His voice echoed in her head, his face serious as he spoke. She knew some of the local teens came down here to drink sometimes, and do other things–what she didn’t know only that Conor had told her not to come down here alone. There was garbage around the spring, empty bottles and a few cigarette butts. It had rained heavily the night before and the trail was mucky, causing her small canvas sneakers to sink and stick each time she took a step. There was a large stone to kneel on and a few faded offerings of jewelry and bits of cloth, set adrift on the cold breeze which had suddenly sprung up. The foliage was thick and heavy here, the small spring little more than a bubbling pool at the bottom of the incline. “It’s thought some springs have a special chemical compound, making it likely that drinking the water does have some medicinal benefit.” She’d asked Daddy about it and he’d said there was likely some truth to it, and that legends and the places from which they’d sprung, often had a factual basis. Legend had it that a queen had come here long ago for a cure, had arrived mad and left perfectly sane. So for today, this wee spring would have to do. Tobar na neGault was over an hour away though, and she didn’t even know if there was a bus she could take to get near enough to it to walk the rest of the way. The place had long been a site of pilgrimage for those whose heads weren’t quite right, though Kathleen wasn’t entirely certain what that meant. What follows are a variety of ‘drifts and snippets’ of what I’m working on.ĭaddy had taken her and her siblings to Gleann-na-neGault in the summer, and they’d all had a drink at the spring. I thought if any of the children were going to speak to me, narratively, it was mostly likely to be Conor, but thus far that’s not so. It’s not Yevgena who is talking to me just now though, it’s Kathleen strangely enough.

The writing right now is coming in drifts of imagery, or snatches of dialogue and nothing feels too cohesive yet.

This time I was certain it would be Yevgena’s book, and that once that’s done I’d figure out where to head next–a possible continuation of the series which is not really quite part of the series–it’s not as confusing as it sounds, it’s just how I ‘see’ it in my head. The first question I get after a new book has been out a little while is ‘What’s next?’ Usually the answer to that is clear- it will be the next book in the series interspersed with a shorter work along the lines of Spindrift or Bare Knuckle.

Bare Knuckle by Cindy Brandner