Escape

Ger leans back into the seat and stretches his long legs out before him. He should be feeling joyful, but his smiles cracks off his face like old plaster.

Nobody came to wave him off. Mum and Dad are too busy in the caff, chewing over Chelsee’s news. Don’t tell, she’d said. Of course he told. Chelsee must have known that he would. Intended that he should.

With a slick hum the train moves off. The whinging child at the other end of the carriage runs up the carriage, hollering. Cadell. It would be. Spoiled brat. Ger glares at him. Cadell’s face falls and he retreats.

The train gathers speed and the images flick past, beginning to dizzy him. He shuts his eyes but older images flick past, burned onto his retinas. Mum and Dad aghast. Mum pragmatic after the initial shock, Dad… Dad just weird about it.

Ger’s eyes snap open, and the world speeds past. Sickness tugs his guts. He swaps seats and now he is looking back. But that is worse.

The train slows, stops at the next station. Rachel, Tanya and Cadell get off the train in a tangle of pushchair and bags. Ger knows he should have helped, should have been a gentleman. But if he’d stood up he would have got off too, and taken the next train home.


Linda Gruchy

Serafina, Come Home

Dodging the rain and the plague of students Louise slips into the café after her stint with the two brothers. Chelsee gives her a slight, conspiratorial smile as she pours Louise’s tea but the place is packed and her usual table occupied by a young man hiding behind the Guardian. She sits down, murmuring an apology.

Louise sees no sign of the anxious, put-upon mother or the volatile brother so she relaxes and nods again to the skinny girl now clearing tables. “You’re busy today?”

“Students,” she replies, looking almost friendly. “Term starts tomorrow.” Both girls look curiously at the Guardian man who gradually seems to realise he is under scrutiny. Chelsee turns away but is still in earshot when he grins at Louise. “Hal Thompson, lecturer, Physics.”

Louise blushes under his admiring eyes but answers in the same vein. “Louise Jones, aromatherapy, massage, holistic care.”

“Aha,” he looks pleased. “You’re not a local either, in spite of the Jones? I thought I was the only foreigner in the entire town.”

After a quiet, cautious day, finding her way with Malcolm and George, aware of a knife-edge between the brothers, it is astonishing to find someone cheerful in Greyling Bay, someone besides Gwen, that is. She is aware of Chelsee’s covert stare but Hal’s warmth and his unashamed interest in her overwhelms her, so she manages to ignore the other girl’s down-turned mouth and unsmiling shrug of farewell.

Hal walks her home and talks her into a dinner date for the next night. This is what normal people do, she realises. Dare I?

Gwen’s robust laugh echoes in her head: Go on with you, girl. Grasp at life with both hands, start living.

Suddenly, shockingly, a woman’s voice says Andrew’s name out loud. Last night’s extravaganza in Cardiff was broadcast live though Louise’s television stayed firmly off, but here he is again on the local telly: so trustworthy, so lovable, so charismatic, charming the interviewer who flutters her eyelashes. Louise listens, nausea rising.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” he confides, and where the reporter hears melting honey in his voice, Louise hears only danger and familiar shards of ice. “ I’m looking for a girl called Serafina and something tells me she’s out there watching us.” He lifts that handsome head and those sincere red-brown eyes glow as he gazes straight at her. “Serafina,” he smiles. “Come back to me, darling. You know you want to.”


Nicola Slade

Every Time

“Every time I do something worthwhile, you go and spoil it. Attention seeking, that’s what it is,” Ger hisses.

Chelsee blinks. She looks at her wrists. She frowns. “You can’t leave. Mum and Dad need you to help in the caff now the summer’s coming. I can’t do it any more.”

“Don’t be daft. I can’t afford to miss an opportunity like this. You’ll be right as rain, soon, you’ll see.” Ger’s fingers press hard into the arms of the bedside chair he’s seated in. That face, that impassive face. He knows she’s gloating behind the mask, trying to twist him like she always did when they were small. Do this or you’ll make me cry, then Mummy will smack you. The words are unsaid, but he sees her thoughts like wasps. “You take the tablets, same as always, and you’ll soon be back to normal, see. No more of that bloody nonsense. It doesn’t work any more. You can cut yourself to kingdom come for all I care now, see. It doesn’t work any more.”

“I can’t take the medication.” A contrived tear escapes down her face. “They have to sort me out something new. Therapy or something. Tablets is too dangerous, now.”

It’s a new strategy, Ger tells himself. The old one won’t work; bring out the next. “What’s wrong with tablets, then?” She’s winning because he has to ask, and he hates himself for asking.

“I can’t take them. Not now. Not this time. Because. Well, just because, OK.”

“No, it’s not OK. Tell me. So help me, I feel like slapping you.” Ger’s eyes flick round the ward. The bed next to them is empty just now, sheet and blanket rumpled. The nurses are all busy, and nobody has heard. Nobody but Chelsee.

“I’m pregnant so I can’t take the tablets, see. And it’s why you’ve got to stay and help Mum. Because I can’t. Not with a baby.”

Ger flops back into the armchair, mouth flopping open as the breath is yanked out of him. His eyes scan down over the scrawny ribs, down to the belly. Stick-like arms with one bandaged wrist move protectively over the bump. Ger looks back into Chelsee’s eyes set in sunken pits. “You’re lying. You’re lying to keep me chained to that bloody caff. You selfish cow.”

Chelsee says nothing, but stares back at him. Behind the sly power he sees something slinking like a cat: fear.

“Christ.” Ger stands so abruptly Chelsee flinches and seems to sink deeper into the mattress. “Who’s is it? I’ll smash his face in for him.”

“That’s why I’m not saying. And don’t you go telling anyone.”

“Can’t you get rid of it?”

Chelsee’s face is shuttered again, the fear-cat vanished, or trapped perhaps, behind those shutters. His audience is over.



Linda Gruchy

Secrets and Burdens

“You want another job, Louise?” Gwen takes silence for assent. “Two brothers,” she explains. “Malcolm writes text books or something at home; George is helpless, spastic they used to call it. Anyway there’s two days when he doesn’t go to the day centre.”

Louise nods absently, letting the healing power flow into Gwen’s shoulder as she relives yesterday’s nightmare in the café; dreamy Chelsee, so absorbed in the scarlet flow, obediently standing still while pandemonium reigns.

I’ve been almost happy, Louise screams inwardly now, I won’t get involved. But it was too late, the message, the entreaty, in those pale eyes, the colour of seawater on a wet day, compelled her, so later that evening she’d slipped in to see Chelsee in hospital.

Neither spoke a word. Chelsee trembled, staring, at her visitor. Louise, hating Chelsee, hating herself, hating most of all what was unknowingly asked of her, reached out reluctant questing fingers to the bandaged arm. It happened at once – sometimes there was nothing but today the warmth flowed out of her and into the damaged girl. She took Chelsee’s hands in her own and felt great surges of power drain from her, like nothing she had ever experienced before, leaching from her till she almost fainted.

Chelsee relaxed, eyes half-closed, her breathing regular but Louise knew the girl was greedily sucking the strength from her. What was different this time? Why so needy? Louise shook off her weakness and centred herself until intuition found what she sought.

Chelsee’s eyes snapped open and Louise stared down at the bony body with its slight tell-tale mound just visible under the blue bedspread.

Her intuition was never wrong.

“So you’ll go then?” Gwen speaks sharply, twisting under the competent hands so Louise has to break off and stare blankly. “To see Malcolm,” Gwen sounds exasperated. “Get a grip, girl. I told him you’d call in today on your way home.”

“Fine.” Louise writes down the address, conscious all the while of the shrewd blue gaze..

Gwen stops bristling and pats her hand. “I saw him too, you know; on the News, night before last,” She twinkles as she scores a hit. “I knew you’d be at your wits’ end. Oh yes, booked to work his magic on the Welsh in the Millennium Stadium, God help us all.”

Louise had almost forgotten about him, with all this on her plate, but she shivers now. No need to pretend with Gwen thank God.

“Clever idea though,” Gwen smiles. “Where better than Wales to hide a girl called Jones? Not Louise though, surely?”

“My middle name,” she says absently, then looks down into the wise, kind eyes. “Oh Gwen,” she whispers. “Something terrible has happened, but I really couldn’t help it.”


Nicola Slade

Stepping Stones

Louise gasped at the altered landscape. A flight of stepping stones, puddles like silver pennies scattered in a line across the ribbed wet sand, rising to meet the full moon bellying low. Black and white and silver, Greyling Bay in negative.

Each day a stepping stone; an outing with ‘Call-me-Gwen’ – ripe for adventure, her grin cynical. “Greyling Bay might be new to you but I’ve lived here eighty-seven years. Besides, the old mill does decent coffee, just outside town.”

Another footstep: massage, accompanied by peals of laughter. Gwen Parry telling dirty jokes. Again. “Gwen, you’re awful.” Louise mopping her eyes, massaging Gwen’s frail shoulders.

“I know far worse than that.” A triumphant chuckle banished by a purr of pleasure as the strong young hands resumed their work, sending warmth and power and healing into the knotted muscles and sparrow bones. The pleasure, as always, two-way; Louise giving and receiving, her own tensions slipping away.

Earlier stepping stones: escaping after Father’s funeral. But the house! How had her mother dared? Father, unforgiving as the icy God he made in his own image, too lofty to be troubled with details, making Mum act as his secretary. Getting his signature, forgery perhaps? Just in time before his stroke. ‘All yours.’ Mum’s last whisper. ‘The house, everything - provided he lasts the seven years.’ And he had, just. The second stroke relieved them both – and here she was.

Wherever here was.

“You have healing hands, Louise,” Gwen told her and twisted round to stare, with shrewd, narrowed eyes at Louise’s harsh gasp. “Don’t worry, child,” she said. “I can keep a secret. But I do know who you are.”

“Insatiable curiosity, see?” explained Gwen, shifting painfully. Louise hastened to help, her mouth still sour with denial. “Something about you,” Gwen told her. “Intuition, auras, moments of clarity, not limited to the Scots, you know; plenty of Welsh witches.” That warm, knowing chuckle again. “Besides, I’ve an excellent memory for faces when they come with an intriguing story.”

Her knobbly, blue-veined hand covered Louise’s small, strong one. “You stood on the quayside, bathed in light.” The quizzical amusement vanished and Gwen’s blue eyes were grave. “I knew you at once, God knows how; then you saw the celestial city and I knew it was meant.”

And that was another step forward; Gwen knew, and the sky hadn’t fallen in.

Shivering as a cloud drifted across the moon, she closed the window, suddenly craving company. The spicy warmth of Curry Night at the café beckoned.

Another stepping stone here: a tentative welcome from Chelsee whose brother, about Louise’s age and calmer now after yesterday’s drama, shot her an abashed smile and showed her to the last remaining seat in the café.

“It’s a new thing,” he handed her a menu. “Curry night. Chelsee’s brainwave.”

Louise loved the lilt in his voice. “Seems very popular,” she smiled then the colour drained from her face as she glimpsed a face on the television screen on the wall.

Andrew!



Nicola Slade

Talk To The Knife…

…‘cos the face ain’t listening.

Ger’s escaping. The thought is piggybacked on Chelsee’s shoulders, the weight of it dragging at her with every move. A proper job, he said. Like working in here isn’t a proper job.

Well, it isn’t, is it?

A proper job you get paid for all the hours you work. A proper job has prospects.

“You’ll have to do more hours now,” Mum had said. She should have told Mum then.

That Louise is back. Same time, same table, same drink. Habit-forming, life is. Do the same things over and over, and it reminds you who you are. It makes you safe.

The bread pudding needs cutting into squares. The knife is sharp. It slices through her arm as easily as the cake. The skin gapes like a smile, bubbles of fatty tissue gleaming pinkly. How come she has so much fat if everyone tells her she’s skinny? She tries another slice. Odd how it doesn’t really hurt. “I am alive, after all,” she thinks. Red wells up round the tiny beads, gathering in to a trickle. Chelsee moves her wrist, watching the trickle changing direction, controlling the flow.

“What the…? Chelsee.” Louise is with her, clamping a tea towel on the arm, yelling for Carol.

Carol bursts through from the back. “Oh not again. I thought you’d outgrown all that stupid nonsense.”

Later, lying powerfully in her hospital bed, Chelsee allows a smile to slither across her face. Ger looks angry, Mum looks cross and worried: Dad just looks impotent. That’ll teach him.


Linda Gruchy

Darius Bredwyn Is Loved

Following disturbing allegations about Douglas Bruton's working habits I no longer feel comfortable including his work in Greyling Bay, and so have deleted the four pieces which were attributed to him here.

For more information read this post on Vanessa Gebbie's blog, and this post on my main blog, How Publishing Really Works.

Apologies for any difficulties this might cause.



About The Contributors

Triple Chocca-mocha Macchiato—With Whipped Cream

Carmelle Jones blew into Greyling Bay one sultry afternoon, surfing good intentions and waving doubts farewell. Armed with deliciously strokable notebooks, modest wine supplies, and chocolate for every chapter, Carmelle was ready for writing heaven. She’d spent the train journey—followed by a taxi ride with a driver who didn’t seem to hear her mention that she was A Writer—being progressively less able to contact her Facebook friends, as the signal on her dongle dwindled and died. Good people, gorgeous, whose hugs and kisses and virtual chocolate touched her on an hourly basis. Carmelle felt perfectly nurtured by them. But this week was a challenge that she (and her Creative-Life-Counsellor) had set—to come where she could not be fingered by Facebook or touched by Twitter or anything else that damaged her acclaimed alliterative ability.

Prospect Cottage had no wifi and no phone signal. Truly, Carmelle was facing her fear, but her writing group had sent her off with encouragement in her ears and Valrhona in her handbag. You’re fabulous, Carmelle. You have a gift. Ignore that editor. What does she know?

One look inside Prospect Cottage and she’d known this was the place. It had Genuine Atmosphere. Two looks and she felt the need for coffee. It wasn’t the cottage, just how the fisherman owner guy had eyed her. God, she hadn’t come here to be seduced by some bitter herring-breathed rustic with a nasty madness in his pink eyes.

Carmelle approached the café, sucked in her stomach, swung her hips like a hammock. A little pout would do no harm. They’d be watching her, clocking her pre-Raphaelite hair, jealous of her smooth city skin, skin which a boyfriend had described, so sweetly, as being like a piglet’s. Carmelle was used to people envying her. Which was why that editor’s comment had wounded her so, until her wonderful friends had poked her on Facebook and reflated her self-esteem.

Carmelle wielded a notebook and two pens: pink and turquoise. The café doors hung open in the heat and voices limped into the air like tired butterflies. She smiled at this image: she must write it under the heading, “Similes for future use”. With the turquoise pen, she thought.

God, but this lot ...

Fat girl with her rosebud mouth slightly open, waiting to pay for a cream cake that she’d already gouged with her finger. Grinning biddy in a wheel-chair. Sepia woman staring at her hands with a Jesus expression. Two tarty young women and a kid with a buttered face. A couple staring at the table as though they’d rather be anywhere else. And the men—Christ, they looked spiritless. Seaweed had more zest.

And into their midst, Carmelle.

“Triple chocca-mocha macchiato with caramel and marshmallows and a butterscotch twizzlestick. And whipped cream.”

“What?” The waitress was waxen-faced, hollow-cheeked, as though something was sucking her from inside.

“Tea. Please.”

Behind her, someone smiled.




Nicola Morgan

Something To Tell

Mum, I’ve got something to tell you. Chelsee wipes the wetness round the countertop. The cloth refuses more moisture, leaving a damp rash behind. Chelsee looks up furtively. The café is empty but for the newcomer. Staying, she is; so the rumours go. Why do people sit in the same seats? Habit, Chelsee guesses.

Mum, can you keep a secret from Dad? Only I’ve got something to tell you.

The dishwasher beeps. Chelsee opens it to a dragon’s breath. The crocks are still hot but she stacks them up, the clatter ripping her eardrums. Mum… listen a minute… Mum, I won’t be able to… Mum, I’ve got a problem.

She ought to tidy the tables before more people come in, change a few grubby tablecloths for clean ones, but she needs to rest. She makes a half-hearted circuit round the tables, then sits at one of them with a sigh.

The newcomer smiles at her. Louise, someone said her name was. “Quiet today, Chelsee.”

“Yes.” Chelsee rummages around for something else, something sensible to add. Mum, I have a problem. “Yes, quiet. Often is, this time of year… been lucky with the weather, like. Not much rain. Cold though.”

Chelsee’s mum comes into the café from out the back. Chelsee stands guiltily.

“Hello Carol,” says Louise. “I was just saying to Chelsee here what a blessing the weather has been.” She gives a conspiratorial smile to Chelsee.

Now, thinks Chelsee: “Mum, I’ve…”

The café door is flung open and in walks Ger, with the scent of seawater and winter air pursuing him. He’s wound up like a kid on Christmas Eve. His excitement crackles over them like static.

“Mum,” he says too loudly, “I’ve something to tell you…”





Linda Gruchy

Under The Pier

Darkness soaks across the bay and settles in swathes over the heaving oily water. Chelsee stands in the seaweed layered beneath the pier, away from the reach of the moon, and listens as they talk.

“Course I don’t love her,” he says, his voice as oily as the waves. “Never did. I was just being kind, you know. A charity job.” A bubble of laughter from them both then the smooth drag of clothes against skin as Chelsee waits in the brine-spiced darkness, water seeping into her shoes, and presses the back of her wrist to her mouth.

Later, when they have finished, when they sit silently in the shelter of the rocks, their cigarettes punctuating the darkness, Chelsee circles behind them and flings a fistful of gravel and sand at the two bright spots of flame. She hears its wet weight shower over them in the dark; the girl’s shriek rising above his barking curses. Chelsee is out in the moonlight now and when he stands he sees her there. Stares at her for seconds as waves break softly beyond them on the shore: then he says to the woman beside him,

“There’s no one there. No one at all.” His eyes locked to Chelsee’s as he speaks, his voice as cold as the sea, watching as she turns and runs away.


Jane Smith

Dead Wood Greening

“They say you can see America.” The voice was old and cheerful, and down near Louise’s hip. Someone had parked the wheelchair so there was an excellent view of a rusty old iron shed. Automatically, Louise kicked off the brake and pushed the old lady slightly to the right.

“That’s better.” A nod of thanks and an appraising glance. “As I was saying: America. I reckon you’d need to lean sideways so Ireland didn’t block your view.”

Louise laughed, surprising herself, and peered, tilting her head to the left. “Nope,” she said. “Not today, anyhow.”

“What can you see, though?” The question was suddenly urgent. “There, where the sun’s breaking through? Don’t stop to think; tell me what you see?”

Oh dear. Louise shrugged and looked up and saw: Heavy charcoal clouds hemmed in flames with spires of opal, gold and rose, shooting heavenwards. “A celestial city!” The words burst out of her and she heard the sound of old, gnarly hands clapping drily together.

“Yes, you’re the one,” she nodded, gnomically. “Standing there like a lost soul; I knew you’d been sent.” She met Louise’s blank stare with a suddenly impish grin. “Don’t worry, dear, just let it happen. Still… better ask, I suppose. Needing a job, I take it?”

How did she know? Louise nodded. I could be a tourist.

“Used to looking after people, aren’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Plenty of work round here, then. Living museum, Greyling Bay is, only most of us don’t realise we’re already dead.” She followed her witchy cackle with a nod towards the rock that overhung the bay, dominating the little town. “See up there? Black dots, high up? That’s George and Malcolm. Brothers sorely in need of a miracle, those two.” She held out a gloved hand. “You’ll take the job? Give my granddaughter a break? We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”

Louise walked thoughtfully back along the quay, drawn to the cheerful warmth of the café. Warmth, company—even if it was only the skinny, anxious girl behind the counter—and a cup of tea: that’s what I need now, she decided. That, and some time to consider the old lady’s offer. Smiling at the girl, Chelsee, Louise took her tea to the window where she had sat that first day.

Something different now, dead wood greening, cold bones warming, life doing what life does, in spite of you. ‘Cheerfulness breaking in’; a quote from something? Trying to ignore the old lady, Gwen Parry, and her parting thrust. “This whole town needs a miracle, dear.” Again that shrewd, appraising glance. “And you’d be the girl to know about miracles, wouldn’t you?”


Nicola Slade

Bob The Books

With watchmaker’s precision, Robert inscribes an inverted ‘V’ against the final figure on the bank statement, rules a red line beneath it to mark the month’s end. The bank account, adjusted to allow for cheques still uncleared, agrees with his total in the café’s cash book; reconciled to the penny, the weights of debit and credit in perfect balance. Robert Whiteside, negotiator of numbers, reconciler of differences, returns the ledger to its shelf in the windowless back room with a quiet reverence.

Now his mind is free of the accounts, noises from outside begin to find their way to him. Human voices and mechanical maneouvres; the random chaos of the café. Chelsee will be hot and bothered, boiling with endeavour.

It’s time to go home. Robert feels the first small waves of panic lap against his temples; a coolness above his upper lip. He forces himself to control his breathing as he clasps his hands around the door handle. A short walk, that’s all it is.

Three, two, one…

Zero.

Robert snatches the door open and steps into the disordered stew of clientele. If he keeps his glance aimed straight ahead he has a chance of escaping without incident. And yet disorder claws at the periphery of his vision: the new woman by the radiator, her car with the number plate not in the middle of the bumper: he’d seen it outside the B&B and couldn’t walk past it. The other two with their shrieky voices and cloying scents; Chelsee, distracted again.

“Bye, Bob,” reaches him as he finds the door. “See you tomorrow.”

He’s outside, head down, counting the paving stones.

One, two, three…

A cacophony of gulls swooping above him, swirling with the wind, clamouring for the attention he refuses to give.

…nineteen, twenty, twenty-one.

His key in the lock, unlatching, pushing open the door; and then turning, shouldering it shut against the chaos. Closing his eyes and feeling the calm order of his home cocoon him once more.

The cat will need feeding. Seven spoonsful.


Peter Drobinski

Greyling Bay Café

Chelsee crushed the sweat from her forehead with the tea towel then looked round, her neck burning under the collar of her overall. Nobody had noticed. She breathed out, and a popper on the overall unpopped.

The dreary woman sat by the radiator stirring her tea to death, staring out across the bay. She probably thought the caff was too working class. Stuck up, miserable cow.

Another dribble of sweat ran down behind Chelsee’s ear. She shuddered. Tanya and Rachel were huddled over their drinks, laughing, co-conspirators. Rachel twisted her wedding ring as she sniggered over some bitching titbit, and slid a sideways glance at Chelsee.

Cadell the heroic, Cadell the wonderful, Cadell the two year old prodigy wriggled free of the chair, clutching the biscuit he’d been mumbling over and toddled over to the dreary staring woman. Chelsee hoped he would smear the soggy biscuit over Mrs Snootyboots, draw on her like a blackboard, but he didn’t.

Sweat trickled down the valley between her buttocks. So freezing outside, so hot inside. They called it a bun in the oven, didn’t they? But this wasn’t a bun, it was a time-bomb, tick-tick-ticking away. She blundered to the loo, grasping the seat with both hands as she puked. Great chunks of envy soured with despair.

She looked at her wrists, porcelain thin, poking out of last year’s cardigan. The thin tracery of old scars freshly overlaid by the purple and yellow from where dad had mashed her flesh with hands hard as coal.

He’d kill her when he found out. He’d bloody kill her.


Linda Gruchy

Invisible Ice

Louise hunched against the radiator. The café was steamy but no heat reached across the counter to the customers even though the skinny woman brewing up tea had sweat running down her forehead. Maybe the cold is inside me, Louise wondered: maybe I should be drinking antifreeze? Hysteria threatened, sourness rising in her throat. She picked up her mug of tea using both hands to steady it.

Well, here I am, though God knows where “here” is.

She had slammed the door behind her, tossed the keys on to the estate agent’s desk and gunned the car towards the motorway. Go West, young woman. It would be difficult to go much further west without swimming, so here she was. Car parked outside the B & B, suitcase unpacked, registered for a week while she looked for somewhere to live, details already with a local agency.

A “stranger in a strange land”. “New beginning;” “fresh fields”. All that kind of crap. The lifeline she was clutching at was that nobody knew where she was. Dead to the world. Old life over. Gone. Andrew would search for her, of course, and he’d be efficient. Efficiency was his middle name after all; well no, actually his middle name was Daniel, but still.... Discreet questions, that’s how he’d start, then phone calls, online enquiries, perhaps even a detective; he’d try the lot but he would fail. Dogged Daniel, dogging her footsteps. The view from the steamy window was bleak and the beach deserted apart from an old man shouting at the seagulls and another figure (male? female? hard to tell) standing in front of an easel, wrapped up against the chill and painting the old man’s picture. If I walked into the sea, would they stop me, she shivered: would they even see me? I think I’m invisible; I’m nothing. A nothing-creature made of invisible ice.

“I got a bikkit,” confided a small voice at her elbow, startling her out of the dark thoughts. It was a small, round child, not obviously male or female, just a generic toddler creature. It held something up to view. “It’s a rectangliar bikkit.”

“Don’t bother the lady, darling.” The mother sounded half-hearted, deep in conversation and, the gesture made, she turned back to her friend.

“Look,” the small voice was polite but persistent. “There’s bumps on my bikkit. There’s ninety-seventy-nine.”

Louise stared at the child and mumbled something that seemed to satisfy its proud boast, then she exhaled a long, sighing breath.

Not invisible then, after all.

It was a start.


Nicola Slade