The Ash Girl
by A’Lis Bly
For my daughter Claire
Hun Vedverte
Chapter 2
Chaos
Men name wars to pin them to paper, fold them up, tuck madness and destruction into a pocket. Forget. Never forget. Gain distance. Relive it. Blame. Ask forgiveness. Tidy up chaos into sentences and chapters. A title. A timeline. Statistics.
True chaos, khaos, cannot be scribed into dots and lines. No. Your people have forgotten that khaos is the void, the abyss.
Chapter 3
7 June, 1941 CE
Oxford, England
"Lady Harris?" She heard the words as if she was far under water. The name drifted past, paling to an echo. She barely recognized herself by that name, or any other these days. Cold washed over the exposed skin on her arms and she instinctively drew the cape closer around her. It was more a work of art than a garment.