Your Pride is Knocked

　　'Egor, the boy needs to know how to fight ,' Momo says defensively. 　　' Fight? Why?' Egors tuts. You can see he hates the word. He is a tender person. I realise. 　　'In case we go into battle.' 　　'And in that case, we can do the fighting.'…

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She Coloured and Coloured and Coloured

　　The boys would eventually get bored and leave. She would turn to him, freckles and eyes and prettiness, and say, 'What have you been drawing then?' 　　'The sea,' he would answer as normal and then ask, 'Can you draw?' 　　And she would say,…

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Because There's No Colour in My Eyes

　　She was on the outside too. On the other side of the line of what it meant to be accepted. Not the brightest bulb in the box, but she loved to sing and dance and play, and she was pretty. She loved to sit with Iris whilst he did his drawings.…

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Live Your Life Like You're Pretending

　　Not that it matters an awful amount in the grand play of things. 　　And it is play. All of it. 　　It's not real. 　　You have to live your life like you're pretending. An actor living a character's life. Otherwise you won't take risks. You…

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Because of Their Language

　　'Yeah, see? Everybody is looking for you because you've ruined everything. People are dying and it's all your fault. You're dangerous. You might not mean to be, but you are. You don't belong here. You aren't one of us. It's better if you leave,…

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Not As Much As Forgetting

　　'How do you, you know, keep memories ... from when you were a child? Do your memories show on your tails?' Rory asks me. His head is cocked to the side, his jaw clenched. I can feel his heat. He is trying to keep upbeat. 　　' Tapestries . Yes.…

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I Like being this Side of the Water

　　The fire is crackling. There's a strange smell from our wet clothes steaming in the heat. The fire is fantastic . Beautiful. I wish the mood could be happier. I like the air. Even though my lungs hurt. I like the sound of the waves. The hush…

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It is A Secret

　　We are up in the attic again. Just like yesterday. The sun is snaking in through the slats in the roof. The lighthouse is drinking up the light. In so many ways it reminds me of home. The way it seems so muted and detached from the rest of Walker…

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The Weight of The Sleeping

　　'I enjoyed the weight of the sleeping. It was heavy. Like a stone in my body. I woke only once and that was because I was entirely thirsty but the tap was there and so were all these strange shadows. Then I went right back to sleep again. Like…

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A Safe Haven Where We Relax

　　Flynn is frying up this well thick ham to have with mashed potatoes, peas and mustard. This is the kind of food that Iris likes to eat. I think Lorali is confused by her senses but I think everything is confusing her, so it is kind of hard to…

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Post itself to Nowhere

　　'OK, don't laugh,' she says for the fifth time. She is giggling herself though. And that is making me laugh. My back is against the wall outside the bathroom. Flynn and Iris are pottering around downstairs deciding what to make us for dinner.…

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The Petrified Forest

　　Queen Keppel has been visiting the petrified forest. A state of in-between. A purgatory, if you like. As all Mer have crossed from human life at some point, the petrified forest acts as a gateway to their past, as little of it as they can remember,…

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The Cetus

　　Now it's dark. The moon, a skinned onion, white and mighty, with reluctance I'm sure, helps to guide the Cetus through my calm. 　　I can't be biased, though I can tell you that the Cetus is most feared pirate ship in the world. A villainous,…

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