#Fourph of June

[owilder]

“Jillian, get me the sun,” Cassie commanded. “I want it.” She leaned back and waited. When her demand was not met, she called out, “Joel! Get me the sun! Joel!” The sun remained in the sky. They were ignoring her again. Cassie began pounding her fists on the ground, crying, “Mummy! Daddy! Joel and Jillian won’t get me the sun! I want it! The sun! The sun! I want the sun!”

      What do you want it for? asked someone from somewhere.

      “I want to wear it in my hair,” answered Cassie dreamily, staring longingly into the sun, “because it’s the same colour.” The stars and the sun were vibrating, and their vibrations sounded the name CASSIE just for her. How do they know it’s my birthday? she marvelled.

      HAPPY BIRTHDAY! trumpeted a voice from above or below or maybe beside her, Cassie could not tell.

      Cassie knit her brows, confused. But it’s not my birthday. My birthday was two months ago. On the fourph. No, that sounded wrong. She mouthed the word “fourth,” but it came out the same way. The stars had stopped dancing and now swam around the sun, a school of fish in an ocean of sky, swimming around a blazing orb of coral. Then the stars were fish, and the sun was coral, and Cassie was peering at them through the clear glass of her mother’s aquarium at the old house. Cassie knew it was the old house because she could see her reflection in the glass – a small child of six or seven clutching a capless permanent marker in her little hand, several more markers littering the carpet by her bare feet. She was drawing a scrawling mosaic of herself and her family and a family of seals all riding a colossal ocean wave on surfboards on the glass of massive aquarium.

Today is indeed the "fourph," so Happy Birthday to Cassie, one of the protagonists of my upcoming fantasy series, The Crimson Realm! In honour of the occasion, here is an out of context excerpt featuring my golden-haired girl from Book the First: Chapter the Fifteenth: Old Demons. Happy Fourph!