluckers and peelers make up fairy tales. Saro overhears it all, without even noticing, only paying attention to the additional pans they add to her pile as she drags it back to the wash-cauldron in the out-of-the way corner where she works and, when not working, sleeps.

Ideally you would read this book is by golden candlelight, gowned in a long velvet robe and silk slippers, while sipping from a pot of sweet-scented tea, nibbling on perfectly crisped madelines and silvered almonds, reclining on a chaise in a bow-window with snowflakes swirling beyond the glass, and Loreena McKennitt or Spanish guitar playing on repeat.

Do not, I repeat, do not read this book on your eReader. We read differently digitally, faster, and we take in fewer details; the language rushes past us. Poetry gets lost, words fly like the torn pages of Atrix Wolfe’s spellbook when bitten into by his monster, and description. Authors like McKillip and Ackerman deserve to be read on paper.

Preferably heavy bond cream stock with hand-cut pages.

When you need a little self-care, indulge yourself with The Book of Atrix Wolfe.

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^{*Don’t we wish we knew that spell. I can think of a few tyrants I’d work it against. They’ll face the music in the next life; but that doesn’t help those they are torturing in this life.}