Tag Archives: moon

Moon Woman Hare

Leave a reply

They gather slowly, the hare women, moon transformed. They wait at the edge of the wood where it borders the meadow, bodies strong and lithe, whiskers twitching. There are far fewer now; some have learned to ignore the call and many no longer hear it.

She has tried to evade it. Tried to reject it. In her flat in the city, she does her best to tune out the longing, but when the full moon is bright, it’s impossible. The sister song spirals through her soul; unanswered, it makes her listless and irritable. She seeks solace in distraction but it’s not enough. She paces like the caged animal she is, jumps at shadows, hugs herself, asks yet again why she puts herself through this. Why she needs to force herself to be something she’s not.

Ordinary. Non magical. Just a woman, not a hare.

She is glad to be with them again. When she joins the circle, finds herself in the sisterhood, when she changes and loses herself in the richness of a new sensory world, she remembers. The connection to the earth, the profusion of scent and sound, the freedom of running faster, faster, worry and self abandoned in the pure joy of the moment.

Each time, she feels she could keep running forever.

Each time, it gets harder to bring herself back.

They break from the tree line, bounding across the meadow, zig zagging through the streams of pure silver light that spill from the sky. They nibble on wildflowers and pause to rest, sheltering by the hedgerow; they warn each other of predators, fox, owl, badger, and dance with the shadows and gaze at the moon.

As the dawn begins to wash the ink from the sky, they stream from all corners of the field back to the wood, finding their own secret spaces to transform. And one by one, before the day has fully broken, they slip away to their cars and their bicycles and their other lives.

She starts the engine, pulls onto the road. She leaves the radio off. Her senses are still heightened, tingling. It is always a wrench, to return to the ordinary world; the sadness is like a vice around her heart. The choice becomes harder each time; this is why she tries to deny her hare, to stay away from the meadow and her sisters and the moon.

Because she knows that one day, she won’t come back.

A Little Bit of Dreaming The Moon

Leave a reply

picture of moon over sea

Here’s an excerpt from Dreaming the Moon. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Robyn and her friend Bryn are in the tunnels below the cliff, searching for what has been lost. But all is not going to plan.

 

 

Robyn forced herself to open her eyes and the first thing she saw was light. Not very bright, but definitely enough to see by and illuminating the tunnel in both directions. Ahead she could make out the cavern into which the tunnel opened, which also seemed well lit. She looked for the mark she had just made, only to find that it had disappeared.
‘Where are we?’ she asked. ‘What happened?’
Keeping his arm round her and pulling her closer to the wall, Bryn let go of her hand and lifted the bottle to show her. It was glowing fiercely now, almost incandescent.
‘I think somehow we’ve crossed over. Into the faerie realm. I don’t know how, whether we slipped through a rift in the shield or whether this is a crossing that neither side is aware of, but we’re certainly not where we were.’
‘Can’t we go back through?’
‘Unfortunately not. Humans usually can’t cross unless they’re with a magical being, but at the moment everything’s in chaos so who knows what rules apply. One thing I do know though, we need to keep moving because somebody is going to be aware of that shift and come looking.’
‘Which way?’ Robyn said. ‘Should we go back toward the sea?’
‘Don’t know which way that is,’ Bryn told her. ‘The approximate geography is the same but the transposition isn’t exact. I need to send a message to Holly, see if he’s got any ideas, then I think we should keep going, see if we can find another way out, or something that can help us in the meantime.’ He felt her shiver and gave her a quick squeeze before releasing her and feeling for the pen.
‘I’ll mark the wall,’ said Robyn. ‘Just in case.’
Bryn wrote the message on his arm and they watched it sink into his skin and disappear. Then they made their way cautiously into the cavern which was empty but lit by several flaming torches. There were several tunnels leading off it, most of them also lit. Bryn suggested they take the brightest one, thinking it was the one that was probably most used and therefore the most likely to lead them out. It was eerily silent, their footsteps echoing around them despite their efforts to stay quiet, and they were both on edge as they continued. Robyn marked their way and they walked for what felt like hours, up, down, tunnel after tunnel, with no sign of life at all. Finally they sat down on the ground in yet another small cavern, to rest and eat something.celtic knot triquetra
‘It feels like we’re going nowhere,’ Robyn said despondently. ‘Like in that old film Labyrinth. That girl, Sarah, she keeps walking and walking and it all looks the same, as if she’s not getting anywhere at all, no matter how far she goes.’
‘I know,’ Bryn agreed. ‘But we must be getting somewhere, surely. We haven’t seen any of the arrows you drew, so we can’t have gone back on ourselves.’
Robyn sighed. ‘We need a miracle,’ she groaned. ‘Otherwise we could be walking around down here forever.’ She leaned her head back against the rock. ‘At least it’s not dark. We’ll be able to see as we starve slowly to death.’
‘Cheery, aren’t you?’ Bryn said. He stretched. ‘Come on then.’
It was then that they heard the sound, a slight scuffling from the tunnel to their left. Bryn was on his feet immediately, finger on his lips. Robyn rose as quietly as she could. There was more scuffling, louder now, voices and a steady tapping. Bryn peered into the tunnel and backed up quickly. He grabbed Robyn’s hand.
‘Run.’
Glancing back as they careered through the nearest opening, Robyn saw with horror a large crowd of small ugly creatures wrestling and pushing at each other. One of them looked up directly at her just before she disappeared. They heard the increase in volume of voices, but didn’t wait to find out whether the things had seen which entrance they had taken. They just ran, following whichever fork or tunnel was the nearest. Behind them they could hear sounds, pattering feet and strange nasal grunts and whoops, varying in volume so that it was difficult to tell whether they were being pursued or whether it was echoing through from other chambers. As they exited yet another cavern, Bryn spotted a split in the wall, almost invisible yet big enough to walk through, and he pulled Robyn into the small cave behind it. They stood very still, desperately trying to control their breathing, and waited.

Dreaming the Moon release date

1 Reply

So… it’s 2015! Happy New Year! It’s already shaping up to be an exciting one and we’re still only in January! One of the most exciting things for me is the publication of my first novel, coming out in paperback on 14th February.

picture of moon over seaCalled ‘Dreaming The Moon’, it’s a fantasy story set in Cornwall (a land of mystery and magic itself) where Robyn, an ordinary girl haunted by strange dreams, discovers that not only is there another hidden, magical world linked to our own, but that the barrier between the two is failing fast and she is the key to restoring it and preventing the forces of darkness from overrunning both realms. With everyone in danger and everything she loves at risk, can she and her friends outwit the malevolent creatures sent to stop them and fix the shield before all is lost?

Here’s a taste:

By the time Robyn fell into bed that night it was past midnight, and she was exhausted. She curled up under the duvet and dropped into a deep sleep.

It was dark – intensely, terrifyingly dark. The barest sliver of a new moon illuminated a silver thread of sea in the distance, but where she stood the blackness was total and heavily oppressive. Just moving through it was like walking through treacle. She stumbled forward, desperately trying to see something, anything. A branch caught her arm, making her jump, and she stumbled again, feeling her way but not seeming to move anywhere. Eventually she stopped and looked around again, straining her eyes to pick out something familiar, some outline or shape. But she could see nothing except for the narrow ribbon of sea far ahead of her, hear nothing except her own ragged breath. Everything around her was perfectly and absolutely still. She tried again to move, slowly easing her way toward the silvered water, concentrating hard so as not to lose her footing in the inky darkness. And despite the silence, the stillness, the sense of isolation, she was acutely aware that someone or something was watching her.