Although to begin with, she only saw the Ferris wheel towering over the trees in the distance, the glow of the moon now illuminates an entire funfair of flashing lights blinking to the beat of a strange new rhythm. The rhythm, due to its cosmic nature, is one she has no way of deciphering. Yet, somehow, its beat is as steady and as predictable as the beat of her heart, and like the beat of her heart, she feels it in her veins and the gentle throbbing of her temples, reminding her that she’s alive in a time when reality is at its most vague. Licking the side of her face, the fox squeezes tight its eyes. To him, the young girl tastes of buttercups and dreams, not to mention the sparkling water of a fast-running stream. There’s magic in her for sure. But something else, too. Something of the soil. Something as ancient as the giant wheel that turns ahead of them. If it didn’t know better, it would say she came from the same place. She certainly reeks of the same ancient wonder that comes from the metal arms reaching out from the ground like a newborn god ready to soar into the air like a bird. Like the fox and all the other animals, the girl was drawn to the promise of this magic playing out before their eyes. So too, it should be said, were the trees, for although the trees were not alive in the same manner as them, the fox had seen them move. And not just move as they do in the blowing of the wind, either. No, he’d seen them march through the darkness of night, their branches obliterating all in their path as if their very lives depended on it.

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