Reet, enough of overly detailed writerly descriptions of craft because I love this story too much to attempt to burst the bubble of its apparent simplicity. The first-person narrator quietly tells us her history in clear, girlish language that unpacks hundreds of years of longing and understated melancholy in a way that is both touching and haunting. The story also presents a subtle subtext of modern-day feminism as readers perceive the scant regard the protagonist was held in, in a world where she had no agency at all. It reads so smoothly and sadly – like a half-remembered childhood fairy story, which despite its strange, unsettling tragedy, ends on a surprisingly upbeat note.

First published in The Mistletoe Bride and other Haunting Tales, Orion, 2013