The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
And now the tables have turned. My writing has fallen into the wrong hands. My sister’s hands
Sighing, I turn my attention to the desk. There are at least six jotters scattered across the surface, vying with electricity bills, invoices and newspaper cuttings for space and attention.
The mess has blossomed like hogweed. There are yellowing recipes clipped from old newspapers, receipts for grain going back to the eighties.
One black corner of the laptop pokes out from under the debris.
Sighing, I pull it out, and the crap collapses like a tower of Jenga blocks.
Dumping the computer on the chair, I gather up a collection of random notebooks and loose pages from the floor.
I flick through each jotter, a bad habit of mine. I’ve always been hungry for other people’s writing.
I’ve read Jane’s diary, attempting to assess her relationship with Reuben.
I’ve read and re-read his texts to me, trying to second-guess him.
I even scour Arthur’s menu, in the hope of uncovering what he’s really trying to sell.
And now the tables have turned. My writing has fallen into the wrong hands. My sister’s hands.
I follow Mac’s frantic scrawl through several books, trying to piece it together.
I realise that she’s been scribbling the story of the Cruel Sister on anything that’s come to hand.
Rambling
I open book after book. The tale of the Cruel Sister has cut loose.
It’s rambling, disjointed – spilling like ivy over every scrap of paper, dark tendrils reaching for me, wrapping around my wrists, my arms, up to my throat.
“‘You bring me a gift and yet I don’t know you.’ Bella cannot take her eyes from the stranger.
Her imagination is lost in the black folds of his cloak. The hall spins away; her father, her mother, her new husband and the babble of the wedding party.
‘I do not know you.’
‘If you don’t want my gift, then I will go.’” As suddenly as that, in the blink of an eye, the stranger picks up the jute sack and strides away.
She hears the slither of his cloak across the threshold and the bang of the hall door.
He is gone.
The bride runs after him, flowers falling from her hair. She follows the scent of him, one of fields, old hay and dung; of gunpowder and something she can’t quite recognise.
Something stagnant and sickening, like water that has been stopped up for too long.
I place the laptop gently on the floor and sink onto the chair, clear desk space for my elbows and allow my head to sink into my hands.
Where on earth do I begin to find an ending?
Lucie
August
The fluttering starts low down in my belly. It twists and blooms; the thrip thrip thrip of beating wings. Beating wings, beating heart.
Discordant fluttery notes vibrating through my bones. I jerk awake.
I can hear the stop-start stirrings of the sparrows in the ivy.
The window is open a crack, and the fresh scent of dawn lures me.
We are still wrapped up in each other, Arthur’s arm around my back, cradling me to him.
I press a kiss into the hollow of his throat and raise my head. I need to disentangle myself.
Under the duvet our legs are a jumble, and even though he’s still asleep, his arm tightens around me when I move.
My head is full of the night. Not the sex, but the intimacy; the gentleness of his hands on that lost place.
The place that is no longer lost, but full.
It is too much. Too soon. Stealthily, I retreat, letting the cold air seep in around us, two separate beings once again.
I slip from the bed and pull on some clothes, pad through the silent chill to the back door.
Jamming my feet into borrowed wellies, I let myself out into the dawn.
Mellow
The mill looks unusually mellow, the stone stained pink, the black trees behind it haloed in red.
Raucous crows jostle and bully each other. Up ahead, on the track, a large dog fox slinks about his business.
On a sudden impulse I climb the boundary wall and drop down silently into the field.
There is a path of sorts, dividing the weedy margin – hawthorn and nettles and docks – from the crop.
It’s barley, I can see that now. That last time, when the sky was low with rain and mist, only the green edge of it was visible, but now acres and acres lie before me.
A vast tawny fur, shifting in the breeze, and beyond that the sea.
It’s tipping over into full, golden ripeness. Not long now.
The tall, fibrous stalks are straight as soldiers, and there’s a sharp edge to the path, where the plough scored the earth just six months ago.
Only six months ago I’d arrived here, intent on breaking new ground.
Goldfinches dart in and out of the hawthorn. Their wings go thrip thrip thrip against the leaves, a noise like someone plucking strings.
It unnerves me. I should go back, but I’m mesmerised by the rise and fall of the barley – it’s like the whole field is breathing.
Stunned
I want to plough into it, feel it surround me. But instead I take a step back and fall heavily over the plough rut.
I feel the fall in every part of me: my jaw, my nose, my teeth, my buttocks. I lie there, stunned. Black is creeping in.
I don’t know if my eyes are open but I can’t see the light.
All I can see is just the nodding ears of barley; whiskers scraping my face like fingernails, jabbing my lips.
The barley is burned. Gold has tipped over into russet and the sun is hot.
I see yellow at the edge of my vision, the lazy trail of silk through the field.
“The mill. We must go to the mill.”
A child laughs. I struggle to sit up, but dizziness overwhelms me.
I’m coughing, spitting feathers of barley from my mouth.
“But he’ll be there. The miller will be there.” “Don’t be afraid.”
I must swim to the surface, choking in the black water. I must come up for air – find the voices.
Yellow silk brushes my skin, the scent of lavender and smoke and candle wax.
“Bella, don’t leave me with the miller . . . Bella . . .”
More tomorrow.