Nula had been disappearing into the night regularly since the miscarriage. He reassured her that everything was going to be fine, but the sleepwalking hadn’t stopped. He was going to find out where she went. Euan gave her a head start, pretending he was asleep, and he just remembered to grab her thick coat and […]
Tag: Prosery
Giant
I’m trapped between mature queen beeches, beneath the litter of their crunchy mast. Their silver trunks are adorned with stag-horn lichen and bracket fungus, a tiny fairyland. Me, I’m a giant, one of a circle of stones haunting the landscape, a left-over from a long time ago. Sometimes the great bones of my life feel […]
The Kind Ghost
‘I knew we had a ghost,’ the writer said from her armchair piled with cushions, feet warming by the fire. ‘How’s that?’ ‘When we moved in, neighbours told me about a soldier who was killed in the Great War but returned to watch over his daughter, to whom he told stories. She became a writer, […]
Something in the Walls
“There’s something in the walls,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me through the front door. We stood in the hallway, listening, my mother with her ear against the wall. Outside, the wind was dancing a mazurka, spinning branches in its embrace, lifting the door knocker and tapping to come in. “See,” I said. […]
Ogden’s Extraordinary Observatory
Posters were plastered all over town, filling us with expectation: ‘OGDEN’S EXTRAORDINARY OBSERVATORY – ONE NIGHT ONLY’. We had to go. It’s in an abandoned factory that was closed when we were children, the year my best friend Rachel discovered astronomy. I’m glad I remembered to bring a torch. Ogden is a creepy man, clown-like […]
After the Smog Came
Nobody listened to the warnings, so when it came, it was a shock. The atmosphere was so badly poisoned by toxic smog from burning forests, exhaust fumes and waste, it leaked into space and discoloured the face of the moon. It just disappeared. After a number of years, older children had forgotten about it and […]
A Pocketful of Time
Their childhood pockets were always full of stuff: fluff-covered sweets, stubs of pencils, rubber bands, and tiny plastic figures from breakfast cereal, their currency to trade and play with on a rainy afternoon. That afternoon, when it is over, said and done, it was a time – and there was never enough of it […]
Luna and the Blood Moon
Luna was hunting. She had left the house before twilight and was waiting for her namesake to give her a sign. She had already feasted on a vole and a field mouse. Magic was in the air. Grandmother’s grimoire had promised freedom from her feline form. The words were indelibly burnt in her memory: When […]
Meeting Myself in a Dream
Last night, I dreamed about the city, the noise and clamour of traffic, masses of commuters streaming from the gaping mouths of the underground, heels tip-tapping, bags swinging, steaming plastic cups of coffee proffered like torches leading the way to work with their bitter aroma. Buses rumbled, horns blared, and exhaust fumes discombobulated rays of […]
Only a Dream
She gets into bed accompanied by a whisper of rain like a tentative apology, lulling her into a fitful sleep. It drips through her dreams, punctuating them with watery full stops. So many dreams, like the flicker books she loved as a child, only the pictures change too quickly, from the first day of lockdown, […]
