Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air

[sovay]

My poem "Heaven and Sea, Horatio," otherwise known as the drowned Hamlet poem, has been accepted by tithenai and mer_moon for their guest-edited issue of Mythic Delirium.

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[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

This is me crawling out from under cat litter and sleep deprivation to say that I am still writing the Narnia fic.

If only I could hate you!

[sovay]

If only I could hate you!

I am more or less sorry depending on whether I get to read the results or not.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

It was Mary who found a black wool coat and beret, booked the airliner to New York and Su’s berth on the Caronia, and called the church in Finchley, pretending to be Susan over a grainy telephone line even though her own accent was pure Cleveland. After three days of untangling Su’s dark hair from wild fingerknots, she emptied her building savings and bought passage on the Caronia for herself.

More difficult than the funeral was opening up the house in Church End; Susan moved blindly, tracing the few weeks’ dust and then forgetting to brush her fingertips, or taking an apple from the bowl on the worktop and biting down into mold. To Mary the house was cold and damp and overfilled with photographs; empty, happy, flaxen faces, and occasionally a younger Su’s bold eyebrows like punctuation. She tried to make Susan sit down and take a glass of water, or swallow one of the half limp, half petrified sandwiches from the rector’s wife, or even take off the sodden black wool coat. Everything was met with the same maddeningly gentle no, thank you, Mary, even the one sidelong kiss she dared under the dead watch of Peter-the-cornet, Ed-the-rugby-forward, and Lu-the-good-daughter.

As the sun set that first evening, as she had just managed to overboil a saucepan of canned beans on the kitchen hob, she heard a catch and a crash from upstairs. In one of the bedrooms’ watery lamplight, sitting on her legs like a small child, Susan had tucked herself against the back of a wardrobe. Siren suits and tweedy oddments littered the floor, leaving the cupboard’s rear panels bare.

“It’s no good, don’t you see,” said Susan, earnest. “it’s not the right one.”

“What are you looking for?” Mary tried again, to sound less unsteady. “There’s another one in—in your parents’ room, it’s full of stuff. Whatever it is, whatever you want, we’ll find it.”

“As if Mum and Dad--!” Susan wailed. “But then, they’ve gone too, haven’t they? Who’s to say they haven’t got there as well?”

“Susan,” Mary knelt, half inside the wardrobe, and held tight to Su’s thin shoulders. “You’re not making sense, it’s been a terrible day, you need sleep. Whatever it is, we’ll look in the morning.”

“I’ve tried.” Susan crumpled forward into Mary’s arms, and for the first time, her eyes were full of tears.

[sovay]

“It’s no good, don’t you see,” said Susan, earnest. “it’s not the right one.”

Prrrrr.