Under the Pendulum Sun

by Jeannette Ng

Or rather, the moon dangled from a pole in front of a wide-jawed piscine. As it swam closer, I saw the light gleaming off its long, long teeth that curved from its lips. Its eyes bulged from its face, white, lidless and staring. Tail whipping back and forth, its scales shimmered, iridescent in its own light.

IT'S AN ANGLERFISH! ALL HAIL THE ANGLERFISH GOD

A medieval heretic once wrote of standing on the encircling walls of the universe and shooting arrows ever outward. Would there not always be more walls and more arrows? There were more suns and more worlds than I could dream. My mind would always be more finite than that of God. And still, I wanted to behold greater, to become greater than my frail bones could hold. With each laboured breath I felt as though I would tear the papery skin that held the coals of my soul in check. Glimmering embers had lain hidden among those ashes, and now these alien climes had breathed upon them and nurtured new flame.

are we referring to galilleo here?

For a moment, it seemed like an earthly moon, suspended in the air through divine Providence rather than a sea monster that dwelt not in the sea.

It was written that in Arcadia, everything – even your eyes – would lie after dark

in arcadia, seelie & unseelie do not shift w season but w light?

corridors don’t change for no reason.

keep telling yourself that

scaring each other under the sheets. We had no words for what we felt then, but the very idea of ghosts both enthralled and repulsed us. We had buried so many in our youth. I still remember huddling against him, hooking our fingers together and promising under every token that we held sacred that if one of us were to die, we would come back and haunt the other.

Fireflies.

It was angular, full of squares and dots. Many of the symbols were scratched out. Others appeared in lists. Others still curled around strange spirals, wide-eyed, coiling creatures and crude charcoal sketches of moths.

Latin: In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum.

In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God.

Translation of the Bible into Enochian.

I noticed a smudge of coal on my fingers when I put down the lantern in my room and I wondered at who could have left it for me.

salamander, of course

Many have no doubt gotten lost on high seas and brought their ships to the coast of Arcadia but it is only Cook who could have realised that getting lost is intrinsic to journey.

I did not get lost again after that first night in Gethsemane.

Folktales warned of the claim Arcadia had on any who consumed its food, that one would be forever trapped under its unearthly sun.

“The Mission to Arcadia has, at present, met with little success. We urge you, dear reader, to open up your purses and pray harder so as to sway the soulless to turn their godless minds heavenward,”

azote

“It’s very, very cold out there. The sun is too far to make light and so the azote and vital air form seas and mountains. We mine it and cart it back to Pivot.”

nitrogen

“It’s very, very cold out there. The sun is too far to make light and so the azote and vital air form seas and mountains. We mine it and cart it back to Pivot.”

oxygen

“Air,” he replied, oblivious to my incredulity. “The winds blow outwards, see? So it all congeals at sides. Solid wind and solid air. So we mined it and brought it back. But the Lady of Iron closed the mines.”

Why does the parentage of the Holy Cuckold matter if he’s the Holy Cuckold?”

Joseph

“The Genealogy of Jesus is given twice in the book

really, it's through mary's line anyway

It was dedicated to martyred missionaries. I had always thought that it was where Laon had his epiphany, though he never really said as much.

Cruden’s Concordance.

“If the Christ Our Lord was made wholly human in order to bear human sin, does that mean he must also have been wholly fae to bear our sins? Or is that the Covenant with the divine been extended to both fae and humans the way it encompasses more than simply Abraham’s descendants?”

My brother’s house became to me a place of questions without answers.

I thought their song loveliest then. When they’re tricking their kin.”

a changeling bird for a changeling girl

how the fae were inherently a duplicitous race.

my trade-less hands. A clergyman’s daughter is genteel enough to be educated and accomplished, but never useful.

“Not many here understand why I might miss them. Why I could miss them. The others, they’re just not made that way. Much like my hands. I could try to make the shapes for lace-making, pass the threads over one another, and something like lace sometimes results. But it’s not quite the same. Doesn’t come naturally.”

Miss Davenport explained that until Laon returned, the protections that bound the inhabitants of the Faelands to not harm him would not extend to me.

“Blood binds blood,”

“And blood knows blood. You can’t expect mortal salt to do all the work. You need to keep your...

all dark warnings and strange taboos.

“There’s a geas that knows you.” “A geas?” “A ban, though some call it fate.

The Pale Queen has promised him that he and those of his blood would not die in these walls and it protects you be...

“Secrets keep you safe.”

a coldness settling between us despite the closeness of the pendulum sun.

“Not all knowledge brings joy.”

“You are a lot like your brother,” said Miss Davenport. “He was also full of questions. He couldn’t just accept the way things worked.”

she's not accepting; she's bidding her time

for all her outward appearance of humanity – she even took her food and drink with salt – I had never quite forgotten her to be fae. Thus I had entirely not considered her to be a woman.

She had thoroughly mastered the art of saying a multitude of words without any substance.

In newly discover’d Elphane Long shrouded from our sight Where creatures strange ‘n’ profane Have never known his light.

a bright lilac fern to his lapel.

“But a sister for a brother, is fair trade,” he said. “And the brother has been away for so long. The chapel has been empty and–”

“Long! Forever and a day!”

“Me is all. All is we. We is me.”

he was easily delighted by wordplay.

he's fae--what do you expect?

I am not a priest.”