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Evelyn Bach › 30 day project: the novel: part 1

30 day project: the novel: part 1

draft day 1She’s waking up. / You’re dreaming. / I swear, I saw her face twitch. Bring the water. / You bring the water.

day 2 draftSome of the faces recur. She recognises them and in the small part of her mind that is not overwhelmed by the monstrous horror of the show,…

Day 3Jax looked at the object in Luc’s palm. It was a leaf. Folded and creased. Dry but not dead, a leaf that had been green less than a week ag…

day 4The world is a broken pot. The pieces of it cut me. I will know them. I will know them.

day 5Dale Quattro was feeling his years. His knees creaked in the mornings and his bladder seemed to have shrunk with age.

day 6I was broken. I knew it. But how could he know that strange faces walked in my sleep at night, and interrupted my thoughts sometimes, even…

day 7It is a city of bridges and causeways, dead ends and sudden, unexpected beauty.

day 8I will be the girl who climbs high into the mulberry tree and does not fall. I will be the girl who stands up when the Archivist tells her …

day 9.Dale’s grandmother, Glory-Maud, was a child when the last of the techno hubs crashed.

day 10“Trouble, you say? Can’t straightforwardly say I know the meaning of the word. Trouble, now. Would that be good trouble or trouble that tak…

day 11“If he sings, I will know if he is real. If he is real I will tell him my name.” / “Sounds fair enough. Can he sing anything?” / “He can ch…

day 12When it comes to rumours of the valley, his job description is simple. Hear the rumour. Find the source. Kill it.

day 13.In the dark, almost blind, his ears registered a sound that didn’t fit with boots, bed or bad breath. A key in a lock, a rattle and a click.

day 14The twitching started with his fingers. Uncontrollable spasms that felt like little jolts of electricity. Then his toes started, and before…

day 15“Moss, old friend,” he said, “Would you come back to the metro with me?” / “No.”

day 16“You promised to sing for me this morning. Remember?” / “Sing you a piece only. Now there is sunshine.”

day 17The girl, Sapphire, sits up in the tidy bed. There are no paper blossoms on her bedside table, no cards or little teddy bears.

day 18It’s a -“ / “Do I really want to know?” / “Napkin holder.” / “ I can see why you’re in trouble."

day 19“Point. Got a theory?” / “Nope. Just a headache.

day 20“Apparently she calls herself Sapphire,” the chicken foot knuckle nurse says.

day 21With my feet sure, my roots straight and strong and my pieces gathering around me, we hum the great songs and I am no longer afraid.

day 22“I’ll go there,” he said to the sky and the empty land, “my last big journey over the salt.”

day 23In spite of the puzzling strangeness of the message and the undeniable tremors of fear that chilled her skin, Jas found herself smiling.

day 24It was a typical hot, November day.

day 25Lugharn McRoy swore loudly. He was not a patient man, and waiting did not agree with him. Elimination, yes.

day 26Why, Luc wondered, did no-one invent a floor wax that was squeak proof?

day 27I have no home in the broken place.

day 28“I’ll have to double dink you, but it’s a whole heap quicker than walking –

day 29What happened to him?” Jas asked Manfred. / “Knifed. Low in the shoulder.

day 30“It is the Tree of Exile,” Sapphire said, “the tree where the broken say goodbye.”