Invisible String
Taylor Swift’s website is here: https://www.taylorswift.com/ and please consider buying Invisible String, and other Taylor Swift music here: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/taylor-swift/159260351
Invisible String comes into The Time Virus a few times. In Chapter 7.777 Jax the Ice-Witch and Skye speak (Skye in the first person) as follows:
‘I grew up in the Land of Ice and Fire,’ Jax said. ‘There weren’t many trees there and the few we had were almost dead, so when I first saw a tree covered in lush green leaves, I fell in love. And then, one night I dreamed of reading while I was lying on a lawn of soft grass. It was the most intense green I’ve ever seen, and written on the gates nearby were the words “Centennial Park”. I’ve always remembered that dream. It’s as if I can go there any time I like. I often imagine it, and I change the book I’m reading every time I visit that place in my mind.’
I could visualise Jax’s dream as she spoke.
Sounds amazing,’ I said. ‘I’d hate to be away from trees and grass, and flowers. What about bees? I love bees. Is the Land of Ice and Fire totally ice?’
‘There are plants,’ said Jax, ‘but they’re often dwarfish and battered from all the wind and sleet. There are bees where the plants still grow, but some parts of the Land of Ice and Fire are only ice, and far too cold.’
And then later in the book, in the Epilogue of The Time Virus the the song itself is mentioned:
After a while, Minnow and I went to look for some magical swings Jax had made. All of a sudden, there they were, suspended from the branches of a massive tree overlooking the sea. We couldn’t believe our luck! We both love swinging. The ropes expanded through magic to take us way out over the sea, and then back into the depths of the jungly garden that surrounds the Hall of Feasting. On the beach, Decker and Jax were singing a song called Invisible String. It echoed all around the bay and sounded so beautiful.
Shake It Off
Taylor Swift’s website is here: https://www.taylorswift.com/ and please consider buying Shake It Off, and other Taylor Swift music here: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/taylor-swift/159260351
Diane says that if she’s honest she cannot remember hearing Shake It Off when she wrote the shaking sand off sequence in the The Time Virus and she’d been writing The Time Virus universe since about 1998 — although it was first launched in 2014, the same year as Shake It Off so who can say.
The wonderful Godot teaches Skye an amazing lesson about forgiveness and it involves an analogy of shaking off sand at the beach. Here it is from Chapter 6.6666
Blizzard picked up big handfuls of sand and rubbed it through Godot’s coat.
Godot immediately shook the wet sand all over us, and then took himself down to the water, splashed straight in, swam around, and then bounded back onto the beach, and shook himself off.
‘See? Godot’s teaching you some more,’ said Blizzard. ‘He’s been covered in heaps of muck (the sand) — think of that as all the dreadful things that have happened to you — but look at what he does with it.’
‘He shakes it off right away,’ I said, ‘and then he washes himself, and after that he shakes himself again.’
‘Exactly,’ said Blizzard. ‘And he starts the process immediately — he doesn’t allow the sand to stay and fester, turning into angry, hateful sand.’
I nodded.
‘The stuff that’s been poured onto me doesn’t feel like sand,’ I said. ‘It feels more like truckloads of ...’
‘Manure?’ asked Blizzard with a grin.
‘I was going to say something else.’
‘I thought so,’ said Blizzard. ‘So, now we’re getting somewhere.’
‘Are we?’
‘Yes … if someone covers you in filth, what do you do?’
‘Shake it off — even if it goes back all over them!’
‘Correct,’ said Blizzard. ‘Jax has a song that goes with it. She’ll play it for you later. Your heart is too wonderful to be covered in rubbish from mean people.’
‘And after that, a wash in the sea?’
‘Of course,’ said Blizzard. ‘Anything that makes you feel better and gets rid of the trash that’s been thrown at you.’
