#I wrote a poem about mary tonight called “mary's vacation”

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

not me actually writing the saddest BODY BACK excerpt for tonight's writing session oh my god:

“Why are you upset?” Harrison asks, drumming his ringed finger against the counter’s lip. What does Suzanna see when she looks at him? A miniature version of her wearing a jacket that once belonged to her at his age, and an earring that once belonged to another mother? Or is he a stranger? They know each other best by genetics. If she asked Harrison what he thought her favourite colour was, he’d have no idea. “This isn’t a big deal.” “Oh, please,” Suz says, teary like the actresses on her favourite Portuguese soaps. Sure, Harrison doesn’t know his mother’s favourite colour, if in childhood she was the type of girl to make rings out of peach pits, if she was the type of girl to rip worms bare-handed, if she’d eat cottage cheese with cantaloupe, if she thought about enrolling in a life drawing class before she got pregnant, if her idols are pop icons of the 80s like his are, her favourite way to fold a paper airplane, when her birthday is. But he does know she does not cry. When young Jesus stayed in Jerusalem unbeknownst to his mother, what did Mary do? Perhaps she stared at her hands, thought of the last time she touched him. Perhaps she wept. Or perhaps she found the closest mirror, wiped her sleeve against the glass until it glossed, and tried to find her son in her own reflection.

this is... an underrated relationship in my books LOL

[westerhos]

Our Story: Chapter 5

Here marks the middle of our tale, that vast, perilous land between the beginning and the end. The going is treacherous in these parts—the wayward couple must heal on their own, tread the sea of two decades with arms and souls akimbo—but still, it is not unnecessary. The middle is never aimless. Always, always, it has one goal: the ending.

When the lights go up and the curtains close, you clap—perhaps, should the couple reunite (which, of course, they will), you shout “Encore, encore!” But then, at last, you return to your car. You catch the train, or you grab a taxi. At last, having started at the beginning and waded through the middle, you reach the final destination. The night is over; you go home.

Home. Whether a place, a person, a feeling, or a thing—it does not matter. Home is always the goal and the ending, the northernmost star we pray to and walk towards.

[December 24th, 1996]

Two weeks’ vacation in a cabin, tucked deep inside a fold of mountains. Here, amongst the stretches of living nothingness, even the silence has a voice. Owls hoot in the night. The pines’ chatter, their needle-whispers pierced by caws and shifted air—a hawk swooping to ensnare her prey. And if one listens closely enough, one can hear the hunter's a shaky, traitorous breath, which launches the doe across the snow—the echo of his heartsong, the drum to which the doe’s hooves beat. Come back, come back, come back.

This is why Jamie has come here: for the endless conversation between man and mountain, more steadfast than the chill in his heart. In the past four years, Jamie has sold the twin cot (it lies in a salvage yard somewhere, all broken springs and dreams). A different couple has moved into the studio, and when they had spoken of paint jobs—“Perhaps mint green, what d’ye say, hon?”— Jamie had thought, Thank God. He’d happily offered them the keys when they turned to him, pupils dilated with youthful optimism. By that point, there was no space for Jamie and Claire inside that Edinburgh Eden, and so he’d chimed in, “Aye, a bonny color.” (Indeed, the walls are mint now, though a forgotten strip of marigold shines in the northern corner.)

For two years, Jamie has lived with Murtagh in Glasgow, having shed not just his home but his editorial career in publishing. He has grown tired of fixing other’s mistakes—too many of his own in need of correction—and so here he sits on this Christmas Eve, writing towards redemption.

The Grampians are a peaceful place, big hulks of rock scattered with trees—bouquets of fir, oak, and pine cradling other cabins. At dark, their windows flicker, candlelit with the dreams of the aspiring novelists, essayists, playwrights therein. Men and women, all bowed before the cleansing hum of nature’s speech. Like Jamie, they had seen the fliers: WRITER’S RETREAT, TWO WEEKS IN THE MOUNTAINS—and so it was. They were small colony taking its temporary leave, hoping to reconstruct the world according to their own, more favorable terms.

Over supper, the group gathers and shares their ideas: outlines, pieces of dialogue, an inspiring poem they’ve loved since childhood. And while Jamie is generous with his advice, he holds his notebooks against his chest. Enraptured by this warm aloofness (for is it not the way of all great wordsmiths?), the others whisper behind their palms, “Have you read Fraser’s story?” Into napkins, “No, have you?”

But among the fifteen guests, only one has read Jamie’s story—and tonight, Jamie waits for her inside his cabin. His latest draft is fanned around him, some sections highlighted and others slashed. They are not unlike Claire’s old strike-throughs, which had snipped the would-be Dalhousie and eventually, Jamie’s own name, from her life (a reclamation of Beauchamp, a transformation to Randall). Among Jamie’s scribbles are his friend’s edits, which are much more forgiving, much less forceful than the lines of his own red pen. Each comment reads like a bashful request: “More clarity?”, “Switch the verb here?”, “Too many adjectives?” as if she needs permission to occupy the margins. Should I really be reading this?, she seems to say, the bare-backed rawness making her squirm.

But she is helping him, his friend. And so she sees Jamie’s drafts before John, his agent, and before Fergus, his assistant and most loyal advocate. With each comment, she brings him closer to understanding, to the better beginning, middle and end. Note by note, to the way his story (their story, for it can never be Jamie’s alone) should be. All rhymes and logic, had it not veered off-course.

Is Alexander too cold here? Shouldn’t he say something? (He should have.)

It seems out of character for Alexander to never visit his daughter’s grave? (Grief carves cowards out of heroes.)

Shouldn’t he try to win Elizabeth back? (God, yes. He should have tried harder.)

The knock comes three minutes later, as expected.

“Hello?”

“Door’s unlocked.”

“Oh!” A muffled apology, embarrassment for the delay. “Sorry,” the visitor says. “It’s late. Didna ken if ye still wanted to talk or not. I brought—well, I finished reading your last chapter.”

And now another player enters this fifth act, tip-toes quietly onto the stage. Only a slip of a thing in the cabin’s doorway, cheeks pinked by the storm’s sharp nip. She is Jamie’s friend-slash-critique partner, and even her entrance is punctuated by a question mark. The score of owl, pine, hawk and hunter swells, buffeted now by new notes: the crack of chapped lips smiling, the anxious shuffle of papers, and—

“Dinna fash, I couldna sleep anyways,” Jamie assures her. “Did ye like it, though? The new ending?”

His friend inhales sharply, stealing as much oxygen as the room will allow. Everything—the threadbare futon, the TV’s antennae, the welcome mat and Jamie’s body—bends towards some invisible presence. A ghost between between all.

“It was…a bit different from the last one.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘Nay, I didna like it.’”

She looks shyly at the ground, one foot treading nervous circles into the planks.

“It was a bit too sentimental is all. After everything. All that time and silence…D’ye really think Alex and Lizzie could make it?”

Her words are a blow to Jamie’s stomach, and the pages are fire in his hands. He puts them down, wants to thrust himself under a blanket of snow to freeze the flames.

“In a fairy tale, maybe, but life isna a fairy tale. And d’ye no want to write truths?” She looks up, and her eyes gore him. “This story isna a fairy tale either, Jamie. Yours never are.”

“Aye…aye, I s’pose they’re not,” he replies, thinking of his other novels and short stories, essays and poems. Each accepted by John’s gimlet eye, only to meet their end in a publisher’s slush pile. (“Too dark, too wallowing,” an editor once wrote.)  

“Give it another go. I’ll help ye tomorrow, if ye’d like,” his friend offers. “Three days left. I reckon we’ve time to sort the kinks, right the wrongs.” (Three days will never be enough for Jamie’s wrongs.)

“I’d appreciate that, lass. Verra much.”

His friend looks behind her and at the moon, a shy sickle in the sky. It draws her toward the door and the snow-covered mountainside.

“Weel, it’s a long walk back,” she says. “Wanted to give ye that before the morning, so I guess I’ll just…”

“Will ye stay with me tonight?” Jamie blurts. And he hates himself for saying this, the way it sounds outside his mouth and inside his cabin, landing on the unmade bed. Its despair makes it ugly. But.

But if his friend stays, Jamie thinks, perhaps the emptiness will leave. If his friend stays, perhaps his story will correct itself, falling into its natural rhythm, by the force of whatever solace she can give him.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he continues, “and I…I dinna want to be alone.”

She pauses, thinks it over before saying, “Okay. Just for a bit?” (Just for a bit? Another loaded question, and one he doesn’t want to answer.)

“Thank you,” Jamie whispers, and Mary McNab removes her coat.

____

Long before daybreak, Jamie wakes. He gathers his draft, made complete by that final failing chapter, into a single stack. He retrieves a box from his suitcase, which is swathed in his old holiday sweater, and it speaks to him. A quiet loudness, like the murmur of the Grampians. You mean your lager-stained pullover? With the Santa looks that looks like he’s got vomit in his beard?

Inside the box is a gift—a vase, azure porcelain—though Jamie has no plans to send it across the Atlantic, to the Boston apartment where his ex-wife kisses another man. No. This vase will stay with Jamie, forever hidden on the high shelf of a closet, or exiled to the back corner of a desk drawer. Like his grief, it is something that he owns—this small cut from a cloth of unraveled dreams—to be kept and locked safely away. There, there, always there. All fancy people have vases.

Jamie wraps the box with his manuscript. One by one, he folds the pages over and under, seals the edges with tape to form an inch-thick layer. So much history around this small, delicate thing—their story, with the ending Jamie cannot use and which cannot be the truth. At last, he cuts the string of wool, which still drips from his sweater after all these years, and it rasps, Do we have time? Of course we do.

Finally, Jamie weeps—a mournful sound that joins the chorus of this great, big mountain—and ties a frayed, red bow.

____

(Jamie does not realize that Mary watches him from the bed. “Tell me about her,” she wants to say—for once a statement and not a question—but she does not. Instead, she calls to Jamie, presses her goosefleshed nakedness to his. And as they move together, slow but unfeeling, she pretends she is a vessel. Closes her eyes. Makes room for the ghost. I’m Claire Beauchamp. Just plain Claire Beauchamp.)

____

Here, the idea of a writer’s retreat, the introduction, and the parentheticals (although those are also inspired by one of my favorite authors Kate Atkinson) are my lame attempts at trying to be Lauren Groff. Actually, the next handful of chapters are the result of my obsession with her novel Fates and Furies—which you should absolutely go read, right now.

One of my favorite parts about writing a modern AU is finding ways to fit in canon characters or references. I started this chapter having no idea who Jamie’s critique partner was, but it very quickly came together once there was a remote cabin, Jamie inside it, and a woman coming to visit him. I hope the reveal is at least somewhat...fun? The vase is also obviously a nod to Outlander, and, well, I’m assuming y’all caught on to Jamie’s character names (a bit on the nose, lmao).

I’m not crazy about this introduction (it’s...a bit much...but it’s meant to tie into the introduction of Chapter 1), but the final paragraph from Mary’s POV is actually one of my favorite paragraphs in the whole fic.

I also think I wrote this during a snowstorm, wheeeee!

[surveysonfleek]

450.

5000 Question Survey Pt. 18

1701. How will tomorrow be like today? i’ll have the day off :) totally fine with that. 1702. How would you react if a stranger pinched your bottom? i’d call them out. 1703. When was the last time you went on a date? i don’t really know what counts as a date with my boyfriend and i anymore, but we went out for dinner together on tuesday. 1704. Have you ever ridden a horse? yes. 1706. What is almost over? ok i can’t, there’s missing questions again...

1707. What should you be doing that you are putting off? looking for new jobs. 1708. How much would you have to change physically before you would no longer be yourself anymore? if someone couldn’t recognise me from old photos then i’d consider that not being myself anymore. 1709. How much would you have to change mentally before you would no longer be yourself anymore? if the people around me don’t like me for who i am anymore i guess. 1710. Would you rather be famous or notorious? famous. 1711. Would you rather have a necklace that's dripping with diamonds or a blueberry farm? the necklace. i don’t even like blueberries. 1712. Could you take first place in a beauty contest? hell no. 1713. Who is the biggest hypocrite you know and why? no one comes to mind straight away. 1714. Would you consider yourself to be more opinionated or bitchy? opinionated. 1715. How long is it until your next day off? today! 1716. What sound is annoying you right now? there’s been the same bird chirping outside for the past couple of hours. it’s not even a chirp, i think it’s in heat or something. 1717. Imagine you're taking a vacation with 4 people. Who are they? dwayne, irene, ahmad andddd bek. 1718. The five of you travel by plane. Suddenly your plane crashes down over snowy mountains. The pilot and the air crew and all the other passengers die. The only way for you to survive is for one of you to get eaten by the others. Who will it be? omg idk... i’d offer myself i guess. 1719. Anorexia and obesity are two life threatening eating related disorders. Why is it that when it is discovered that someone is an anorexic they are rushed to the hospital, but when someone is obese they are not rushed to the hospital? not sure how to answer that. 1720. Who is your favorite smurf? smurfette. 1721. Why do you do things that you know are bad for you? for some reason they always feel/taste/are better. 1722. How important is testing to education? no idea. i always hated tests. 1723. What food group do you eat the most of (bread and pasta, meats and eggs and fish, fruits and vegetables, milk and cheese, sugar and butter)? between meats and veg i guess. 1724. Who is the most adorable person you know? my baby cousin, victoria. 1725. If you had to spend a half hour locked in a dark closet with someone from school or work that you don't normally hang out with who would you want it to be? haha i have no idea. no one tbh. 1726. How often do you masturbate in a week? i’d say once every 2-3 weeks tbh. 1727. In the USA people work a full third of the year for the government, due to taxes. How do you feel about this? i don’t live in the usa so idc. 1728. Should people be allowed to use cell phones in their cars? nah, i know of people getting into accidents coz they were on their phones. 1729. Have you ever been in the room while a human baby was born? nope. 1730. Have you ever been in the room while an animal baby was born? no. 1731. Did you see the video The Miracle of Life in school? no. 1732. How do you feel about having a baby? not sure. someday! 1733. Have you ever had a tooth pulled? yes. 1734. Who are you waiting for an email/call/note/visit from? my boyfriend. 1735. What are you counting the days until? my birthday lol. 1736. What is the greatest temptation for you? nothing. 1737. How do you resist it? - 1738. Who is your knight in shining armor? haha idk. 1739. If you were walking and someone behind you yelled "HEY YOU!" would you turn around? yeah. 1740. Do loud noises make you tense? they give me a fright i guess. 1741. Has anyone ever told you that your epidermis was showing? nope. 1742. Would you rather work or stay home with the baby? i’d like to stay home with the baby until they’re old enough for daycare. 1743. Would you rather have people agree with you all the time or tell you the honest truth? tell me the honest truth. 1744. Will you/have you gone to your high school reunion? no thanks. 1745. What do you think of your yearbook picture? it’s alright. 1746. Are you more of a hunter or a gatherer? gatherer. 1747. If you ever were to visit Hershey Park, the theme park based on the chocolate candy, would you enjoy going to the spa where you can be treated to a whipped cocoa bath, a milk and honey bath, or simply a chocolate fondue skin wrap? the skin wrap. 1748. If someone asks you to read a poem they wrote, will you really take your time to try and understand what they wrote and tell them what you think or just read it quickly and tell them that its really good? i’d definitely try to understand it. 1749. Do you feel that if a coincidence occurs it means something? not always. 1750. Were you beautiful as a child? i was actually. wtf happened haha. 1751. Do you think that it is okay for a homosexual or a woman to become a priest? i don’t see the problem if they’re devoted to the religion and they never get married. 1752. Which would you rather give up forever, religion or sex? religion. 1753. What comes to mind when you think of these places: Canada? toronto UK? fish and chips USA? hot dogs Australia? sunny weather Germany? bratwurst Italy? pizza 1754. What does your favorite bumper sticker say? i don’t have a fave. 1755. Have you ever taken a shower with another person? yes. 1756. What bath toys do you have, if any? none. 1757. Would you rather propose to someone you love or would you rather be proposed to by someone you love? i’d rather be proposed to. 1758. How can you reject someone nicely? thank them for the offer but tell them you don’t want to or aren’t ready. 1759. What kinds of diary names make you interested enough to check out the diary? - 1760. What do you think are three common passwords people use to secure their diaries? names, nicknames, pet names, birthdays. 1761. Pick an object in the room. Give that object a name. no. 1762. What is the quickest way to make you blush? compliment me lol. 1763. Do you usually feel that you deserve it when other people compliment you? it depends what it’s for. 1764. If you were to start your own business what kind of business do you think it might be? no idea. something in design. 1765. What is one of your pet peeves? when people cough without covering their mouths. 1766. What question do you get asked too frequently? do you still talk to the last person you kissed? 1767. You notice a ring is priced $40.00, but the cashier only charges you $10.00. Do you mention this to the cashier? haha yeah i think i would. 1768. Could a kiss on the ___ be considered cheating? Cheek? no Lips? yes Nose? this is just weird Hand? no Ear? still weird. Neck? assuming it’s passionate, yeah. 1769. Would it bother you if your lover occasionally flirted with others? of course. 1770. How long has it been since you last played truth or dare? absolute years. 1771. Should people who are living now be obligated to do things that will make the world better for people who will live 100 years from now? not obligated but it’s damn logic to preserve as much as we can for future generation. 1772. Imagine you have a dream in which someone you care for acts mean to you. Is it possible you will still be angry with this person when you wake up? haha it’s definitely happened before. i usually brush it off and tell the person. 1773. Have you ever left someone a note with a picture in it? If yes, how do you do it? i don’t think so. 1774. What do you fear more, death or pain? pain. 1775. Are the questions still interesting this far into the survey? somewhat. 1776. Do you like the cartoon Inspector Gadget? never watched it. 1777. You know how Gadget wears the same outfit all the time, and his closet is full of outfits that are exactly identical to the one he wears? If your closet was full of just one outfit that you had to wear everyday what would it be like? i couldn’t just have one outfit. maybe a casual one and one for going out lol. 1778. Would you rather time travel to the future or the past? future. 1779. Would you rather know how the world began or how it will end? how it will end.   1780. Would you rather meet your ancient ancestors or your great great great great great great grandchildren? probably my ancestors. imagine going to the future to meet your greatx6 grandchildren and there’s no one there... 1781. Out of these 4 which is most important (1=most, 2= second most, 3 = 3rd most, 4 = least)? Curing diseases such as aids, cancer: 2 Preserving wildlife areas: 3 Ending terrorism: 1 Building colonies in space: 4 1782. In your opinion should every child be entitled to a good education? definitely. 1783. What news item are you tired of hearing about? fucking politics. 1784. Speaking of 9/11 the anniversary is coming up. What will you be doing? it’s already passed. 1785. If this were a recipe for you, how would it go? 2 cups: 1 cup: 1/2 cup: A pinch of: A dash of: Mix well and bake until: Add: Serve: no thanks 1786. Which of the following would YOU be more likely to survive: A fall from a 3 story building Driving a car into the water <----- this 1787. What philosophy was manifested in the communist manifesto? haha idk. 1788. Who is your exact opposite? no idea. marie comes pretty close though. 1789. Would you rather have serenity or insanity? serenity. 1790. What do these phrases mean? Moulin Rogue: red something Le voyage sur le bateau: idk Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir: do you want to sleep with me tonight 1791. What is the longest distance you have ever walked? 23km in a day while sightseeing in london. that’s a record for me. 1792. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato believes that beauty truth and justice all basically mean the same thing. What are your feelings about this? nah. 1793. How did you first begin to assert yourself as independent from your parents? it was just a slow process of instead of asking permission, i’d just tell them what i was doing instead. 1794. If you had a magic bracelet, would you use it to gain luck, money, health, creativity or love? money. 1795. What would you do if every time you used your magic bracelet something bad would happen to someone else? i just wouldn’t use it as often? 1796. This is a story about a girl. While at the funeral of her own mother, she met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, so much her dream guy she believed him to be that she fell in love with him then and there, although she didn't even see him after the funeral ended. A few days later, the girl killed her own sister. What is her motive for killing her sister? she wanted to run into that guy again at her sister’s funeral. 1797. Have you ever intentionally hurt someone’s feelings? yeah i have. 1798. What do you think of Franz Ferdinand? don’t know much about him. 1799. What do you think of the band Modest Mouse? nothing. 1800. What do you think of Morrissey? nothing.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Read Chapters One through Four here.

Our Story

Here marks the middle of our tale, that vast, perilous land between the beginning and the end. The going is treacherous in these parts—the wayward couple must heal on their own, tread the sea of two decades with arms and souls akimbo—but still, it is not unnecessary. The middle is never aimless. Always, always, it has one goal: the ending.

When the lights go up and the curtains close, you clap—perhaps, should the couple reunite (which, of course, they will), you shout “Encore, encore!” But then, at last, you return to your car. You catch the train, or you grab a taxi. At last, having started at the beginning and waded through the middle, you reach the final destination. The night is over; you go home.

Home. Whether a place, a person, a feeling, or a thing—it does not matter. Home is always the goal and the ending, the northernmost star we pray to and walk towards.

[December 24th, 1996]

Two weeks' vacation in a cabin, tucked deep inside a fold of mountains. Here, amongst the stretches of living nothingness, even the silence has a voice. Owls hoot in the night. The pines’ chatter, their needle-whispers pierced by caws and shifted air—a hawk swooping to ensnare her prey. And if one listens closely enough, one can hear the hunter breathe—a shaky, traitorous breath which launches the doe across the snow—and the echo of his heartsong, the drum to which the doe’s hooves beat. Come back, come back, come back.

This is why Jamie has come here: for the endless conversation between man and mountain, more steadfast than the chill in his heart. In the past four years, Jamie has sold the twin cot (it lies in a salvage yard somewhere, all broken springs and dreams). A different couple has moved into the studio, and when they had spoken of paint jobs—“Perhaps mint green, what d’ye say, hon?”— Jamie had thought, Thank God. He’d happily offered them the keys when they turned to him, pupils dilated with youthful optimism. By that point, there was no space for Jamie and Claire inside that Edinburgh Eden, and so he’d chimed in, “Aye, a bonny color.” (Indeed, the walls are mint now, though a forgotten strip of marigold shines in the northern corner.)

For two years, Jamie has lived with Murtagh in Glasgow, having shed not just his home but his editorial career in publishing. He has grown tired of fixing other’s mistakes—too many of his own in need of correction—and so here he sits on this Christmas Eve, writing towards redemption.

The Grampians are a peaceful place, big hulks of rock scattered with trees—bouquets of fir, oak, and pine cradling other cabins. At dark, their windows flicker, candlelit with dreams of the guests therein: aspiring novelists, essayists, playwrights. Men and women, all bowed before the cleansing hum of nature’s speech. Like Jamie, they had seen the fliers: WRITER’S RETREAT, TWO WEEKS IN THE MOUNTAINS—and so it was. A small colony taking its temporary leave, hoping to reconstruct the world according to their own, more favorable terms.

Over supper, the group gathers and shares their ideas: outlines, pieces of dialogue, an inspiring poem they’ve loved since childhood. And while Jamie is generous with his advice, he holds his notebooks against his chest. Enraptured by this warm aloofness (for is it not the way of all great wordsmiths?), the others whisper behind their palms, “Have you read Fraser’s story?” Into napkins, “No, have you?” 

But among the fifteen guests, only one has read Jamie’s story—and tonight, Jamie waits for her inside his cabin. His latest draft is fanned around him, some sections highlighted and others slashed. They are not unlike Claire’s old strike-throughs, which had snipped the would-be Dalhousie and, eventually, Jamie’s own name from her life (a reclamation of Beauchamp, a transformation to Randall). Among Jamie’s scribbles are his friend’s edits, which are much more forgiving, much less forceful than the lines of his own red pen. Each comment reads like a bashful request: “More clarity?”, “Switch the verb here?”, “Too many adjectives?” as if she needs permission to occupy the margins. Should I really be reading this?, she seems to say, the bare-backed rawness making her squirm.

But she is helping him, his friend. And so she sees Jamie’s drafts before John, his agent, and before Fergus, his assistant and most loyal advocate. With each comment, she brings him closer to understanding, to the better beginning, middle and end. Inch by inch, to the way his story (their story, for it can never be Jamie’s alone) should be. All rhymes and logic, had it not veered off-course.

Is Alexander too cold here? Shouldn’t he say something? (He should have.) 

It seems out of character for Alexander to never visit his daughter’s grave? (Grief carves cowards out of heroes.)

Shouldn’t he try to win Elizabeth back? (God, yes. He should have tried harder.) 

The knock comes three minutes later, as expected. 

“Hello?” 

“Door’s unlocked.”

“Oh!” A muffled apology, embarrassment for the delay. “Sorry,” the visitor says. “It’s late. Didna ken if ye still wanted to talk or not. I brought—well, I finished reading yer last chapter.”

And now another player enters this fifth act, tip-toes quietly onto the stage. Only slip of a thing in the cabin’s doorway, cheeks pinked by the storm’s sharp nip. She is Jamie’s friend-cum-critique partner, and even her entrance is punctuated by a question mark. The score of owl, pine, hawk and hunter swells, buffeted now by new notes: the crack of chapped lips smiling, the anxious shuffle of papers, and:

“Dinna fash, I couldna sleep anyways,” Jamie assures her. “Did ye like it, though? The new ending?” 

His friend inhales sharply, stealing as much oxygen as the room will allow. Everything—the threadbare futon, the TV’s antennae, the welcome mat and Jamie’s body—bends towards some invisible presence. A ghost between between all.

“It was…a bit different from the last one.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘Nay, I didna like it.’”

She looks shyly at the ground, one foot treading nervous circles into the planks. Around and around, melt and muck, like a muddy cycle of life (Jamie’s, perhaps muddier than others).

“It was a bit too sentimental is all. After everything. All that time and silence…D’ye really think Alex and Lizzie could make it?”

Her words are a blow to Jamie’s stomach, and the pages are fire in his hands (the ever-burn of a man, ever-longing). He puts them down, wants to thrust himself under a blanket of snow to freeze the flames.

“In a fairy tale, maybe...but life isna a fairy tale. And d’ye no want to write truths?” She looks up, and her eyes gore him. “This story isna a fairy tale either, Jamie. Yours never are.”

“Aye…aye, I s’pose they’re not,” he replies, thinking of his other novels and short stories, essays and poems. Each accepted by John’s gimlet eye, only to meet their end in a publisher’s slush pile. (“Too dark, too wallowing,” an editor once wrote.)  

“Give it another go. I’ll help ye tomorrow, if ye’d like,” his friend offers. “Three days left. I reckon we’ve time to sort the kinks, right the wrongs.” (Three days will never be enough for Jamie’s wrongs.)

“I’d appreciate that, lass. Verra much.”

His friend looks behind her and at the moon, a shy sickle in the sky. It draws her toward the door, to the snow-covered mountainside.

“Weel, it’s a long walk back,” she says. “Wanted to give ye that before the morning, so I guess I’ll just…” 

“Will ye stay with me tonight?” Jamie blurts. And he hates himself for saying this, the way it sounds outside his mouth and inside his cabin, landing on the unmade bed. Its despair makes it ugly. But.

But if his friend stays, Jamie thinks, perhaps the emptiness will leave. If his friend stays, perhaps his story will correct itself, falling into its natural pentameter, by the force of whatever solace she can give him.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he continues, “and I…I dinna want to be alone.”

She pauses, thinks it over before saying, “Okay. Just for a bit?” (Just for a bit? Another loaded question, and one he doesn’t want to answer.)

“Thank you,” Jamie whispers, and Mary McNab removes her coat.

Long before daybreak, Jamie wakes. He gathers his draft, made complete by that final failing chapter, into a single stack. He retrieves a box from his suitcase, swathed in his old holiday sweater, and it speaks to him. A quiet loudness, like the murmur of the Grampians. You mean your lager-stained pullover? With the Santa looks that looks like he’s got vomit in his beard?

Inside the box is a gift—a vase, azure porcelain—though Jamie has no plans to send it across the Atlantic, to the Boston apartment where his ex-wife kisses another man. No. This vase will stay with Jamie, forever hidden on the high shelf of a closet, or exiled to the back corner of a desk drawer. Like his grief, it is something that he owns—this small cut from a cloth of unraveled dreams—to be kept and locked safely away. There, there, always there. All fancy people have vases.

Jamie wraps the box with his manuscript. One by one, he folds the pages over and under, seals the edges with tape to form an inch-thick layer. So much history around this small, delicate thing—their story, with the ending Jamie cannot use and which cannot be the truth. At last, he cuts the string of wool, which still drips from his sweater after all these years, and it rasps, Do we have time? Of course we do.

And finally, Jamie weeps—a mournful sound that joins the chorus of this great, big mountain—and ties a frayed, red bow.

(Jamie does not realize that Mary watches him from the bed. “Tell me about her,” she wants to say—for once a statement and not a question—but she does not. Instead, she calls to Jamie, presses her goosefleshed nakedness to his. And as they move together, slow but unfeeling, she pretends she is a vessel. Closes her eyes. Makes room for the ghost. I’m Claire Beauchamp. Just plain Claire Beauchamp.)