This dissertation is a piece of creative writing in fulfilment of the Final Major Project for BA (Hons) Creative Writing.
Her Silent Song
Prologue
The air was changing around them, not that Aoife recognised the scent. She only knew it wasn’t home. The briny wind raked through her hair, pulling at the pigtails her mother had tied for her before they left, alone, in the middle of the night.
Aoife couldn’t see anything. Her mother’s hand encased the soft reincarnation of its own, a tomb fist that forced her to make the journey in spite of what may lurk in the shadows. The ground below was uneven, they’d left the main road out of the town long ago. The sharp roll of pebbles and damp dirt penetrated Aoife’s shoes, and after so long she felt as though she may as well have been rambling around in bare feet. The shoes she wore were cast offs from her older brother. Aoife wondered if he would ask how she’d managed to ruin them so quick. She tried telling her mother, but she didn’t seem to mind, or her anger was concealed by the dark. Aoife didn’t bring it up again, and resolved to clean them once they returned home.
There was no way to measure the time, so Aoife took to checking the stars above them. The moon was no more than a wisp in the sky, sighing towards the horizon faster than the pair could keep up. Her mother gave her arm a tug, a desperate pull that made Aoife’s breath heave out of her, unprepared for the impromptu lurch into black space it would make. Her legs, also unaware of what was happening, strained to keep up with her mother’s pace. She didn’t dare complain, scared her mother would open her hand casket and release the infant inside too soon. She let her muscles weep, promised her limbs once they were home she would never mistreat them again. She tried to look down at them, but could only see more black below her, as if the journey had dissolved them, and she was now being propelled by the will of her mother.
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