little red

In a time when I still counted years I skipped from fen to forest with a basket over my arm, with offal tripe and fruitcake tucked into a pouch of love from mother to grandmother, and I, the intergenerational messenger, I skipped from fern to fungi to roots that stretched out, angling to ensnare. I counted brushes of my feet against the ferns and stones against my heels and whispers of wind inflating the lining of my cape. And when a thin, keening voice wailed my name between howls at the rising moon, I didn’t stop to let its portent soak. I was too steeped in my love of the numerical, the rhythmic, ...