The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 3

by Beth Brower

What can I do to drive away Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen, Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen! Touch has a memory. O say, love, say, What can I do to kill it and be free In my old liberty?

Touch has a memory. In that moment, I could have sworn ghostly fingers lingered across the back of my neck.

But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. That there is a bit of genius.

Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.

It felt as if it were…what can I say? A fission? An energy? All that mounting storm he carries about his person breaking in beautiful rain. And I thought to myself, This. This sort of battle, this kind of argument, this laughter when we realise we are saying the same thing—this is what I wish from life.

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of your principles.” “I’m not certain I fully agree,” I was compelled to answer, “but very well read.” He smiled. I smiled. How wonderful a thing to find one’s friends.

If I were the heroine of a novel, I would have felt my heart clutch, the misery of what happened all those miles away causing me to freeze, perhaps closed my eyes tightly, hands shaking, feeling all the difficult corners of loss. But I am not the heroine of a novel. I am flesh, blood—interesting enough on occasion, with dull edges here and there, living a life of the expected and the unexpected, the wanted and the worst of the unwanted.

The very year. And I was feeling somewhat blank. Realising this, a thousand questions went through my mind. Am I getting better? Is three years of grief enough payment? Does the heart not always have to wear black?

“Good,” he answered sharply. “Be angry. Be terribly, bloody angry. Better fury than sorrow.” I blinked at him. In all the years of loss, no one had ever told me that was acceptable.

I am undoubtedly making a snide expression.

She wore orange and she deserved it.

Throughout the entire dinner, she endeavoured to laugh in the popular female way, i.e., as the tinkling of a merry bell.

Robinson Crusoe,

“Oh, hello,” I said. The oh and the hello both said with the same tone. Rude? No. Discourteous? It could be argued. Self-preservation? Most certainly.

My mother once told me she’d hope I’d live without guile. “No, no, love,” my father had answered from across the room, bent over one of his illustrations. “Let her keep just a wee bit. She’ll need it. Not too much!” he added when he saw my mother’s face. Be it guile or not, there was a significant fight between my good nature and my everyday one.

I honestly don’t know what people want from other people. What have we come to if there is no room for a one-syllable reply?

She gave a diffused laugh. Diffused laughter. Who has any use for it? Muffled? Certainly. Laughter cut short? Obviously. Diffused? Aggravating.

By blind impulse of eager passion driven.

There is no escaping cosmic humour in Lapis Lazuli House.”

Strictly as a humble squire to your glorified knighthood. I do not repeat the mistake of implying you are incapable.”

The definition of the word ‘dubious’ carries a degree of the suspect. It is a grand fit for the occasions of life my life. One might write an ode.

Athena, being the Goddess of Wisdom, thought it wise to keep Perseus’s name and rank out of the gorgon’s reach.

He did not say anything. He simply stopped and considered for a full minute before continuing to walk slowly towards me. It was too sensory—if that is the right word—the sound of his footsteps, the sweet tang of an air not usually found in London, the press of the pavement against my bare feet. As he came closer, walking in a half circle around me, his eyes missing nothing, all thoughts of dancing and the twins and Arabella and Islington evaporated.

He smelled rather wonderful, and I moved my hand, only just, so as to touch him, as if I doubted he was flesh and blood. I’m sounding ridiculous, but it was so very strange. Then he stopped, our shoulders shy of touching. “What witchery are you up to on a night such as this?” It was a moment for Shakespeare. Or Wordsworth.

It was simply a witching hour.

I was most certainly not going to kiss Niall Pierce. I’ve never even thought of it before thought of it very seriously before. What a load of rubbish—and a relief I did not let myself get carried away.

“Serendipity has seen me into more scrapes than I care to tell.”

I suppose there is no sense in penning an introduction to the affair. It will simply have to be recorded as best I can remember, then fully scrutinized in a day or two when my headache—temperance, you fool, temperance!—has fled.

“Striker, for all intents and purposes. And you are?” “Undecided if I’ll release that information,” I answered.

Hawkes, of course, sat above it all, focused on the meal before him, his dishevelled hair looking wonderful for wear in the candlelight.

better part of two hours trying to guess my name.” “Fools and their entertainments are soon parted,” Islington replied, with what I thought was a rather

“But we’ve yet to guess her Christian name!” Quality Jones interjected. A cheer went up. Then Islington, knowing full well what he was doing, said, “Well, Emma?”

The Reprobates let out a second round of groans. “You really are a killjoy, Islington,” I said. His hazel-e...

The music wore on, or so I believe, for I fell into a doze only to be woken by Pierce, whose shoulder I had borrowed.

As a rule, dislike should be founded on more than a person simply speaking with one’s friend. As a rule. Perhaps not an inflexible one.