It’s a little bit like standing dominoes up in a row and knocking the first one over. Only it’s not.

What is is a bit like is a 16 year old boy, say one who was originally called Garth, who had one job to do, a walk on part so to speak, a spear carrier one might say, and no lines, who then so disturbs the surface of the literary water that the ripples spread back in time-ime-ime-ime…

One job. Only it was kind of two, which he was supposed to do concurrently.

Firstly, he was there to show that, no matter how dire things got, there was always going to be a sixteen year old boy somewhere desperate to join Our Heroes in their Hopeless Quest.

Secondly, he was to provide that formerly irredeemable character (who I’m going to call “Jack”, though that isn’t actually his name) a tiny possibility that, some time in the future, there might just be a spark of a hint of something close to redemption. Now, “Jack” is a character who is impossible to sympathise with. Except I think he’s turned out to be rather sympathetic. I mean, Our Heroine quite likes him, so he has to have something going for him, right?

Anyway, the boy who was originally called Garth was well on his way to performing these unexacting duties in a most unspectacular way when he did two things: he jumped up and down in front of me, flapping his arms; and he said “I’ve got a name! It’s Garth!” (which it originally was)

So now I was left with a last minute, self imposed character I had to find Something To Do With.

“Jack” is going to be leaving the story soon. His Purpose will soon be Fulfilled – both my purpose and his - and neither I nor Our Heroine will have a use for him.

I’m going to leave the boy who was originally called Garth here for a moment and slip back in time.

When Our Heronie first meets “Jack” (‘meets’ being a slight euphemism, he abducts her) he is alone.

When Our .Alt Heroine first meets .Alt “Jack”, he’s hanging round with a dude called Mark. Who vanishes. After a certain point, I just don’t mention him again. That has to be Fixed. And that’s not too difficult, I can just have Our .Alt Heroine replace Mark in whatever role he has in “Jack’s” life. And Mark can heave a sigh of relief and scamper away.

And that leads me even further back, to when Our Heroine first meets “Jack”. He’s alone. He has no ‘Mark’ analogue with him. But that’s easily fixed. There’s now a woman who leans in a doorway and has two lines. Viz:

Woman: Does that mean I can go now?
“Jack”: Yes.
Woman: Can I take the horse?
“Jack”: No.

Because now he has Our Heroine, he no longer needs Leaning Woman.

Skip forward to the second (or third, depending on how you count them) last chapter, and “Jack’s” imminent departure and his farewell to the closest thing he’s had to a friend for the whole book – Our Heroine. She’s not going with him for all sorts of reasons. I don’t want her to being the most important.

And that lets me give the boy who was originally called Garth the breakthrough role he’s been dying for. He’s going to be “Jack’s” new BFF. And he gets to take his girlfriend with him!

It’s going to take him a while to get into the part. The last time we see him, he’s cowering under a table where he’s been told to stay until he’s told to come out. (Bad Things are happening nearby and “Jack”, quite rightly, doesn’t think the boy who was originally called Garth is quite ready just yet.)

I see big things in his future.

I was born on the land. I was warm in the sun and in my mother’s arms. My husband came and went, like a star that falls. My child died in my belly, killed by one who meant me harm, who took my trust and destroyed my hope. My life was dark and lonely and what I became brought me shame. I left the land and came into the water so he could hear my song. He lifted me and carried me, taught me how to swim and how to be. Though I cry for my innocence and my first love, though I grieve for the child who was never born, I have known his love and think myself blessed.

If I could go back to the night we walked along the shore, waves crashing, the wind whipping my lover’s hair. We are cold. His arm is around me. He smell of love, of the sea, of the sky, of love. If I could go back to the day he stood beside me, shaking, wiping tears from his eyes. He turned and looked at me and I felt the power of what we did. My lover, my husband. If I could go back to the night we stood on the dock, waiting for the ones who didn’t come. I’d swear to scour the world for him.. If I could go back to the day his brother crossed the island, I’d bolt the door and crawl beneath the blankets of our bed. But he came and my husband did not. A slave upon a ship. My father, my mother, my sister. This is the pain I sing of, a pain that echoes across the Islands and far out to sea. I am not selkie born, but selkie I am and ever will be.

_______________________

 Hrith looked down at the ruined body of his wife and wept. The thought that her ordeal was over, that she was at peace, did nothing to console him. When he closed his eyes, he could see them, the men who’d torn her apart, the branch ripped from a tree and rammed into her… At the end, her eyes had been clouded and pleading. Our children, she said, her words little more than painful breaths. She’d tried to lift herself up, one bloody hand reaching for him. Svike, she whispered. Was one. Tell your brother. And – I love you, Hrith.

He laid the blanket over her, lifted her and wrapped her in it. He’d given her his promise that he’d find the children. The last part of his heart had hardened to stone when he saw Berthe lying beside Durren, the arms of the child’s nurse reaching for her even in death, Berthe’s tiny body trampled under booted feet. Ronni he saw no trace of, not among the scattered women and girls, naked and spread open, their throats cut. Nor their son, little Olle, brave as a lion. Brave as his mother…

She was just 12 years old when she travelled with her uncle to her wedding. She was a pretty little thing with shiny brown hair and dark blue eyes. She smiled a lot and saw all the good things in the world.

Hrith was 19. He was tall and had a pleasant face. His beard was black and so was his hair. His eyes were sometimes yellow, sometimes brown and always deep and serious. Valdyr took to him straight away. She thought about the brother she’d never known, the boy who’d died of fever when she was three days old and imagined that he might have grown up to be a bit like Hrith. She liked to be where he was. She admired him greatly, and loved to watch him at swordplay. Hrith thought Valdyr was just a little girl who giggled and chattered too much. His mother drew him to one side and told him to be patient with her.

“Let her be a child for the time she has left,” Freya said. “Talk to her and let her talk. If you start off your marriage being cross with your bride, you’ll have a long life of misery ahead of you.”

Hrith was a good rider. He rode a big black horse and Valdyr thought they moved together very well. Valdyr was herself a good horsewoman and loved to ride. Her father had given her a beautiful bay mare as a wedding present and, on the long journey to Magnushall, they’d come to know each other well.

One morning, she collected some food from the kitchen and two flasks of mead and set out to find Hrith.

He was outside with the other young men, practicing with their swords. Valdyr sat and watched for a time, proud that her husband to be had such skills. He beat everyone easily, except his father. Magnus held his hand out to his son and picked him up out of the dust. Hrith brushed himself down and felt no shame at being knocked down by the old man. There was time yet to get the better of him.

Valdyr skipped over to him.

“I should like to take a ride,” she said. “And I should like you to come with me.”

Hrith looked down at her upturned face, her smiling mouth and her sparkling eyes and grunted. He had better things to do, but he remembered his mother’s words.

They rode through the water meadow just beyond the palisade. Valdyr rode fast and well. Hrith found he was enjoying himself. He took her along the banks of the river to the beech forest, which was one of his favourite places. He thought they should stop soon and take a rest, but Valdyr plunged on ahead and was soon out of sight. Hrith was worried the girl might get herself lost, so he urged his horse and cantered after her.

He heard the mare neighing in panic, the sound of something crashing through the trees and a short yelp. As if, he thought grimly, someone had fallen. Stupid girl!

He found her sitting on the ground, looking a little dazed. Her horse was nowhere to be seen.

“Are you all right?” he said.

She nodded and tried to smile. “I think so.”

He dismounted and went to her. She seemed to be fine, except for a cut just above her eye. He helped her up and he took her to the shade of a tree. He squatted down in front of her and looked at the cut, his hands gentle.

“Doesn’t seem too deep,” he said. “Wait here.”

He fetched a flask of mead from his pack. He took his knife and folded back Valdyr’s skirt so he could see the white petticoat underneath. She watched as he cut away a piece of cloth. He soaked this in mead and dabbed gently at her wound. She flinched but didn’t cry, even though it stung terribly. Hrith smiled at her.

“We’ll wait here for your horse,” he said. “If she doesn’t come soon, I’ll go and look for her.”

“She’ll be back,” Valdyr said, but she didn’t sound very confident.

Hrith sat down next to her and they shared his flask of mead. At first, Valdyr was silent, still shaken from her fall.

They talked a lot while they waited for the mare to come back. Valdyr listened to the stories he told her of growing up at Magnushall and he listened as she told him what it was like to live by the sea. After a time, she fell asleep with her head in his lap. He stroked her hair and thought how brave she was, and how trusting. She might talk too much, but that was better than talking too little. With Valdyr, there was no false shyness, no downward cast eyes and the giggles were exuberant, honest. Hrith thought maybe he was starting to like her.

“You’ll look after me,” she’d said to him with a smile.

Hrith smiled at her and promised her he would.

When her horse came back, looking a little shamefaced at her panic, Hrith woke Valdyr up and they rode back to the hall, a little more slowly.

On the day of the wedding, Hrith smiled at his bride and she smiled back. That night she slept with the unmarried women, as she always did, and Hrith slept with the young men. Durren came to him, as she had nearly every night since Magnus had given her to his son. She lay down beside him, her arm about his waist and he knew he was going to have to talk to her.

Durren was a slave, captured by raiders and brought to the market near Magnushall when she was just a small girl. During the day, she did whatever work was required of her. When she came of age, Magnus gave her to his most trusted lieutenant and, when he died, he gave her to Hrith.

They never spoke during the day and, if she did something wrong, he was as likely to order her whipped as anyone. But at night, they’d talk quietly before he rolled onto her and she opened beneath him. Hrith sometimes thought he had grown a little fond of Durren.

But this night, he rolled over to face her, a little saddened by what he had to say.

“I have a wife, now. And though she is young, it feels wrong to be with you.”

Durren thought her heart was going to break. She liked lying with Hrith.

“You’ll be waiting a long time,” she said. “And she’ll understand.”

“She’s going to be a good wife to me, Durren. And I want to be a good husband to her.”

“Don’t send me away so soon.”

“If you had your freedom,” he said. “What would you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you go home? Back to your people?”

“I’ve been away so long. They’d turn me away, throw stones at me.”

“Is there someone you would marry? I could talk to my father.”

“There is,” Durren said sadly. “But he has a wife.”

She touched his face gently and he kissed her.

“One more night,” she said. “Please. Let us have one more night.”

In the morning, Hrith went to his father.

“I want to give Durren to Bjarg,” he said.

Magnus looked at his son in surprise. “Are you sure? He’s young yet.”

Bjarg was Hrith’s brother, not yet sixteen.

“He’s the same age I was when she came to me,” Hrith said. “It’s time he became a man.”

Durren cried when Magnus told her, but that night she went to Bjarg’s bed and lay down beside him. Hrith could hear them together and this brought tears to his eyes.

He felt sad when Bjarg ordered Durren whipped more often than she need be. He’s young, he told himself. He’ll learn as he grew. What was harder to bear was the pleading in the woman’s eyes when he passed her in the hall. It wasn’t his place to interfere in his brother’s business. It wasn’t his place to stand in defence of a slave.

Valdyr spent a lot of what spare time she had in the stables. She spoke with the grooms, helped brush down the horses and once, when no-one was quite sure what to do with a sick foal, they listened to her suggestions and, together, they nursed the young horse back to health.

“That girl knows horses,” Magnus’s keeper of horse said to him. “I should like to encourage her in this.”

Now Magnus knew that there was a place for women and a place for men, but he also knew that no-one’s gifts should be squandered. His own wife had no wish to move beyond the life she was born into, but Magnus’s mother had been able to sweep her gaze over the landscape and say which places would be best defended. And his father had always listened to her. Valdyr was freed from some of her other duties so that she her gift could be nurtured. This pleased Hrith.

One summer’s morning, her mother in law sat her down in the solar and looked at her with serious eyes.

“It’s getting to be time for you to lie down with your husband,” she said.

Valdyr nodded. She’d been looking forward to this, though she wasn’t quite sure what it might involve. Several times lately, when she and Hrith had been alone together, he’d held her hand and kissed her. She’d liked that very much.

Freya talked to her softly and gently, Valdyr’s eyes growing wider with every word. Just like animals, she thought. Then, bringing a flush to her face, the thought that her mother had done this with her father. Freya and Magnus… She felt itchy and wished she could run away from the thoughts and Freya’s words.

“I’m sure he’ll be kind,” Freya said. “He seems to have grown fond of you.”

They spent the next few days fitting and altering Valdyr’s wedding gown so that it would look as well on her as it had on her wedding day.

At the edge of the compound was a small wooden house. A place of seclusion and rest. Women would go there in the days before they gave birth, young men on their way to the priest school would spend their last night at Magnushall there, or a girl who was thinking of taking holy orders. Couples on their wedding night.

It was done with great ceremony. Valdyr in her wedding dress, Hrith in his finest clothes, the household kneeling in the chapel, praying that this night, or one soon after, would see the start of a family for Valdyr and Hrith. Then he took her by the hand and, followed by a torchlit procession, walked with her across the yard, past the stables and the smithy, to the little wooden hut.

Valdyr was nervous and stumbled. Hrith held her hand and squeezed it.

The women had spent much of the day cleaning the hut, putting fresh linen on the bed, filling oil lamps and hanging the walls with garlands of flowers. Valdyr thought it was beautiful.

Hrith led her inside and they watched from the window as the procession turned and moved away, back to the hall. He poured them both a cup of mead and they drank it in silence. Valdyr’s eyes were cast down and Hrith wasn’t used to seeing her so subdued. He knelt down beside her chair and kissed her.

“I should like to see you,” he said.

She looked at him with big eyes. “There is nothing special beneath this dress. It would be better if you snuffed out the lights.”

He stood up, took the empty cup from her hand and raised her gently to her feet.

“I am your husband,” he said. “You will do as you are bid!”

For a moment, she was frightened of him, but she looked into his face and saw that he smiled. She moved away from him, a little closer to the bed, and with clumsy fingers unlaced her gown. He sat down and watched her.

The dress fell to the floor and she stepped out of it. She picked it up and laid it over a chest near the wall. She turned to face him, dressed only in her shift and knickers. She was shaking.

“Are you frightened?” he said.

She shook her head. She couldn’t explain what she was feeling. For two years, they’d been friends, since the day she fell from her horse. She liked him and greatly admired him. What if he didn’t like the way she looked? She was thin and small. What if she did everything wrong? Hrith knew about these things. She knew nothing.

“Then what?”

“I have such small puppies,” she said, blinking back tears.

Hrith felt ashamed of himself. He did want to see her without her clothes and he was sure he was going to like what he saw. He pushed himself up from the chair and almost ran to her, taking her in his arms, pressing his face against her hair.

She was breathing in gasps and gulps. He bent his head and kissed her. She held onto him and kissed him back. It made her feel a lot better. Gently, she pulled away from him and stepped back. She pulled her shift over her head. He looked at her, almost in awe.

“You have beautiful puppies,” he said softly.

She drew her knickers down and kicked them away. He reached for her again, but she took a step backwards and sat down on the bed.

“Now you,” she said. “I want to see you.”

She pulled back the covers and slipped under them, watching him undress. She liked the way he looked. His skin was brown from the sun and his body was lean and strong. She looked down at his legs, caught sight of the thing that hung between them and felt her face flush hot. She hadn’t seen one since she was a girl, playing naked in the sea with the other children. Then she’d thought nothing of it. Now… She buried her face in her hands, ashamed once more of her sudden shyness.

He slid into the bed beside her, stroking her back. He wanted her more than he’d wanted any woman, even Durren. She was his wife…

“I’m glad you came here, Valdyr,” he said.

They lay together for a long time, hands stroking skin, exchanging soft kisses. She sighed and looked into his eyes, thinking how lucky she was to have him.

“I’m glad I came here, too,” she said.

He touched her belly and she felt the need to open for him. Her fingers brushed against his thing and she was surprised to find how much it had grown, how hard it had become. That, she thought, inside me…

When he rolled towards her, she thought she was ready for him. He was gentle and slow, but still the pain of it surprised her.

“Hush,” he said. “This once and no more. I promise you.”

“Please,” she said. “Oh, please…”

Then he broke through and the pain stopped. Valdyr was left breathless. He kissed her.

“My sweet girl,” he said.

She thought he might stop now, but he didn’t. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. After a time, she opened her eyes again and drew in a sharp breath. Somewhere deep inside her, was a tingling. Now she didn’t want him to stop.

When he did, she lay in his arms, a little dazed. They talked quietly. He called her his sweet girl and, close to morning, when he kissed her again, she said, “I should like to do that again.”

So they did.

He thought of all this as he laid her on the altar in the chapel where they’d wed. He’d had to step over the bodies of Father Jens and his chaplain. Too many dead, he thought.

He wished he could open the crypt and lay Valdyr down beside the tiny body of their first child. Born just seven months after that first night, Bridget had lived for less than two hours. Exhausted, Valdyr had turned her face away from Hrith, ashamed of her failure. He’d held her, kissed her and ,for the first time, told her that he loved her. There would be other children.

He asked Durren to take care of her and the two women came to be friends, so far as such things could be. Valdyr knew Durren had once been Hrith’s, but this just seemed to strengthen her affection for the slave. When Bjarg took Durren’s child from her and laid her in the snow, Valdyr gave her Ronni to suckle. Between them, they grew the little girl up to be strong and happy.

Hrith didn’t want to think about what might happen to her, what might be happening right now.

“I’ll find her,” he said. “And Olle. I will tear Svike’s heart out for what he did. I’ll slice off his balls and hang them about his neck.”

He lay himself down beside her, one arm about her waist. Near twenty years, he’d known her. Three children living. Two, he reminded himself grimly. If he had the heart, he’d bring Berthe and Durren to the chapel before he left.

He kissed Valdyr’s cold lips.

“I can’t live without you,” he said.

If she were there, she’d look at him crossly and tell him not to be such a fool. If she were there…

He fell asleep, dreaming of a little girl with brown hair and dark blue eyes, who giggled and chattered too much, who rode like a wildwoman and lay her head on his lap and went to sleep.

Um, no…

I was talking about one of these:

Though mine are much much prettier!

If you come across one, don’t follow it, get on its back or have sex with it. Seriously, you’ll live to regret it… but not for long.

I’ve tweaked them ever so slightly. In their horse form, kelpies’ manes run with water. My kelpies have dry manes, but in their human form their hair is always wet and dripping. There’s a reason for that – it fits the narrative better.

I’m not kidding about the sex thing. You’ll really really want to (they’re built that way). Just don’t!

For selkie men, things appear more straightforward. They come ashore as men, leaving their skins behind, drawn by the loneliness of a woman – a widow, a neglected or abused wife, a woman left (as they used to say) on the shelf – and stroll into their bedchambers. They spend one night with their lovers and leave. Selkie men cannot live on land for more than a night or, at the most, a day and a night. A child is usually the result of this anonymous coupling and its father will eventually be back, a bag of gold in his hand in payment, to take his offspring into the sea. If a selkie man and a landwoman fall in love, their only hope is to find her an abandoned or hidden sealskin so that she might become a selkie. On the surface, it would seem that it’s always the woman who must make the largest sacrifice. But if they can’t find a skin, and he refuses to leave her, the sad result is his death. A day at most they can have together on land. If they want a lifetime, she must give up all she knows and become something new.The hunt for the sealskin is always successful, usually only just, with a sealman in distress as the sun goes down, or the moon comes up, or the clock strikes midnight. What probably helps her in the final act of becoming is that she needs to get him into the water. She doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life haunting the shore, grieving for him.

Selkie women make a stronger and longer lasting commitment than is usually the case with their men. But there’s always a use by date. She will eventually find where her landman has hidden her skin and, heartbroken to leave him and her children (and there are always children) but joyful at returning to the sea, she will wrap the skin around her and become a selkie again. And he will be the one haunting the shore, calling for her, hoping to see her at the dance, hoping to hear her song. His great hope is that his death will come by drowning. Then, at last, they might be reunited.

Selkies can have love or freedom. Never both.

Selkies need the people of the land to give them children. Some will grow up onshore and some in the sea. If on land, their mother will watch them from the shallows, playing with them in the waves if she can. She might catch sight of their father, as heartbroken as she at her leaving, but the sea will always call her back.

The taking of a selkie’s skin is, on the surface at least, an act of theft. It is left on the rocks, or spread over the sand, while the selkie dances, always in company, music played and songs sung by the old women – the ones who, long ago, left the sea to live for a few short years with the landman they’ve never forgotten. The hope that their pelt will be chosen is the reason they come ashore. They’re looking for love and because the contract is so binding and so final, love they always find. He knows which skin to take. How, I don’t know – it’s just the way of it. And she knows, the moment she sees him, that he is the right one. There love is real, it’s deep, but she, at least, knows they won’t be together forever. She wants to find her skin, hunts for it sometimes, but the finding of it always brings sorrow as well as joy. She’s not a prisoner looking to escape. If she could change things, she would. She’d find a way to be both – wife and mother as well as selkie.

The contract is almost sacred, which is why I’ve never heard a selkie tale that involves cruelty and coldness. And that got me thinking – what happens when the wrong man gets his hands on a selkie’s skin, for all the wrong reasons? She’ll love him, she won’t be able to help it. And he’ll love her. Bound together without that vital element – the trust, the leaving of something precious for someone to find, the understanding of how awesome – how terrible – it is to have that skin in your hands. This selkie would be a prisoner.

The two landmen – the one who loved his selkie before he took possession of her skin, and the one who finds himself loving the woman he wants to exploit – are as chalk and cheese. One understands the power of it all and stands in awe of that power and of her. The other fights against his feelings, his love for her is like a millstone. Both selkies would die for their man, but only one is likely to die at his hands. The first knows she’ll leave her lover one day and because of that, she tries to make every moment they spend together count. The other wants to be set free.

I’ve come to this understanding not just through reading the tales and listening to the songs. Writing this story has been a large part of it. Getting inside her head, his head, the other one’s head… Even though the story is told in the first person, I’ve come to know these men, their motives, their emotional engagement, their responses to the selkie in their lives. And her? She is Woman. Universal. But she’s also something much greater than that. She stands for what a man can get for himself if he trusts, if he takes that leap and does that terrible thing – if he understands the responsibility it gives him, if he’s prepared to accept the power it gives her. She stands for what a woman can get, and what a woman stands to lose, by willingly trading her freedom for love.

As the Hunter says to his lover: “I have your skin. Both given and stolen.”

And, as she says to him: “Not stolen, sir.”

And later:

“I’m glad I got to watch the dance.. I thought I loved you before, but when i saw you on the beach, when I took your skin from the rocks… My hands were shaking and I felt as though I did a terrible thing.”

And the other man?

He is close. I can feel him. He watches me and I dance for him. His face is wet with tears and his words are tender.

I didn’t know, he says. Oh, God! I didn’t know.

Tomorrow, this moment will be forgotten, at least by him. He will push it down deep inside himself so that it doesn’t change him. He can’t change. He is what he is. A man so single-minded that even this great moment of epiphany must be denied.

(The ‘sir’ is a long story, and not one I intend to go into right now!)

For those of you who may not know much about selkies, someone has posted a wikipedia entry that covers the basics.

About a month ago, the story had got to the point (in my head) where it needed to be written down before it was lost. So I set Nevill aside and started bashing away. A (broad) structure materialised, and I sketched out the major plotline. The two main protagonists had already revealed themselves to me, I knew a little of the woman’s backstory and the man began to take form. (At the heart of all my writing is a love story. I can’t help it. It’s just the way it is.

When I sat down to write, I had: two main characters; a very broad brushstroke setting; a major plotline; a sketchy start-to-finish timeline. Oh, and a title.

By the time I reached the end of part 1, the story was beginning to explode, to push out from the parameters I’d set. New plotlines sprang up that needed to be followed. New characters impacted the story and the lives of my selkie and her landman. And a whole new mythology was conceived. (Not a Whole New Mythology for the World! just a little one for my new universe.)

At the beginning of chapter 4, there was a BOOM! moment. I wrote a couple of pages and realised that this changed everything. And it came about because I couldn’t decide whether to a) put my FP into the hands (and power) of another character; or b) send her off on her own so she could do some growing up, learn a bit more about her place in the world &c &c. I thought “Can’t there be a way I can do both?” So, I tried it. And, as I said, it Changed Everything!

Well, not quite everything… The characters haven’t changed nor, to a large extent, has their motivation. The major plotline remains, the love story is complicated but not compromised and the mythology is deeper and (I hope) richer. And I’m dabbling in the murky waters of steampunk while I’m at it, though that is by no means carved in stone.

So now all I have to do is find a way to structure it so that what’s happening in my head can be followed on paper (or screen). There are now two stories, essentially, splitting off from and converging with each other from time to (pivotal) time. There’s a brother who’s just popped his head up out of the water (literally) and a war that no-one can see. And there’s the yearly struggle my MP has to take advantage of the get-out clause his late father (very astutely) inserted into his marriage contract.

If you’re at all interested, I’ll keep you posted!

Dissolution ($9.99) – available here

and

The Daisy & the Bear ($7.99) – available here

have been kindled!

I sent a hard copy (fully proofed) to seven Australian newspapers. Into silence. They don’t review self-published books, you see. With a number of high profile, impressively selling authors now making the decision to leave their publishers and go it alone, that policy will have to change. But at the moment, it is what it is.

So, seven charity shops around the country now have a copy of my book. I hope the people who pick them up enjoy them. I hope people pick them up!

But I’ve found at least one blog that focusses solely on books not published by the Big Six! So, I filled in the form, attached the .doc version and pressed Send. I await developments…

A couple of facebook friends have also offered me a review, for which I am most pathetically thankful.

Setting up an independent book blog (called The Independent Book Blog) with a number of other facebook friends is also something I’m working on. Now that I’ve found someone else who’s done it – and who has the ‘fill in this form, attach your doc and send” functionality, I might just contact them for advice.

I’ll let you know how things go on all fronts.

Conversation.

Lettie was talking.  Lettie had always done the talking.  She was from a family of talkers.  When Len was courting her, he’d sit in their kitchen, waiting for Lettie to make her bustling, chattering entrance, trying to shut out as much of the noise as possible.  None of them listened to each other and they all saw Len as the audience they’d been waiting for.  He barely spoke except to make noncommittal noises that they interpreted as they chose, as best suited the needs of their current thoughts.

He loved her, loved the sound of her voice even if he had long ago stopped listening to the words.  Every now and then he heard something that disturbed him and then he listened, fearful of what might be said, powerless to stop the flow.

“Who knows what they get up to?  Mrs Charmin’s youngest, now she’s caught up in something, I don’t know, won’t talk to her mother, certainly not to her dad.  Out till all hours, comes home exhausted.  It’s not the dance club, hasn’t been seen there in weeks.  That’s bad enough, but I told Mrs C, it’s either drugs or sex, probably both.  Now, you and your sister were never any trouble, were they, Len?  Good as gold, you two were.  But Halley… Do you see her around?  When you go out, I mean.  Well, you wouldn’t, would you?  I mean, she’s years younger than you.  You’ve got nothing in common, never did with that lot.  D’you have any idea what’s going on?  What the kids are getting up to these days?”

“I don’t know—“

“Drugs?  Oh, I know, it’s always drugs.  There’s always drugs.  All that toing and froing, back and forth from Calcutta.  You’d think they’d put a stop to it.  Can’t imagine it’s helping the Plan much.  What are they taking now?  In our day it was crash.  That was the thing.  They still take crash?  All the horror stories we told you girls so you wouldn’t make the same mistakes we did.”  A sigh.  “Young and stupid is always young and stupid.”

Lettie pretended a wild youth for herself and Len, the parties, the fights, the drinking and, on the edge of her memory, the drugs.  Carlin suspected that the wildest thing that either of them had ever done was miss dance club a few times so they could make love under the stardome.

“So, there’s Halley, out all night, up late every morning, eyes hanging out of her head.  Doesn’t want to go to school.  Questions everyone — actually questions!  Poor Mrs C’s at witsend.  She’s that close to making an appointment with the circuit priests.  You know what she said the other day?”

Carlin shook her head.  Len sighed and looked up from his paper.  “Lights, reading,” he said quietly and a muted pool lit up his chair, pushing Lettie and Carlin further into shadow.

“That’s right, Len, throw a bit of light on the conversation!  I said throw a bit of light on the conversation…  Never mind dear, you go on with what you’re doing.  Don’t mind us.”  Lettie chuckled then turned back to Carlin.  “She told her mother, actually said out loud that,” Lettie leaned forward, shot a glance over her shoulder and continued in a low voice, “that the Irrosh doesn’t have a Plan, it was just a plot to keep us all in ignorance.”  She sat back in her chair.  “What do you think of that?”

“I’d think you’d better stop repeating things like that,” Len said, his voice calmer than he felt.  “Circuit priests not that far away.”

“You have your opinion, I have mine.  Mrs Charmin is very worried.  She’s talking of sending Halley to the priestschool in Brickle next year.  Sixteen!  She’s only sixteen and coming out with filth like that.  Makes you wonder.  Then there’s the Ingerden boy from Thandell block.  Now that is a mystery.”

“What is?” Carlin said, alert now.

“Well, he’s disappeared.  Vanished.  Went off to school one morning, never came home.  No-one’s got a clue.  No note, nothing missing, just the boy gone.  Mind you, he always was a bit odd.  Took a clock apart once, to see how it worked, he said.  See how it works!  It worked, he could see that it worked!  Tried everything with that boy, they did.  Priestschool.  Word study group.  His father took his belt to him more than once.  Nothing ever made the slightest bit of difference.  Always,” Lettie’s face screwed up in distaste, “questioning.”

Carlin had heard stories like this before, children asking questions that no-one wanted to hear let alone answer.  She’d written an article on it, the Lost Generation she’d called it.  A bit of an exaggeration, couldn’t be more than two in every hundred, but they seemed to spring up in groups.  A neighbourhood had half a dozen or it had none.

“Did you never question anything?” Carlin said.

“Your mother’s a good woman,” Len said sharply.

“It wasn’t fashionable in our day as it seems to be now,” Lettie said.  “Blasphemy and damnation a fashion trend!  I would never have thought that one up, not in my wildest dreams.  It’s not right.  He’ll turn His back on us if we’re not careful.”

“I think,” Carlin said slowly.  “Not that I agree, but I think that’s pretty much what they want.”

“How do you know?  Have you been talking to them?”

“Not Halley or Ferris Ingerden, but some kids, yes,” Carlin said.  “For the article.  They’re not happy, some of them.”

Lettie stood up, went to the kitchen, raising her voice as she went.  “We’re not put on Henn to be happy.  Now, who wants a cuppa?”

Some of what the kids had said had seemed to make sense at the time.  All that stuff about the decline of Exentia, following Esklath and Calessia in their headlong rush towards stagnation.  They were talking about the same things the priests did, only they gave it a different name.  The priests were preaching stillness and equilibrium.  The lost kids called it the death of the spirit.

“Have you ever really listened to what they say about the World Eternal?” one of them had asked her.  “Next time you go to chapel, just listen.  It gives me the creeps.  No love, no passion.  Nothing new.  It’d be like it is now, only with no hope of escape, no dying to look forward to.”

Carlin had been shocked  “You look forward to dying?”

The lad had smiled condescendingly.  “I don’t want to die, none of us do.  What we want to do is live and no-one here will let us do that.  But even with all the shite, at least we still have love and joy—“

“And pain and suffering,” Carlin said.

“But it’s living!  And there’s a whole lot more of it to do, if only they’d let us.”

Now the disappearances.  Carlin wondered if it was a suicide cult.  It wouldn’t be the first.  Nearly a hundred years ago a woman, saying much the same as these young people, had led her followers to their deaths.  To be free, they’d said.  To be free.