The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 4

by Beth Brower

“I expect you want tea, now that you’ve driven my curiosity a country mile and abandoned it on the side of the road?”

“I’m off, Lion. And you’re not. Your life moves beyond the point where I left. As it should.”

Bless a man who knows how to keep his own counsel when you can’t bear to speak.

It was the most tremendous gift, to think that a new piece of my life had briefly touched the old.

Anything written by you, Lion, is a constellation. I think of where you will be when you scribble it out. What possible scrape you are trying to pull yourself out of—you of the inexhaustible talent for finding yourself surrounded by trouble. Good trouble, I hope.

All the trees on the street have gone gold. It makes me feel so very sad.

But Islington interpreted softly, “Then we will fight in the shade.” “Brave man,” I murmured. “A sky so full of arrows, they fought in the shade,” said Hawkes. Pierce made some approving sound. It was a noble response for King Leonidas to make, and I was inspired, considering everything with Cousin Archibald, and Maxwell’s burial, missing my parents down to the very bones, and the blank verse of my future—all arrows filling the sky to a tremendous amount. Yet here I was, determined to fight in the shade.

I CANNOT RECALL A TIME IN MY LIFE WHERE THAT HAS EVER BEEN A FAMILIAR TETHER. A RIGHT PLACE AND A FITTING TIME. WHAT WOULD THAT SAY ABOUT WHAT I’VE SEEN THAT BROUGHT ME HERE? I’M UNSETTLED BY IT. AND YOU? DO YOU BELIEVE IN WHATEVER THIS ENTANGLEMENT SEEMS TO BE? Yes And I believe it to be good.