Water in the Wilderness

excerpt

She had to look, she had to know. Her hands trembling, more now from anxiety than from cold, she carefully removed the cover from the doll’s head. And finally, bitterly, the tears came.
Rachael tried to stop crying. Afraid to waken Lyssa, she buried her face in the sweater that covered little Shirley. Then through the storm in her heart and head she remembered her plan. Quickly she got up and, clutching the doll, tiptoed out of the room and past closed bedroom doors to the kitchen. She reached around the doorway and snapped on the ceiling light. Blinded by the sudden brightness, she squinted at the wall clock above the stove.
Half past five – she had overslept. But Uncle Bill didn’t get up until seven o’clock, and Aunt Ruby much later than that. So she still had time. Anyway it was a holiday – Boxing Day, they called it – so no one would get up early today. Counting on the gift of extra time, Rachael decided not to hurry too much lest she make a noise and awaken them. She sat Shirley up in a chair where she couldn’t see her face, because she could not bear to look at it again. Then she got to work.
After buttering four slices of bread, she looked for something to make sandwiches. The cupboard yielded only jam, no peanut butter as she hoped, but jam would have to do. She wrapped the sandwiches in wax paper, found a wrinkled brown paper bag that had obviously been used for groceries, and carefully put the sandwiches inside, then added a handful of store-bought cookies from a package on the counter. She felt a twinge of conscience. It wasn’t stealing, was it? After all, this was her home, or had been until today. After today, it would not be home anymore. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could make her come back to this house.
Putting her mind at ease, she looked around. What else? Oranges, of course, the ones Auntie Tyne had brought. Selecting four, she added those to the bag, then realized that it was getting too heavy to carry for very long. She removed the oranges; she could carry them in her coat pockets.
She was ready, just one more thing, and she would have to be very careful, very quiet. Hurrying down the hallway, again on tiptoes,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

The Unquiet Land

excerpt

Some traveller has found his way to the cottage, he thought; some shepherd caught by darkness on the hills.
He stepped irresolutely forward. He wanted to shout a brave hello to the visitor, but his voice was coward. He took a deep breath and in his mind heard Finn’s laughter die away. He wished he had brought Jipsie, the sheepdog, with him from the house. Then he grew bold enough to approach the window and peep in through the lace curtains. There on the sheepskins by the hearth, huddled in a rug that covered all but her head, Caitlin sat. She was gazing at the burning turf which every now and then she prodded absent-mindedly with a stick. In the light of the fire her black hair gleamed with the sheen of a magpie’s wings.
Michael’s heart leaped at the sight of her so violently he was almost sick. Shivers tingled through his flesh from scalp to groin. Then he felt ashamed for the fright his mind had moved him to.
“Oh Caitlin, you don’t know what you did to me just now,” he whispered to himself.
Michael was loath to startle Caitlin out of her reverie. He stepped back half a dozen paces and re-approached the cottage, whistling loudly a fiddle-tune she knew. He scraped his feet on the granite slab before the door and lowered his head to enter the two-roomed cottage. A table and chairs stood against one wall, with an old armchair to the side of the hearth, where a crook and crane held a blackened kettle above the fire. Against the wall beside the door to the bedroom an open dresser held blue-and-white-ringed plates and bowls, and ill-assorted mugs and cups hanging from cup hooks.
Michael closed the door. “Caitlin, it’s yourself as has the fire burning,” he said brightly. “What brings you up here?”
She looked at him and smiled but did not rise. “I couldn’t sleep in the house. I had a lot of things on my mind. So I slipped outside and came up here. I thought you might like a warm room tonight.”
He knelt behind her, placed his arms over her shoulders and clasped her hands as they held the rug snugly under her chin.
“That was kind of you,” he said in a gentle voice. “But what would you have done had I stayed at the house in the same drunken sleep as last night?” He rubbed his cheek against her silken hair.
“No matter. I’d have slept here alone.” Caitlin slowly tipped her head back against the pressure of Michael’s cheek and chin, like a kitten. He kissed her on the forehead. Her skin was warm from the fire.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Medusa

Reflection
I stand on the pile of fallen leaves and listen to the day’s pulse creaking just under my soles, the frenetic mode of the autumn loneliness as if in the middle of the marketplace where the crier announces the first beheading.
—Tonight, I feel like a teenager. Let’s take the car and go to the beach to watch the submarine races.
I stand in the middle of the fallen leaves, while my dream cruises down the correct path of anonymity, sky dressed in its azure, a meteoric symbol of peace in a cosmos without your smile.
—Where do you want to go for dinner tonight before I pick what to wear?
Lonely falcon counts feathers and sharpened talons, and my dream reflects in my retina all I have to do is close my eyes and grasp its wholeness: poetry, my peaceful resolution opposite the consumer-oriented banality of the city’s pulse and I, a new Orpheus seeking my Eurydice, fight against Hades.
—That small Italian restaurant has tasty dishes. Let’s go there. I will wear my short red dress.
I stand on the pile of fallen leaves, wondering how jealousy keeps our friends outside the sanctity of our hearts, like the sanctum sanctorum keeps outsiders away from the greed of the insiders.
—Yes, we shall go there. I like the young server with the blue eyes!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763769