The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 5

by Beth Brower

The edge of life can be marked in black faster than one would suppose. Why not ring all the bells?

She would no doubt be entertained by whatever fate has brought about this alchemy—but I don’t think she would understand the something running beneath it all. That I was able to step off a train on one of the very worst days of my life and find myself surrounded by the geometry of this inexplicable brotherhood.

After I left, I thought of a world where if I wanted to read Polybius’s thoughts on the Roman Constitution, all I would have to do is walk down the hallway to my library…

I soon finished my draft and set it on the table, then opened Latin Phrases for the Unrepentant, watching him work, and asking questions. It was an easy back and forth.

“Is it too cold?” Islington asked. “We could take tea somewhere.” “Certainly not. I find that if I can embrace pain a quarter of an hour, almost everything becomes tolerable.”

“A grin is only a smile that’s fully decided to get on with it.”

“He’s a bit mad, that one.” I couldn’t help thinking maybe it wasn’t madness at all, merely that he understood something the rest of us didn’t.

My mother would say to look for bright things at a new month—“First day, Emma. What do you see gleaming?”

This is how I am now greeting all of my favourite acquaintances: “What good wind brings you here?”

Mother preferred to keep our cottage a quiet, private place, and Father preferred to keep Mother delighted.

And I think that was the moment I began to suspect that the luck Hawkes spoke of might really only be an awareness, an awareness of grace.

know I have incommoded more than one person in my lifetime, and I’m convinced it’s not pleasant for them. She had my full sympathies.

part of me would rather be wrong than have it proved false.

“He said he wished you to be wise, and good, and true to the beatings of your own heart, and hoped that you could be spared the extremes of society, both the very poor and the very rich, so that neither need nor indulgence would spoil the soul he loved more than anything else in the world.”

“Very strange,” I answered. “True souls sometimes are.”

The memory came to mind just now. And something I’ve not felt for longer than I care to admit began to take shape. That, come sunshine or cloud, I was going to be fine. More than fine. In place, and strong, and anchored in. Tonight, Islington became a stake. And Pierce. And Mary. And Saffronia. And Hawkes. All I can think of is the sound of the rain on the canopy, and everyone still smiling.

“I was there,” I exclaimed. “I could see myself, and the fire, the cool from the window, the table was piled with books, and I was writing something. And it was life, my life, and…and there were footsteps on the stairs.” “Whose?” “I don’t know. But he sounded like the other half of home.”