[North 4] the princess makes a decision

Gagging, she took the foul-tasting cloth from her mouth, and dropped it to the floor. Her fumbling hands told her there was no way to open the door from the inside. She stamped her foot and called out in a shrill little voice that the woman would be sorry for daring to lay hands on her in such a manner, but no one replied. She hammered on the rough inside of the door with her hands until her wrists ached, and she slumped to the stone floor, angry at herself for the sobs that she was choking back. Princesses did not cry. Nurse had been very strict about that. Excess emotion was unbecoming in young ladies, and unforgivable in royalty. What nurse would think about her behaviour this morning didn't bear thinking about. She gave a whimper. Her stomach hurt and her head felt funny. She wished she had some food. She'd give anything to have her breakfast in front of her right now. Even cold porridge seemed appealing, although given the way she was feeling now, her manners might not be all that nurse would wish of a princess.

childhood redraft

Once summers stretched long 

and hot beaches became deserts.
Woods were wild,
dangerous places.

We sat barefoot on branches.
Trees were for climbing,
caves to be explored.
Our dens were everywhere,
hidden.

Time hung,
high and distant
above our heads.
Our imaginary spaces faded
leaving only echoes
in the trees and empty caves.

[brats] the girl

[This is just a snippet I wrote trying to get a feel for the world. It won't occur in the actual story, but something like it might.]

The girl held her satchel upside down and shook it. Pencil stubs and coloured beads added to the mess on the rug. A penny rolled away in a slow curve on the uneven floor. Her last reading book, caught by the shoulder strap, landed open, pages flapping in the breeze from the broken window. The girl thought of birds taking off from a rooftop at the end of summer. She had never been so aware of noise before.

Holding her breath, she tiptoed past the room where her parents lay. The door was half open, and she could just see her little sister's hand peeking out from under the covers. Mim slept on a mattress on the floor of their parents' room, beneath the window, so she could see the stars at night; the stars that were brighter than ever since the street lamps stopped working.

But Mim didn't move, and the girl went into the kitchen. She took the last three apples from the bowl on the table, the tin of apricots from the shelf, and found a bag of rice that pulled her shoulder down with the weight of it in the satchel. She took the rice out and sat it on the table.

'Where's a knife...'

A knife was found at the back of a drawer. She slit the bag open, and a few grains spilled out through the sides. Cupping her hand, she scooped the contents out and into the satchel. She did this until half the bag was gone, enjoying the feel of her fingers against the silky-slippery rice.

An alarm clock made her jump, and the last handful scattered across the table and the tiles. She looked over her shoulder into the hall. Still ringing. A few grains of rice were stuck to her hand but she brushed them away against her jumper.

The ringing was louder in the hall. She put all her weight against the bedroom door to push it open, and caught her foot on Mim's mattress.

'Sorry...'

She could barely hear her own voice over the noise of the alarm clock. It was coming from the corner of the room. Picking her way through the mess, she clambered awkwardly onto the edge of the bed and swung her legs over to the other side.

'Sorry...' she whispered to her parents, 'So sorry...'

She shuffled over to the corner and picked the alarm clock up, knocking the lever with her finger. It stopped. Her breathing was the loudest thing in the house. She dropped the clock. It whirred briefly and then stopped with a metallic clunk. The girl stood in the middle of it all, listening to the sound of her breath going in and out and in. The birds outside began to sing as the light crept slowly over the sky.

On her way out through the kitchen she paused. The knife lay on the table where she'd left it. She picked it up, feeling the weight of it as if for the first time. It felt odd. She gripped the handle, and her wrist shook.

She put it in the bag and shut the door behind her.

the birdscarer

Like David
I found my weapons on the battlefield,
repelling the invaders of our golden hoard.
They swarmed, and clamouring,
massed for the attack.

Out of nowhere appeared a single form:
swift and true my lonely stone did fly
and fall to the golden field
where the vanquished lay.

And in that instant
I felt feathers brush my fingers
and the beat of a tiny heart in my hands,
 the wind against my face
and my spirit soared,

but then I was just standing in a field of corn,
black with crows
and in my hands
a bundle of black feathers and a broken heart.

This is an old one. We had a school reading book about lives of Victorian children, and one of the stories was about a boy who was a sort of human scarecrow. The idea stuck with me for a long time, and eventually resulted in this.

[North 3] the princess visits the kitchen

There was an open door just past the cabinet. She darted into the room and took a deep breath. On the table just in front of her was a plate piled high with little bread rolls, shiny with glaze. She could smell them - warm and sugary. She reached out a hand to take the top one. As she lifted it off, a figure emerged from an alcove in the corner. Startled, the princess dropped the roll, causing half the pile to tumble off the plate and onto the floor.

'What the...'

The princess ducked underneath the table. Footsteps came nearer.

'Pot boy, if that's you, I'll have your hide...'

cwic/alive

Fierlen aesces forbyrnath
bremels byrst
bearn blithe

Distant ash trees burn
brambles bristle
glad child

Horrendous anglo-saxon grammar here, but I thought any writing was better than nothing, and this idea appealed to me. I've been trying to teach myself anglo-saxon in my spare time, and the words have a fierceness that makes them come alive. Basically I took the words from my vocab list and shuffled them about until things clicked. I tried to nod to anglo-saxon verse conventions by having alliteration.

winter

It was winter. 
Your eyes were closed each time I came.
I'd sit and talk 
not knowing if you heard.
It felt like the same things
over and over again.
I stepped out in the rain with relief 
and guilt and sadness 
scrunched up tight inside me. 

Later, new black dress, new tights, 
new shoes that didn't fit. 
You looked out at me from photos: 
black and white, growing older 
as I cut and pasted. 
You went to war, got married,
had kids. Colour slipped in 
somewhere in the 60s, orange tinted.
You held a smaller, younger me 
as I graduated from frilly bonnets
 to dungarees. 
Sitting by your chair, 
we practiced Morse code by torchlight: 
dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot, 
over and over again.
After the funeral, traditional 
tea and sandwiches, talking.
I looked past the chrysanthemums, 
gold and orange
to see snow, softly falling just outside the window.