Bitterhall, Helen McClory [red queen free ebook TXT] 📗

and James had lived so far submerged in his unknowing that he would never see a real summer again – would have to invent it forever from these feeble materials. I saw my master dip his hand into my throat, through it, and hold there, as if warming his fingers in the stream of my living blood. Then I was really afraid. I put my head down and I cried, and a patch of light crept up my leg, small as a mouse. It seemed hopeful, then.

‘Órla?’ I said, licking salt off my lips, wiping my hair back off my head. ‘What’s going on?’

I looked around and saw I was sitting at the edge of a cliff. I got up and backed away. Órla came running towards me. Had she been here the whole time? Why had she let me just sit there? I was raw and cold right through to the bone. She gave me a piece of paper. I looked at it. I saw nothing on it. I saw words on it. Afraid of offending her, I gently let it go. It’s for the best to be well rid of some things. To not take all that you’re given. Just refuse to take it. Because you don’t know how you’ll take it, you don’t know what you’ll have to grow into to hold on to it. I shivered and she had me by the arm. She didn’t seem to mind taking a piece of trash like me. We were going inside, back to the bothy. And I walked clumsily over the ground, thinking I’d left something behind. I kept turning to look. It was a man. He had my face, and he did not move. I felt so much love for him, and horror.

But inside there was the three of us. And the firelight expanded and throbbed through me, making me clean. Daniel washed my face with a cloth, and I let him, even when he was bad at it, and I wanted to adjust the pressure of it, to be more gentle with me. I let him go on until I was clean. Órla sprayed my hair and combed out the oils. I was theirs.

Us

How do we keep going?

We were going into the morning.

‘I’ve been having such a hard time living lately,’ Tom said.

‘I know,’ Daniel said.

‘We know,’ said Órla, helping Tom out of the blanket and into a second jumper.

Daniel held the copied toy by one of the narrow windows. Tom watched the curve of his back. Daniel was thinking, what shall we do with it?

‘Let’s bury it,’ said Tom. The three went down to the shore. In weak, pearly daylight Tom knelt to dig a hole in the shallow sand. There wasn’t enough to cover it.

‘It’ll never rot,’ said Órla. We make a thing of lasting endurance, and then we try to forget it. But that is true of so much. Except of us, Daniel thought. After he was done, Tom straightened up and took Daniel’s hand, and Órla’s. The sea was low and still had the colour of night in it. The tide hadn’t taken it out yet. Let us drop into one another like water. Let us go together for a while and make it home safe, Órla thought.

‘You can’t save anybody,’ said Daniel, to himself, and to us.

‘In the end, no,’ thought Tom.

‘No,’ said Orla, ‘but we will keep trying.’

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without Douglas Dunbar, who means more to me than I can say. To all my friends and family who’ve kept me buoyed with their own works, recommendations and judicious comments. Particularly to my father, who is no longer here to read this one and call it ‘good but strange’. Much of the sections on Codicology would not be possible without the colour and vibrancy brought to the discipline by Dr Johanna Green; thank you for speaking to me with such passion for your work. Thank you to Lucila Mantovani and Lourdina Rabieh of the Kaaysá Art Residency in Boiçucanga and Creative Scotland for supporting my writing. Immense thanks to my agent Jenny Brown, to Camilla Grudova for the books and friendship, and the wonderful Ali Smith for giving me a few encouraging words just when I needed them. Thank you to my editor Edward Crossan and the team at Polygon for keeping the book sailing on through difficult times.