Hildegarde Serle

Swings alive, aren’t we swaying rather too much?

When would you like me to return?”

“Me?”

When would you like me to return?”

“Me?”

When would you like me to return?”

“Me?”

Thorn leant over, in a sustained vertebral extension, but he didn’t return the watch to her. Instead, he placed his mouth on hers.

He thinks God’s hand is coming down to hit him, but it ruffles his hair, teasingly.

“You already have been, more than enough if you ask me. I am just looking forward to the wedding being over and you leaving the Pole with your whole family.”

I think we could have all lived happily, in a way, God, me and the others, if it weren’t for that accursed book. It disgusted me. I knew what bound me to it in the most sickening of ways, but the horror of that particular knowledge came later, much later. I didn’t understand straight away, I was too ignorant. I loved God, yes, but I despised that book, which he’d open at the drop of a hat. As for God, he relished it. When God was happy, he wrote. When God was furious, he wrote.

It wasn’t Thorn who needed her. It was she who needed Thorn.

His question was terse: “Your heart?”

“It’s fine,” she stammered. “The illusion has passed. I feel be . . . ”

Ophelia didn’t finish her sentence. Thorn had wrapped his arms around her with a vehemence that took her breath away. She opened her eyes wide on this darkness, which was making her blink rapidly. She didn’t understand. Thorn should have hurled reproaches at her, shaken her furiously. Why was he hugging her?