Picking Herbie up with her beak, X leapt into the air and did her best to flap her wings. The pull of the door was too strong though, and as soon as her tiny feet left the ground, she found herself hurtling into the light. The second she did, she realised it wasn’t the light of some other place, but her own light, and the music that met her ears was the music coming from within her chest. Behind her, the animals cheered and danced and the lumbering trees brought their branches together so that they crashed and fizzed like hissing cymbals. The sounds they made were glorious and mixed with her song, they were unlike anything you could ever wish to hear. With the snow whipping about them, she cried out in a mix of fear and surprise, for as quickly as they had flown through the door, they were greeted with the sight of a sea of stars. Herbie was at once petrified, but in no time at all he understood, just the same as she did, for they weren’t stars but rather glowing orbs, and each orb was a soul just the same as them. The veil had parted, and they were now swimming in a place where those who shone longed to swim.

A Journal for Damned Lovers UK

A Journal for Damned Lovers US

Anthology UK / Anthology US