Beautiful Ugly

by Alice Feeney

If all we need is love, why do we always want more?

My wife tells stories that matter, trying to save the world from itself. I tell stories that matter to me.

My books have always been a place to hide myself inside myself when the real world gets too loud.

I prefer dogs to humans. Dogs are loyal.

I can’t remember when we last said that we loved each other. We used to say it every day. I like the sound of her words and how they make me feel. Like when you hear an old song you haven’t heard for years on the radio, one you used to love.

Have you ever known something terrible was about to happen before it did? Or felt an overwhelming, inexplicable fear that someone you loved was in danger?

This is the worst best day of my life.

Some people think hiding their grief will make it go away, but in my experience it only makes it hurt more. Grief is only ever yours; it’s not something you can share, but at least there is someone else who thinks about Abby as often as I do.

The problem with reaching the top is that there is only one direction left to go: down.

People tell me I need to move on, but how can I? Without some form of closure I am trapped inside a sad and lonely limbo, desperate to know the truth but terrified of what it might be.

Grief is a patient thief and steals far more than people who have never known it realize.

“Success is often the result of a series of failures. Try to remember that. You never learn anything from success, but failure can teach you everything about a person. Especially yourself.

I hope you die in your sleep was our way of saying I love you.

“People always see ghosts on this island.”

“People rarely know what they have until they lose it. They spend their lives searching for a better one, wanting more, needing more, blind to the fact that they already had it all. I think sometimes it’s only when something gets taken from a person that they appreciate what they had.

I keep my thoughts to myself because silence cannot be misquoted.

I experience a comforting and unfamiliar sensation and it takes me a while to identify the feeling. It feels like coming home. Which makes no sense. Because I’ve never been here before.

Everyone is addicted to something because we all need a form of escapism,

There is something there, under the floorboards. It’s too dark to see clearly so I use the light on my phone. Then I take a step back. It’s a collection of small bones resting on a red velvet cushion. And the bones are in the shape of a hand.

People say time is a great healer, but it only seems to hurt more the longer she is gone.

In my experience, there is no such thing as a random order of events; everything happens when it happens for a reason, even if the reason is hard to see at the time.

At first, it just looks like a pile of A4 paper covered in dust and dirt. But when I blow the cobwebs away, it’s clear that I’m looking at a manuscript. I take my reading glasses from my jacket pocket and crouch down until I am close enough to read the title page: BOOK TEN By Charles Whittaker

Charles Whittaker was once a bestselling author, a giant in the mystery and thriller genre in his day, but he hadn’t published a book for years. If he had written what he thought was his best novel, why would he hide it beneath the floorboards in his writing cabin?

I’m still trying to process what I just read, but it’s undoubtedly one of the best books I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, and nobody else even knows it exists. The only question now is what to do with it.

At work, I am a different version of myself—someone confident and well respected—but at home, I am just the wife. It’s like I am playing a role I didn’t audition for, but nobody tells you that the script of your life sometimes changes when you say “I do.”

I think you’re in my seat. Those were the first words my husband ever said to me. I wonder what will be the last.

And those were the words that changed everything because writers were my rock stars.

I have always had a soft spot for storytellers. I fall in love with their words; then I fall in love with the people who wrote them. I sometimes wish I could crawl inside their heads, hear their innermost thoughts, and see the world through their eyes.

“My husband.” “You don’t trust him anymore?” “No, he doesn’t trust me.” She frowns then, ruining her perfect face. “What makes you feel that way?” “I’ve been lying to him, and I think he knows.” “Lying to him about what?” she asks. “Everything.”

There is a reason why people paper over the cracks in their lives, or in this case, hide things beneath the floorboards. It’s far easier to pretend your problems away if you can’t see them.

Hope can be just as devastating as despair.

“When the island decided they wanted to make a woman disappear, they called her a witch and with a puff of smoke—and a bonfire—she was gone. A murderous magic trick. First they got rid of all the birds, then they tried to get rid of the women.”

there’s no need to be afraid of the dead, it’s the living you have to watch out for.

They’re all women. Every single one. All of them. That can’t be right, can it? An island with no men?

This is not a dream, or a symptom of my insomnia, or a side effect of drinking too much whiskey. It’s really her and she’s standing right in front of me, staring at me with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. Finally, she speaks. “Hi, Grady. I think we need to talk.”

“Nobody can remember every moment of their own history. Our overburdened minds choose which highlights to hold on to, and which files from our past to delete. But I know the story about the Children of the Mist better than anyone, because I was there that day at Darkside Cave, and what happened to those children was my fault.”

Women come here when they need to leave their old life behind and start again. It’s a refuge. A safe place where they don’t need to be afraid. There’s no war, there’s no hate, there’s no crime, and there’s no poverty.

The island doesn’t judge you. It doesn’t care who you were, or who you think you are. It doesn’t make judgments based on how you look, what you believe in, what you do, or how much you think you are worth. The island treats everyone the same. The island takes what it needs from people and gives what it can. Amberly is home to women who were wronged by the world. A place of hope when all hope is lost. Everyone who lives here will do anything to protect it.

No man is an island, but a woman can be if she needs to be.

Life is a fairy tale that rarely hands out happy endings. Life is Beautiful Ugly; my wife taught me that. The walkie-talkie crackles again, it is her, and the last words I hear are the only ones I want to: I hope you die in your sleep.