Anniversaries

It's 13th March again. Comes round quicker than ever, or so it seems. It is, of course, the anniversary - the 406th to be precise - of the fabled Enkhuizen transmutation, which features in Part I of Elias. It's come to be something of an important date for me, along with two other dates from the novel, 26th August and 27th December, both of which appear in Part IV, in the narrative concerning Dr Helvetius. Time may pass, but the secrets of the Art remain intact; at least that is the feeling I get more strongly the more I work on this, which makes it all the harder to find the time to settle down and actually spend some quality time with the project; furthermore, any ETA at the end of the beast is purely hypothetical. When will it be finished? Can it be finished? Mercurius is still toying with your humble author, it would seem, and will probably continue to do so for a little while yet. But at least observing the anniversaries makes me still feel some deep, unspoken connection to the Royal Art.