Seventeen hours in cloud land, then on to yesterday. I doze through the daylight with stories whispered in my ears and then, only then, does the journey begin. Read. The chapter opens with one Lost Princess, looking for ancient kingdoms revealed to her twelve year old self in the stained pages of second hand books. Following crumpled maps from Radnor Mere to Kanchenjunga and over Paradise Hill to the bay where the evening primroses grow. Two miles for each page, she walks through a land made of books, a kingdom dressed in stories, but will she find her inkworld? Her heart is made of words, words and ink, afterall.

I will be back in a month, dearhearts.

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.

The little girl grew a bit taller and they sent her to a new school. It was then she realised that being invisible was something that was hard to stop. Each day she faded a little more in to the wallpaper until her hands became transparent, her feet translucent, and even she could no longer see herself. Once, when she looked in the mirror she saw nothing at all, just the bare green wall behind her. Now as girls are wont to do, when they grow a bit taller, she fell in love. The problem was that by now she was so invisible she could not get his attention. She tried everything, she wrote letters, drew pictures, sang songs, and he could see all of these but he could not see her, she was too good at being invisible and she didn’t know how to stop.

Eventually, she lost him, and her little heart hurt so bad that she ran away. She ran away from everyone and everything and she cut off her long long hair. She learned to write stories, her story, a thousand times over, recorded on paper, in print, that it might never be forgotten or fade away. She threw out her clothes and changed her name and carved herself a new identity and after a while, bit by bit, she began to be seen again. Not just seen, but noticed. They told her she was interesting, they told her she was clever, they told her she was beautiful and she didn’t believe them for a moment but she was so happy to be visible again that it didn’t matter what she looked like.

From then on she wore different clothes and said different things and played her own games and ate her own lunch and sometimes she got told off and bullied, but even that was worth it. One day, years later, she met him again. He called out her name, her new name, from the other side of a crowded room. She did not see him, or hear him at first and when she did she simply smiled and walked away.

I walk past the Gingerbread House every day on the way home from school. I have to go the long way around, take Watercress Road instead of Hayne Street with all the other girls. I like that though, walking on my own, and besides I can’t help it, I am in love.

The Gingerbread House is one hundred years old, or so Papa tells me. I wonder if the willow tree has been there since it was built, or even before. I love it’s lonely windows with veils of grey curtain and it’s big red chimney that the turtledoves roost in. Most of all I love it’s gate, curled iron and overgrown with creepers that burst tiny violet flowers. I want to swing on that gate.

Maybe it’s strange to be in love with a house, to walk shyly past it each day and lie in bed at night dreaming and wondering what it looks like inside. Maybe it’s silly to wish wish wish that it were my own, that little front room would be mine and I would fill it with pictures and books and flowers-in-teacups. In summer I would lie on the grass and watch the bees feast on the honeysuckle and chamomile garden or climb the willow tree and tie ribbons to it’s branches.

It’s empty though, My Gingerbread House, it has been for ever and always which means as long as I can remember. I think it must be lonely, missing it’s families and dreaming of the children, ghosts in the hallways. I know it is sleeping and waiting, waiting, for someone to love it and awaken it with just the right kiss.

Everything is born and dies, even stars. They’re just remembered a lot longer. I wonder if it’s the reason we call some people stars, because they’re more likely to be remembered. Maybe thats why the Gods put heroes up there too, and monsters and Queens, so we wouldn’t forget their stories. No one wants their story to be forgotton.

This is my Bible. Whenever I am feeling sad or lost or lonely I open it up to a page, any page, and read the first paragraph my eyes fall upon. Within I find some solace or beauty or truth that I had forgotton. Today I read this;

Effortlessly proud, graceful as giraffes (even the tallest among them, a kind-eyed Blunderbore), the bowmen moved across the clearing. Last, hand in hand, came a man and a woman. Their faces were as beautiful as if they had never known fear. The woman’s heavy hair shone with a secret, like a cloud that hides the moon.

My Bible was written by a Man, but that gives me a chance to hope that someday, I too, could create something that speaks to the heart within.