The Children of Camelot

Prologue

I still gaze upon the past and the thought always comes-fleeting as it is-there is something predestined about the way our lives (mine, Dany's Nicolás's) entwined.

In dreams I wander down lazy unfinished lanes. Often, it's Dany who will get to me first here. Her eyes are different. Right there where brown skin crinkles to close, it smooths, wrinkle-less. And she is small (too small to be the adult I know). Whatever version of Dany my mind fetches me, is one who existed long before I knew her. Other times I steal glimpses of Nicolás. Dear old, steady Nicolás. His face isn't quite finished here; its's just a smooth, blank expanse. So, it's my job to push past the dull ache in my heart. Without a face he's still Nicolás, my Nicolás. This part-? It's unsettling: like a throat tightening with water gone down the wrong way, or like a funny bone colliding with the sharp edge of a plaster wall.

In the end Dany and Nicolás meet in a heath brimmed with wildflowers: fly orchids and pink-white sea campions. They slip one hand into the others, walking toward the pale swell of the North Sea's dunes. High winds clamour against my ears; I shout to be heard above their symphony to no avail. My friends disappear around a slope of green fescue grass.

Everything fades.

Taste of brine curls round a pink tongue.

The world shifts in on itself in a tumbling movement of slate greys, indigos, and bruising purples. Now I stand on the stone moors. The granite surrounds me, dwarfs me where it peaks up into towering menhirs. Long, long ago Dad (or maybe Mum) whispers about the batholith that lies underneath Kernow. They murmur one of the many fairy tales they'll share with me over the years.

Colours collapse in on eachother again.

My childhood bedroom is cosy.

Orange-yellow light floods over the walls. There's a green cuddly dinosaur named Runi, after my favourite Aunt Aaruni in my bed. She's upside down near my pillow with her legs poking out at odd angles, poor thing. I clutch her against my side where I sit up against the headboard of the only bed in the room. Phosphorescent stars scatter against deep blue walls. They snake behind my bed and up to the ceiling above. Dark hair falls across brown skin, curls against dark eyebrows, and a scar, pink, and tender, runs down the length of my arm. It's not faded yet; not like the same one on my arm as an adult.

Dad and Mum sit on the floor. Their grown-up voices rumble gently in this sacred space. I look so much like Mum, and I've got Dad's round eyes with the same lines even if they're brown instead of blue. Mum laughs loudly when Dad brings his hands together to make the shadow of a swan on the wall for boy-Me.

A toddler's burbly laugh peels through the air. Mum chances a peek at Dad. He smiles at her and then me.