Investigating what happens when magic collides with the real world
Her Borrowed Grave
It all starts with a Prophetic Tapestry
"A lady, woven large in consequence, with celestial sun-gold hair,
And eyes brighter than diamonds set in the heavenly, nocturnal tapestry.
Gripping a spindle in her right hand. Three fates feed thread into her work.
One line of linen so long, it coiled thrice times around the feet of the fates.
Myriad minor maids sat enslaved by the lady’s learning.
Left hand extended to a warrior, woven in equal consequence with the woman,
His spear raised to strike a sly and savage serpent."
I like to draw my characters.
Origin Story, Her Borrowed Grave
York is a town steeped in archaeology. As a child, living in the Vale of York, we used to visit regularly and see the excavations that have now become the Jorvik Viking Centre. So, in 2004, when the council decided to upgrade the river flood defences in the City Centre, I speculated as to what they would find.
In 2005, that speculation became the story I called Rings, where a Dark Age Sleeping Beauty is woken in C21st York when the flood defence repairs unearth her coffin.
Every character in the story had their own Point of View. I thought it was a brilliant new approach and sent it off to a publisher. They returned it with feedback: Too many POVs, couldn’t work out which character to cheer for.
Back then, I found it difficult to accept criticism, so I read: what an awful story, why did you send it in?
I put it aside, took courses and ended up with a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing. Occasionally, I would pick it up, go through and make changes. I realised that all the head-hopping caused chaos, so I removed most of the POV characters. Then I’d put it back into storage, remembering it was dreadful.
At one point I added the historical section as dreams of the man with amnesia.
Drugged dreams haunt the sleep of the man in the hospital bed.
“My prince, you’ve only seen the girl from a distance, how can you desire her?” he said.
“Her hair puts the sunlight to shame,” the prince answered.
“Guyon,” he said. “Her father is your sworn enemy. Do you think that any of your people would recognise her as your wife after all these generations of blood feud?”
At some point in all of these edits, even the names of the characters had to change from their made-up fantasy names. I needed Anglo-Saxon names, so Guyon became Cynegils. Segor became Sihtric. Even the Smith from the Dark Ages changed from Donival to Donovan.
“Stop your sulking,” Donovan said, as the young thegn prowled the courtyard of the manor. “Don’t bother hunting your brother. He is long gone.”
“You don’t understand,” Cynegils said.
***
“My radiant daystar lost in winter’s dark night
Her honour and glory drowned out in despair.”
***
Donovan clamped down on his urge to thrash sense into the stupid boy.
Other stories got published, but not this one.
In 2019, I was in the middle of my MSc in Forensic Science and wondered how would magic show up in a forensic examination. And, I had this story I’d prepared earlier. I toyed with changing the POV to the detective, but then how would he arrest people from the Dark Ages?
Then it hit me, run the science in the chapter headers and let the journalist show the story. And suddenly, I realised the dreams were silly, and I had a perfectly reasonable vehicle for the history in the Epic Poem Caroline Walters translated as an MA student. More restructuring needed as I removed several chapters that existed only for the man with amnesia to go to sleep.
Now it’s a story about a lonely divorcee who accidently summons the heroes and villains of a Dark Age poem when she weaves a tapestry using designs that have been in her family for generations.