Anna West

Writer and Editor in London, UK

The Irishman told her he thought she was born with a crack in the walls of her heart and that she would have to learn to work with it as she grew. He said that if she didn’t speak to her pain it could turn her heart to stone. It would hide in her body like a cancer and cripple her soul. He told her to keep her eyes bright and said he knew of a secret sign. A magic gift that only she and others with the same bright eyes could see—a necklace made from tiny beads of blood that would appear around her throat like a collar of rubies and warned when things were getting hot.

He said that having a crack in the walls of your heart was a blessing, if she wanted it to be. Depended how you looked at things he said. Cracks meant that things were breaking open. They let the light in and out and that one day, if she listened carefully to the wind, and the sea; the trees and flowers and the earth, one day it would turn to pure light.

Excerpt from "Penelope's Search for the Lost Chord."