I am reading too much in a vain effort to make the words come back. Reading of burning girls and betrayal, and boys who watch through window panes as everybody dies. The March’s History for a dash of comfort, milk in tea, although it grows a little safe for me to be truthful. I’ve long wished to be a Jo, up all night with inky fingers, but I’m afraid I shall always be Amy, full of little vanities, pining after French satin ribbon and a perfect nose.

November means early mornings and trying to draw out just three more words to line up a thousand, and none of them worth the paper they’re written on. Cups of tea gone black and cold, and writing on trains until there is a steady avalanche of dialogue slipping off the page. All of this, solely to prove to myself that I am not so small and weak willed, after all.

Have you ever been in a large forest and seen a strange black tarn hidden deep among the tall trees? It looks bewitched and a little frightening. All is still—fir trees and pines huddle close and silent on all sides. Sometimes the trees bend cautiously and shyly over the water as if they are wondering what may be hidden in the dark depths. There is another forest growing in the water, and it, too, is full of wonder and stillness. Strangest of all, never have the two forests been able to speak to each other.

By the edge of the pool and out in the water are soft tussocks covered with brown bear moss and wooly white cottongrass. All is so quiet—not a sound, not a flutter of life, not a trembling breath—all of nature seems to be holding its breath listening, listening with beating heart: soon, soon.

My sister is in love with a bear. He comes every night to our house, through the snow which he tracks in, big muddy footprints on the rug. We sit by the fireside, Maman and Snow and the Bear and I. The light flickers in her eyes and turns her cheeks sweet pink. Maman says we must be nice to the bear, and I try to see beyond his ivory teeth.
The nights are cold, and we huddle together in the one small bed, as always. Whispering secrets, telling tales, my sister and I. Now she only speaks of the bear, “Do you think he’ll come again?” she asks. I roll over and shut my eyes tight.
In the summer he will be gone, I’m sure, and we will return to the woods to pick acorns and apples and hunt for mushrooms in the loam. Just the two of us. We will find the deer grazing in the meadow and the hare, to feed him cabbage leaves. At night we will lay down on the moss and the star child will watch over us, as always.
My sister is in love with the bear, but he always looks hungry to me.

“I don’t believe in coincidence.” Rose said “it’s messy and meaningless, a cosmic excuse for anything too difficult to explain.” She bit the blade of grass in half, savouring the bittergreen flavour.
“Then what do you call it,” asked the red haired boy “if it isn’t just an accident?” He liked the way the sun fringed her eyelashes, which were unusually pale and long. If he could he wanted to keep this conversation going forever, just the two of them on the bridge, but the sun would set eventually.
“Magic!” she whispered, with a frightening intensity. “I believe in Magic, and Fate and golden apples and Hades and unicorns in the glen.” She looked at him, waiting for a response. He didn’t laugh, instead he tossed his leaf in to the stream and watched it drift lazily beneath them and out of sight.

It’s fire outside, and I’m bottled up in a glass jar, all windows. A little greenhouse. So I close the curtains and lie down on the cool, calm floor. Books flap about me on paper wings, insects in fine print, dizzying. Restless, I pace the room and my toes stick to the wood boards. The burnt light leaking through the blinds makes me melt like chocolate.

Today was washing on the line and the chance of rain and houndstooth skirts and crunchy apples and curling up on the grass beneath the Jacaranda tree in a small pile of blankets to read.

I have a secret love for Spiderwick. It reminds me to look for Stray Sods on our lawn and inspect patches of red clover and leave a little warm milk with honey and bread in the old shell at the bottom of the garden.

I need a new pair of mackintosh boots (we call them Wellingtons) for puddle jumping. However I have two old books and a jar with a cork lid in which I am going to plant a fairy garden to keep on my mantlepiece.

Claire-fairy is coming over today to eat candy and buttered popcorn and Steph-cookies and watch movies inside on the couch while it rains outside (if the weather will make up its mind that is.)

I want to be a little paper doll and live in my paper house and wear paper clothes with the white tabs for fit. Everything would be neat and light and bright with the smiles drawn on and the beds always made. I would be a little worried about the rain though.