Jayla Mile. Last Chapters

20. Divining Stone:

Gradually an awakening is taking place, the removal of a cast, a sort of sandblast to the senses, stripping away years of dusty thoughts and ancient pain. Layer by layer, a gauze is unraveling, a loose gossamer strand left blowing in the breeze. And Jayla Mile is hurting from the exposure.

“Why did I open myself up to that? Is that where I thought I’d find the land over the rainbow?”

Samuel replies, “You should have known it was in your own backyard.”

“But my backyard is nothing but a mass of parched grey earth.”

“Have another cup of tea,” Sam soothes. “We’ll dig up your yard and plant roses and sunflowers.”

“And forget-me-nots,” she says.

21. Black Sheep

Rosie Mile lights a cigarette as if the sky above did not exist. And Jay Mile, in the presence of her mother for the first time since she was a child, looks away from the India-inked sky to Rosie’s whiskey and wry smile, and thinks: Ah, Rosie, if I’d have been twins you’d have called us Ball and Chain. You felt tied down so you freed yourself, forfeited the prizes of conjugal golf for the rough and rolling greens (and blues and golds) of this land, left the suburban cage for the chicken coops and sheep dung and for a farmer who painted your shack Sun Yellow.

22. Fade to Black

“Sun Yellow?” Samuel says. “Not Fool’s Gold?”

“No. And no longer Gold’s Fool either.”

“No?”

“Burnt Umbrage is all.”

She kisses Cornerstone in the candlelit glow of the café at dusk. He takes her hand, kisses it lightly, and then they are off to paint the town Flame Red or any other colour their hearts desire.

The End

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That's it! If you want to read the earlier chapters, they're here: