To Queen Morgana
Last year, on my birthday, I was sitting at a café in the South of France
by myself, eating blackberry cake I hadn’t ordered and fielding
frantic phone calls from my mother.
A year ago today, I was running for my life from the Fey trying to
murder me. I got kidnapped by my ex-boyfriend, Raphael, and taken across
the English Channel to Avalon Tower. I spent the journey terrified,
bewildered, and totally unprepared for what came next. With no idea I’d
survive training at Avalon Tower, let alone that I’d become the Lady of the
Lake.
A year ago today, I discovered I had hidden magic, that I was half Fey.
And this year?
This year, I’m not alone. This year, I have friends who would bleed for
me, and I’d do the same for them. A family carved out of chaos. A mom
I’ve left behind in Camelot to finally learn how to look after herself.
Today, my birthday takes place on a mossy island of rambling ruins and
ancient Fey magic.
As I polish the crystal glasses, my gaze roams over the castle’s carvings
—the triple spirals above each arched doorway that hum with magic
whenever I pass beneath them. Already, musicians are setting up in the
banquet hall, a drummer, a lyre player with shimmering silver hair, and a
lutist.
Aisling bustles in over the sun-dappled floor of cowslips, violets, and
rue. She sets out a crystal tray of buttered chanterelles with apple slices.
“So, Brados said to me, like he was serious, ‘We control the kingdom now.’
A republic. Can you imagine such a thing? He ran a bloody tavern, pulling
To be continued
He scrapes his bracelets together angrily, letting his wrists spit sparks. None of them catch or burst into flame. Spark after spark, each one cold and weak compared to mine. Useless. Futile. I follow him down a spiraling stair to a balcony. If it has a lovely view, I don’t know. I don’t have the capacity to see much farther than Cal. Everything inside me quivers.
Hope and fear battle through me in equal measure. I see it in Cal too, flashing behind his eyes. A storm rages in the bronze, two kinds of fire.
“You promised,” I whisper, trying to tear him apart without moving a muscle.
Cal paces wildly before putting his back to the rails of the balcony. His mouth flops open and closed, searching for something to say. For any explanation. He’s not Maven. He’s not a liar, I have to remind myself. He doesn’t want to do this to you. But will that stop him?
“I didn’t think—what logical person could want me to be king after what I’ve done? Tell me if you truly thought anyone would let me near a throne,” he says. “I’ve killed Silvers, Mare, my own people.” He buries his face in his blazing hands, scrubbing them over his features. Like he wants to pull himself inside out.
“You killed Reds too. I thought you said there was no difference.”
“Difference not division.”
I snarl. “You make a wonderful speech about equality but let that Samos bastard sit there and claim a kingdom just like the one we want to end. Don’t lie and say you didn’t know about his terms, his new crown. . . .” My voice trails away before I can speak the rest aloud. And make it real.
“You know I had no idea.”
“Not one?” I raise an eyebrow. “Not a whisper from your grandmother. Not even a dream of this?”
He swallows hard, unable to deny his deepest desires. So he doesn’t even try. “There’s nothing we can
Reklam
"Let me ask you something. Do you think there's such a thing as a perfect day?"
"What?"
"A perfect day. Start to finish. When nothing terrible or sad or ordinary happens. Do you think it's possible?"
"I don't know."
"Have you ever had one?"
"No."
"I've never had one either, but I'm looking for it."
Jim not that way Jim. That's no way to treat a garage door, bending stiffly down at the waist and yanking at the handle so the door jerks up and out jerky and hard and you crack your shins and my ruined knees, son. Let's see you bend at the healthy knees. Let's see you hook a soft hand lightly over the handle feeling its subtle grain and pull just as exactly gently as will make it come to you. Experiment, Jim. See just how much force you need to start the door easy, let it roll up out open on its hidden greasy rollers and pulleys in the ceiling's set of spiderwebbed beams. Think of all garage doors as the well-oiled open-out door of a broiler with hot meat in, heat roiling out, hot. Needless and dangerous ever to yank, pull, shove, thrust. Your mother is a shover and a thruster, son. She treats bodies outside herself without respect or due care. She's never learned that treating things in the gentlest most relaxed way is also treating them and your own body in the most efficient way. It's Marlon Brando's fault, Jim. Your mother back in California before you were born, before she became a devoted mother and long-suffering wife and breadwinner, son, your mother had a bit part in a Marlon Brando movie. Her big moment. Had to stand there in saddle shoes and bobby sox and ponytail and put her hands over her ears as really loud motorbikes roared by. A major thespian moment, believe you me. She was in love from afar with this fellow Marlon Brando, son. Who? Who. Jim, Marlon Brando was the archetypal new-type actor who ruined it looks like two whole generations' relations with their own bodies and the everyday objects and bodies around them. No? Well it was because of Brando you were opening that garage door like that, Jimbo. The disrespect gets learned and passed on. Passed
Carthage: Reflections of a Martian
Thy expected alien
Am I.
Weird of shade
And doomfire face:
All thy senses
Cry to my
Mourning mysteries
Which yesterday
Were commonplace.
We sit at Sunday breakfast
And I smell the dust of Carthage.
It drowns the spang
Of our automatic toaster.
That strange woman across from me
Smiles, butters two slices.
Her smiles arouses a multitude in me!
Her smile...
Frightens us.
I must look away!
Out the window beside my arm,
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
Reklam
Reklam