The Gloaming

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The world was so full of magic then that Mara didn’t always know when she was awake and when she was asleep and dreaming. At night she’d lean out of the window to see the sleeping island lit by stars. She’d watch the silvery flicker of midges catching the moon on their wings. She’d smell the coppery, sweet-rot scent of the enchantments she knew lurked under the earth. She’d hear the steady breathing of the sea, slow and deep as a giant’s. She knew that if she could stretch up over the treetops, she’d see dozens of jellyfish glistening on the stones. She knew that behind her and beneath her was home, this rambling storybook mansion of fifty rooms, some shut up for years, a sanctuary for tiny creeping things – four stone walls enclosing a land of mysteries, each of them belonging to her. She’d feel the cold breeze and jag herself on splinters from the buckled windowsill, and it would all feel as real as a dream.

Once she crept into Bee’s room and whispered him awake, asking him to please hit her as hard as he could, because the splinters didn’t hurt enough to be sure. He wouldn’t, and got upset, and cried soft little huffling tears until she tucked him in and said it wasn’t real, what she had said wasn’t real, he was only dreaming.

She never asked Islay to hit her, because she knew that she would, and then Mara might wake to find it all gone.