The sky had decided to wreak vengeance on silence.

Lightning was flailing all around the town of Bello, bleeding the night dry, frantically splintering against the bushes and roofs of its houses, like judgement day, except the timing was all wrong.

In the midst of such celestial bellows, the cries of Celsa Julia were dampened by the mud she had slipped into as she stumbled in the dark. The baby she had hidden beneath a poncho for months was coming early. It was coming now.

There was nothing she could do to stop it, no matter how much she crossed her legs, pressing them together with all her might. The harder she squeezed, desperate to contain the thick liquid that slid down her thighs, the more that tiny head pushed to be free. She reached up under her skirt and tried to force it back into her belly, but it was too late; her fingers bumped up against the tangled, sticky hair of that little bundle of flesh.

“Come on now, go for a walk.”

His sister nudged him gently towards the door. He had looked so different to her, drained of all colour, his face sunken, so bald… It hardly seemed possible, in just ten years. But that was life in the city, a place she had sorely yearned to be. A terrible wasting away, suffering perhaps… He would recuperate here. Charge back into the breach with renewed vigour. Later on, when he was a success, all past sacrifices would cease to matter.

She turned back to look at him as he walked away from her. In the distance, his upright stance looked more familiar. His figure bore a closer resemblance to the old Juan Pablo, so arrogant, so beloved and admired.

Now he was heading away, towards the road that led through the pine forest, as she had advised him to do. A farmer happened upon him, gawping with barefaced curiosity as he steered his oxcart.

"They lay on the floor with the unmistakeable smile of love lingering on their lips, dressed head to toe in white, in the immaculate attire of newly-weds.

They had to batter the door down, alerted by the cries of neighbours disquieted by the silence and stillness of the place. Joan Dolgut had not gone out to buy bread for days now. The notes that drifted from his forlorn piano, once so familiar to them all, could no longer be heard. They must have been lying on the floor of that dark kitchen for two or three days, but their bodies still retained the cold heat of love."

Some stories remain hidden for centuries but deserve to be told. Stories of families that vanish with their dead, buried beneath the ashes. The tale that began to take shape within the walls of the Espíritu Santo manor house is one such story. Until now, no one had dared to write it down. Even though it soared like a seagull.

When Mr and Mrs Valdés finished dinner, the smell of the estuary drifted into the dining room and pursued them all the way through to the drawing room with the fireplace, where Doña Inés felt the chill of labour. She had been unsettled for several days, but she hadn’t expected it to come so soon. The impending labour was that of Renata, the wife of Domingo, a couple charged with the upkeep of the Espíritu Santo manor house as well as working the land. The speculation that Don Gustavo Valdés also knew what was about to happen in a few short hours was just that — speculation. In actual fact, no one could confirm what happened after that rain soaked night, as wet as any in February in Punta do Bico, in the province of Pontevedra.

Hey, up here!

My name’s Bamba, I live at the top of a tree, and I am around nine or ten years old.

Or maybe only eight.

I’m not sure, because until very recently, someone else kept count for me.

And until very recently someone else also made my bed for me. Someone else put my socks on. And someone else sneezed when I had a tickle in my nose.

But that’s all over now.

I think I’m forgetting something.

Oh, right… I’m a princess. Princess of the Western Kingdom. So, I haven’t always lived at the top of a tree. I used to live in a grand palace filled with suits of armour and portraits. And interestingly, some of those portraits were of me.

Look. That’s my first ever portrait.

Yup. That little dot in a crown is me.

Then I grew up and had plenty more portraits painted. Visitors to the palace would stare at them and then mutter under their breath:

“Such a skinny princess”. “Her crown is on crooked”. “Her nose is much pudgier now”.

That’s why I hate portraits.

If you would like to see your book published in English, drop me a line.

​