Onwards, with the light

Witchstones and Oak fiction

Late January, in Ireland. The light is stretching here, we wander the beach at dusk, spotting the first stars and making it home after the streetlights have flickered on. Our nights are far too late and our mornings still too rushed, but it’s a process isn’t it, childrearing, finding some kind of balance. My days have not been my own, with more to do on the renovation, my nights nothing but motherhood until midnight, but I clawed back enough writing time to bring you the Oak fiction below as promised.

There is much I could say and want to say about what is unfolding in the world, but for today I simply want to offer you the beauty of Witchstones, Holeystones found on the beach. You can see videos of the left hand one, which has three holes, and another I found the night of the last full moon in my notes. I wrote a little of the folklore here, but it is suffice for today to tell you that they are a protective object, a charm against the evil stalking our world.

Below is the fiction inspired by the Oak in our garden. It is also partially inspired by our leaf blower obsessed neighbour but is mostly a projection of my paternal grandfather, who ‘kept a tidy place’. So tidy in fact, that no living thing grew, and when my grandmother in a grief fuelled frenzy planted two dozen rose bushes in an effort to see them bloom before the cancer took her, he butchered them to the ground.

The Gods humour meant that as I sat down to write this short story last week that neighbour of course started his leaf blower, and my only writing time was filled with the roar of its engine. But it is written now and January’s Writing Down the Weeds will be with you as soon as I can scrape together the hours to write it.

Grá agus Saoirse

Siobhán

The Oaken Heart

That year the Oak had leafed early; a false Spring late in January had been enough to trick it in to greening. It didn’t see the next January moon. But the trouble had started long before that.