she was like a flower. a tulip to some, a rose to some, a lily, an iris, a carnation.

death?s bridle, a carriage for stars, and to the sea and sky she was known as a rare, wise owl totem.

Little Moon was given birth, and Love had found her.

Face bowed, eyes closed, legs straddling a chair, elbows folded limply over its back, she winced. Across one shoulder was a gray Owl, her totem, with one wing risen across the curve of her bone.

She paid the man, offered thanks and left to fend for herself the dark, weary way home to a flat in WestEnd, where she collected the belongings of hers still there (hose, a cardigan, feather boa, handcuffs, silk shirt) and return to Marban, where each article was tossed to the flames of a bonfire struck of tinder which was quick to cinder, leaving soot and ash and smoke in the air, and a smile upon her face.

Lerida turned to face her home, the land she would always return to, and gave a sigh. The house was no more than a modest cottage, with its light wood and crumbly front steps, its chair on the porch where her guitar sat. The sky above was a teal blue, absolutely breathtaking, and winded, Lerida rose a hand to rub her neck and shake her head.

When had Marban gotten so beautiful?

Inside, barefoot, she creaked about the house, her body a gentle hymn against the tiles and corridors and carpet, a plush wail of pale skin and vibrant hair, settling on her couch to take up her guitar and strum some notes. She wondered to herself, over the notes she plucked, whether Stitch really would live with her a while, and would Kacilla too' She thought the place a sort of refuge, as Maeve had described her own for the animals. This was a good place out here, sturdy, amongst the elements, but not prey to anything by the ceaseless wind, to the echo of the mountains that trilled off in the distance in the mist.

Lerida liked Cilla, felt a chemistry reverbing between them like two opposite chords on a scale...

And the melody made sense. Melancholy but hopeful.

Outside the insects whirled and whirred, and the moon grew heavy and low, her favourite face of the moon, sky sister to her that it was. Into the late hours she played her guitar, occasionally her voice rising out of the quiet rattle of the old homestead and the night, out in Marban, was alive, as song ran with the wind and the world out there exhaled in relief.

Stitch visits me in my sleep. Still I imagine strange things. Hide and seek amongst the orchids, racing in derelict houses, and filling ourselves with one another.

I didn't come back this time for him, not like last time, when bad luck was scrawled all over the mirror and the stones under my bare hot feet. This time I came back to work myself into a different life. Give myself a chance.

This time I'm not mother, or songstress or lover. I don't know what I am yet. Still ripping off masks and sewing the new one.

Can't you tell me the truth. Look me in my eyes and take my shoulders and spin me for the door, out of your life? Why do you latch on, some errant thorn, you beg to be desired, to be stung. My toes are itchy from these old shoes, dead love, bad luck.

Your lips are blistered. You don't care that you left my heart out in the desert, now it is sundried, thin, looks like hymen, twisted and pink on the stone.

You exhale, and I am entranced. Smoke curls around you, the ends of your hair, and you call me sweet things when you're not kissing the end of that addiction.