A Library of Dreams
Complete Books
Stories in progress and books come.
Echo
Literary Fiction
Status: Currently seeking representation.
Two childhood friends turn their lives into folklore, only to discover the stories they create can become indistinguishable from reality.
ECHO will appeal to readers of Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait for its psychologically complex female protagonist and exploration of a woman constrained by marriage and social expectations, as well as V. E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil for its lush historical atmosphere, exploration of female identity, and blurring of the boundaries between myth and reality.
Excerpt
Charlotte was silent for a moment.“What do you dream of?”
“It does not matter, so long as it is not of this reality.”
“It does matter. What am I to dream of when those realities cannot exist anymore? When the ghosts get too loud for me to bear?”
“Anything, everything. Places, maybe. The past.”
“But what is it that you see? Do you dream of Paris and Cairo, like the Duke? Your father and mother? Dogs shuffling cards and talking politics? Elizabeth?”
Thomas did not immediately speak or even react, he just continued to stare into the distance.
“I used to dream of sitting there, under that tree.” He raised his hand and pointed. “I used to dream of sitting here in this exact moment. You and Violet dreamed of much more. Now?”
He looked at the girl, pale under the moonlight with eyes staring back at him from under her lashes.
“Now… I dream of hands tingling under the surface of water, splayed on my back, staring up at the evening sky, moon high on the horizon. I dream of goddesses, pulling me under the water, losing consciousness, then being revived once more. Over and over and over.”
“That does not sound like a dream. It sounds like a nightmare.”
“Yes, but the goddess…” Thomas tensed at this. His breath hitched in his throat for a moment. He swallowed.
He was thinking of the woman, Charlotte could tell. She looked down at the stone step underneath them.
“What is she like?”
Thomas sat, bewildered, staring at Charlotte, unsure if he should answer the question at all, but she would pester him if he did not. Charlotte always had a way of getting the answers she wanted.
“Well… I suppose…” He ran his hands through his chaotic hair and gazed at the moon. “I suppose she is feral. Rotted and ecstatic and radiant. There are no metaphors. I could say she is a fallen star, lost and scared, searching for the sky once more, but one star, or even an entire universe cannot capture the divination of her. I could say she is annihilating and destroying, riding into a town, wiping out entire belief systems, taking everything with her as she leaves, but death is too easy, too simple. Some living part still exists, wrapping at my throat. Galatea, perhaps. The statue carved in the likeness of Aphrodite herself, worshipped so heavily, it came to life. I, Pygmalion. But, no. That implies she was made by my hand, each carving of my desire. But I cannot sculpt and perfection is a grotesque classification. How are you to describe something that is perfect in its imperfection? I cannot. I have always been the pitiful observer.”
All color had drained from his face. He was floating in the midnight air.