The Introduction to MOAT

Eight years ago, I wrote The Lake Walker. This isn’t The Revenge of The Lake Walker. That book seems fine left where it is, but I brought back Rudolph for a brief cameo. There are lots of characters in this book who have appeared in previous books. If you’ve been reading them, you’ll remember The Book of Ticks, A Field of Cabbages, The Robotic Age, Lexington Brown and the Pond Projector. Probably more. Each one of the books I write has been a dream. When you dream, don’t you go back and forth to familiar places and people? I’m too busy writing new books to reread my old ones, so I don’t remember all that went on in The Lake Walker, but I think there was something about a leaf and life and death. It’s easy to be haunted, there’s probably a phonebook for ghosts looking for someone to haunt. Newsprint turns, and a ghost comes from the water in search of Phil Ticks. Hopefully Phil will know what to do. They’re not easy to put to rest. Another story I don’t quite remember is The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Picture that medieval town, coal smoke, stone streets, tilted, shutters, wooden carts, overrun by rats. What exactly happened after they cheated the piper and he stole all their children away? It depends on the version, right? It depends on the time and place. A 14th century wood carving or the golden light of a 1940s Disney cartoon. But something about it remains the same, we keep learning the same lesson over again. A story like that doesn’t seem to end.