Ammonite

She sang softly of a woman who walked the shore of a long-forgotten sea, collecting seashells, shells she would string to make a necklace for her love. The woman took the shells home and washed them carefully, and dried them. Some glimmered blue and pearl, like her lover’s eyes; others glowed pink and caramel, like her skin; one shimmered blue-black, as mysterious as the sea at midnight…

Marghe thought of the suke hanging around her neck, the ammonite Thenike had carefully remembered and reproduced for Leifin to carve, and smiled.

Thenike sang on, and while the drum beat softly and the flames danced, Marghe set her face north, toward Ollfoss. Toward home.

—«»—«»—«»—

About the Author

Nicola Griffith is a native of Leeds, England, where she was once an insurance clerk for forty-five days and a waitress for forty-five minutes. At eighteen she moved to Hull, where she was lead singer and songwriter for Janes Plane, a women’s band, and taught women’s self-defense—for groups as varied as the Equal Opportunities Training Unit and the Union of Catholic Mothers. She currently lives in Atlanta with her partner, sf writer Kelley Eskridge.

[scanned anonymously]

[27 may 2003—proofed by MollyKate]

[released in #bookz by the EDG]