Autumn Fever

I pinch my eyes closed. Billy makes some small movement behind me. A ghost of a hand brushes my back. He’s closer than I remember. “Do you ever think about what they get up to over there?” he asks beside my ear. “It’s weird, isn’t it, them living so close, and yet…” I turn around. "Yet what?" A leak springs in my heart for the sympathy in his eyes. For the article, as well as his impulse to show it to me. He knows something, or at least he’s guessed, hasn't he? And he thought I needed to find out. As we watch each other his breath becomes like the humming of bees. He taps his left inside wrist with his finger. Not impatient, just fidgety. It draws my attention to the milky underside of his forearms, his blue veins forking like roots. Those reed-green eyes become so fluid, shifting. Did he ever look this way at Tiff? Would he still do so if she was still here? The warm air inside the cottage is hard to pull all the way into my lungs. The crinkled piglet is still cradled inside my fist, in danger of getting crushed. With numb fingers I place it beside the crystal honey. Billy’s animals are chattering up a storm. It’s no use trying to ignore them now. Or him. Alma and Tiff’s heat, desire, frustration overtakes me. I want to touch every single creature—want to fold the starfish to find out if the legs are perfectly symmetrical; stir the bats and frogs to life; flap the wings of the albatross and make it look like it’s really flying. Billy’s hair could be a soft home for a field mouse the way the light catches it. “That old woman today…” he begins, equally held captive by something in my eyes. “When she cried…” “I know.” His warm breath is like bees against my nose. He smells a bit like honey too. "Don't," I say, my vision swimming.

This is an extract from my novel, Autumn Fever, which is available on Amazon in paperback and eBook.

If you enjoy reading it, I would love to hear your feedback in a review.