The following is a sample story from The Map Waits by Sharon Telfer, now available from our online bookshop.
‘First Catch Your Hare’ by Sharon Telfer
Michael sees the skin first, hung up like a lost glove. Then the body, red as hawthorn berries. The cat sits watching the blood drip with its peat-pool eyes.
Mammy smacks his head for lateness, sends him back out for herbs to stew with the hare his brother has caught.
There is a hollow in the herb patch where Michael had seen it lying, ears flat, as he stole past at dawn. Tracing the curve, his hand lifts the sharp scent of vervain. He rubs his bruised lip and thinks of what he and Fintan have done.
~
Outside, Donal O’Casey catches Michael’s brother by the arm. Their heads draw close, turn back towards him.
~
Mammy serves the broth first, then says grace. A sharp pain flicks Michael’s eyes open. It is the cat, its claws in his thigh. Across the table, his brother’s stare is fixed upon him.
His first spoonful stings with salt, the second is a grassy burst of vervain, the third rich with iron blood. Michael’s ears fill with the remembered tug and hush of the waves; he feels again Fintan’s mouth, rough and sweet on his. He wishes himself away from the dark kitchen, back with his love on the tide-washed sand.
The cat spikes, hisses. Spoons stopped, mouths gaping, they see the hare rise from the pot, pull on its pelt, dash into the midsummer evening with a shake of golden fur. A chair crashes to the floor as Michael follows, leaping across the peat, racing westward to the shore, towards the glittering sea.
By Sharon Telfer from The Map Waits (£9.99)
