And so, I have started on the final story of the Bitterwood Bible collection, which is called “Spells for Coming Forth by Daylight” (which is a riff on the alternative title of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Book of Coming Forth by Day). There’s always a degree of terror and second-guessing when you’re about to finish a project. That sudden leaching of any confidence you may have had that any of it was a good idea in the first place; the cold sweat when you wake at night because your subconscious has shown you a plot hole big enough to drive a tank through, and now you’re wondering what else you’ve missed.
But anyway. I am almost done. Below is the beginning of the new story, the last story of Bitterwood. It is raw and rough and will be flensed, but it will show you what I’m working on.
Spells for Coming Forth by Daylight
by Angela Slatter
Four years, I think, refuse to believe it and so speak out loud: ‘Four years.’
The folk milling around me in Half-moon Lane’s broad expanse barely notice and those who do are adept at looking elsewhere. This is the area of Lodellan where people know how to mind their own business ? know to mind their own business if they know what’s good for them, which is in part why I sought it out. Also, because it’s cheaper to find a bed here, to eat once a day ? should I so desire I can feel my ribs, count them with ease ? and to go unremarked unless I fail to pay my bills.
Alas, that’s becoming an all-too-likely event. Four years and the money, the valuables, have just about run out. I sold the last of the tiara gems a year ago and have been living frugally on the proceeds since. I sold off the clothing, too, all those lovely travelling dresses, even Asha’s favourite dove-grey; now the only thing between me and public indecency is a well-worn pair of trews, an equally lived-in shirt, boots with emaciated soles, and a cloak grown thin with age ? I’ll be in trouble by the time winter comes. All in varied shades of brown, for brown turns aside the eye, excites no attention, and since my face changed, became more pleasing, I have been so anxious to not be noticed. It’s three years since I sent the driver and coach back to Breakwater, and began walking the length and breadth of whichever land, county, country, the bloodstained pin directed me. I followed faithfully, and look what it’s gotten me: permanently calloused feet, a tan that will never fade, wrinkles at the corners of my eyes like canyons, and hip joints that grind with every step.
Perversely, I never thought I’d bewail the loss of what Asha passed on, never thought I’d be concerned for my looks, but it’s strange; when suddenly you get something you never thought to have, never thought you’d care about, it becomes so stupidly precious. I never thought I would be that way. I never thought I would miss the smell of the sea, the stink of the port, the heady sweet miasma of home ? I never thought I would miss the house by the Weeping Gate.