The names of the stars overhead are written in her ledger. She keeps it in her bag at all times. The pages, well thumbed and worn, are adorned with sketches of animals and lady parts in full bloom. On the odd occasion when she feels closer to God than she does the devil, she finds a quiet place to pour over the magically titled constellations in search of somewhere that might contain a soul the same as hers. She certainly hasn’t found one on streets like these, and she’s been walking these streets her entire life. From early morning until deepest night, her feet have pounded the paving slabs to dust and cut grooves through the hills and fields surrounding the ocean of rooftops and streetlights that cocoon her from the kind of harm that might be lurking in the city. In a barn overgrown and in danger of crumbling down a steep slope of chalk, she lays herself down on a mattress of old hay and peeks at the sky through the splinted wood above. The wood is full of holes, the same as the universe, the same as her heart. Like an apple riddled with worms, and a wormhole linking this galaxy to another, she feels neither here nor there. In a flutter of her eyes, shit turns to bliss, and then bliss to shit, and as she chews her lower lip, so the moons shines yellow and the sun a searing white, and in no time at all, the curtains of the witching hour are flung open wide.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US