#selene-macsuain

‘Ah, like the poet? It’s a lovely name.’ He recalled the little sunrise grave walker saying before she left. It had stuck with him, like someone- Marcus, perhaps, had shared Selene’s work posthumously. Some of her books, he thought, had made it to him, after all. Nevertheless, he bought it left with out so much as a thank you or a smile, uncharacteristic of the quiet man. Over the next few days, Tadgh tried to open it, but something felt sacrilegious about doing it in bed, in his workshop, in the meadow where he’d lay out and read on sunsets where he finished work at a decent hour. Ultimately, he decided on an impromptu day trip to Barra, deciding to sit through it on the coast and maybe find some sea glass to set with the book when it would eventually be put to rest on his bedside table.

A drive and a ferry ride later, book sitting next to him, he parked and puttered along until he found a spot that felt right. The gray sky seemed to fit the mood as he slumped into the sand on the edge of the shore. Tadgh wasn’t sure when he’d forgotten to breathe or when he’d started to cry, but they pages were littered with droplets as he peeled the cover open, sinking into the first poem. Page after page he felt every emotion bubble back to the surface, any question that it was Selene’s words now gone. Heavy, dry throated sobs echoed down the beach as he tried to keep reading, too bleary eyed to make out a word. As he leaned forward to push himself up, determined to walk off the grief and find some sea glass, he fell forward. Tadgh’s right hand clung to the book, holding it to the same place where he kept her ‘s.mc.s’ memorialized in her handwriting at the top of his left ribcage. The man’s left hand clutched a fistful of sand and the salt of his tear slipped into his mouth as he screamed, trying to physically expel the emotional pain he’d carried for years.

How long had he been there; not thinking about the setting sun as he wept and puked and screamed and forgot time and again to breathe? When he settled into a tearless, chesty wailing, he was only aware of the physical pain of his grief. The ribs ached like they’d been broken, head throbbed as if smashed, throat sore with a different type of fever. Tadgh looked nothing short of frail, slumped on the shore wishing the words would give him peace or answers. Then he felt the soft weight of a hand on his back. He’d had ghosts with him his whole life and he froze, knowing that this was different. His hands shook, reaching for the fingertips that touched him like they knew him, afraid of finding air. “Aoibhegréine, I didn’t want this.”

Sorcha’s pockets, never empty.

Evergreen: soft, serene

The color of my love, Selene

Velvet: dense, Delphic

It shouldn’t have surprised him that once he had a little person wanting to hang out in his workshop that some of the things he made would cater to Sorcha’s interests. Like him, she loved little animals. While he made a little house for her favorite dolly, he taught her how to make a simple little home too. She’d sell the little houses in various sizes out of the bookshop. Be it hermit crab, cat, fish, hamster, or chinchilla, she’d mastered the craft and saved the money to (unsurprisingly) begin her own book collection.