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“One evening, after a trying social event, Mrs. Penury informed me she had spoken for over forty-five years of her life and, having said all she wanted to say, was done with the institution altogether. She’s been silent almost a decade now, and it’s gone famously for her.”
“I plan to study, Aunt. And foster a light heart.”
“Strange!” “It’s a compliment.” “Is it?” “Yes,” he insisted evenly. “How?” I challenged. “Strange is nice.”
“Strange is that unexpected moment that stays with you, that makes you think about it again. Strange is memorable, and compelling.”
I dropped into the pink chair and glared at my fate. A hem that would come six scandalous inches above my ankle.
“You’re not half so bad once you get dolled up a bit, love.” Clearly the epitaph on my future gravestone.
Rain this morning. It smells of Heaven.
“What a perpetual disappointment is actual society…” To which I can only say, Mr. Emerson, I couldn’t agree more.
I love coming home.
Tonight I opened my window to the most delicious October air.
As for myself, well, I said what came to mind, at times it was even clever.
“We must be our own before we can be another’s.”
Not that I am considering it with any seriousness…but how lucrative is piracy?
My feelings for October are fierce: a sharp love of cool air, a season transforming the landscape towards, and through, death. I’ve always loved it.
“Of course I’m coming with you. Don’t be daft. My friends do not go to war alone.”
“Who bloody cares,” I said to myself. Swearing in the style of one Niall Pierce.
“You are loyal, Pierce. True friendship, and all that.” He looked back at his letter. “If anything, it’s self-serving. I like good people. They remind me of what I used to be myself.”
It was the most tremendous gift, to think that a new piece of my life had briefly touched the old.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “It will be all right in the end.” “Do you believe so?” “For you? Yes.”
It was then I thought that life—my life, in particular—wasn’t wholly worth giving up on yet.
A breeze began to move through, rustling the golden leaves clinging to their trees. I took a deep breath. “I think I like the autumn best,” I mused aloud.
It was Hawkes who gave voice. “Alchemy.” I shivered. That mythical pursuit that turns disparate elements to gold.
