T.D. Whittle

The temple was a collection of low, drab buildings barnacled to the side of the mountain; I was disappointed, having expected more after the arduous climb. A stream ran past the temple, draining into a narrow gorge. In the sprays steaming over the drop, a small rainbow formed and wavered. Aritomo pointed to the rocks on the opposite bank. They seemed to be trembling. A second later I realised that they were covered with thousands of butterflies. I watched them for a moment, but was impatient to move on.

'Wait,' Aritomo said, glancing up at the sky.

The sun hatched out from behind the clouds, transforming the surface of the rocks into a shimmer of turquoise and yellow and red and purple and green, as thought the light had been passed through a prism. The wings of the butterflies twitched and then beat faster. In small clusters they lifted off from the rocks, hanging in the light for a few moments before dispersing into the jungle, like postage stamps scattered by the wind. A handful of the butterflies flew through the rainbow above the gorge, and it seemed to me that they came out looking more vibrant, their wings revived by the colours in that arc formed by light and water.

We walked up to the temple's entrance. A pair of cloth lanterns, once white, hung from the eaves, like cocoons discarded by silk worms. Blackened by decades of soot and incense smoke, the red calligraphy painted on them had ruptured and bled into the tattered cloth, words turned to wounds.

Janet Coombe stood on the hill above Plyn, looking down upon the harbour. Although the sun was already high in the heavens, the little town was still wrapped in an early morning mist. It clung to Plyn like a thin pale blanket, lending to the place a faint whisper of unreality as if the whole had been blessed by the touch of ghostly fingers. The tide was ebbing, the quiet waters escaped silently from the harbour and became one with the sea, unruffled and undisturbed. No straggling cloud, no hollow wind broke the calm beauty of the still white sky. For one instant a gull hovered in the air, stretching his wide wings to the sun, then cried suddenly and dived, losing itself in the mist below. It seemed to Janet that this hillside was her own world, a small planet of strange clarity and understanding: where all troublous thoughts and queer wonderings of the heart became soothed and at rest.

"... You'd come alone, without father, without Sam or the others―you alone, for me."
"You wouldn't be sorry to be back?"
"What d'you think?"
He was silent a while, then spoke again, chewing his straw.
"I've in my mind's eye the model of my ship. I can picture the shear of her, an' the long graceful lines. Her sails spread to the wind. She'd run like a devil if I let her, laughing' with the joy of escape, but a touch of my hand an' she'd understand, obeyin' my will, recognisin' I was her master an' lovin' me for it."
He leant over and watched Janet with narrow eyes, sweeping the whole of her.
"What is it, Joseph?" she asked, conscious of his gaze.
He laughed, and spitting out his straw upon the ground, he reached for her hand.
"Women are like ships," he said.
(Book I, chapter X, p.61)

There were no more years, no time, no grim and satisfying death; this was Janet herself who stood before him, Janet who flamed in the bows of her vessel, Janet as he had seen her in his dreams as a boy, Janet who had preferred Joseph to himself. (Book IV, chapter IX, p. 276.)