This is the final version of the exchange offering for the steampunk deck for my TravelersHart Group on Yahoo. I have been a bit worried about it all coming together, it really started out to be something quite different, but somehow it all did. The final and coalescing piece was the hand charm gifted me by a student of mine, and voila! It works! It helps to be listening to another Mary Russel story, this one is The Moor, referring not to the Moorish people but to Dartmoor, a foreboding and bewildering place when it is raining (frequent, I assure you) but simply stunning when the sun covers the peat and stone in a honey-colored clarity, and the sky can be a remarkable blue. I was there on such a day, and was captivated. It is a high moor, and not to be trifled with, and I remember a feeling of real presence there. Not evil, nothing sinister (though I never saw a fog, thank goodness) but the moor is not just dirt and rocks. No more than the ocean is just a lot of water. Anyone who has sailed her knows what I mean. The moor is like that. So once again Holmes is solving a mystery on the moor, and Russell is with him. I think I will go listen some more, and stitch on my wee quiltie!
