Loose Leaves
By Rachel H Grant
Sheena slowly awoke, a smile dying on her face, a frail flower wilting at sunset. Her ginger hair framed her head like autumn leaves. The memory of the dream remained. She had finished her novel.
As she surely would today, just another 5000 words. She was almost there, the taste of the finishing line sweet on her tongue, in this one woman race against writer’s block.
Her dream house. Every night it took on more substance, her sleepscape was slowly solidifying in to reality. The dreamlife was now so much more important than her boring office job in an estate agent’s. Daily life was a drudgery, only broken up by her dreams, a whole new world pregnant with possibilities.
The house had slowly come alive with delirious detail. A cottage in a garden of wild roses and secret statues, grinning Buddhas and laughing elves, mute magic in the bushes. Red brick glinted in soft sunlight, diamond paned windows winked at her.
Of course, she had started to write about the house. This had been her real dream, for as long as she could remember: to be a novelist. And now the house was helping her, pushing her to write, write … to capture its beauty on paper, to unburden her fixation and ignite the fire of creation.
But she could not write a whole novel describing a house. A spark of inspiration caught fire in her brain. It would be a haunted house. A ghost – just as she was while she slept, a waif in that land between worlds, the vortex of the dreamscape. And the ghost would be Stephanie, her daughter. Her dead daughter, a suicide caused by school bullying many years before. Yes, this would be Stephanie’s novel. She would inhabit a perfect house within that world of dreams, the land of forgotten stories, and forbidden endings.
A year and two months later and here she was, finishing the novel. Typed pages were scattered across her desk, loose leaves playing with her dreams. The book had to be published, a sacred tribute to Stephanie that must not be allowed to hide in her desk drawer, unread, a screaming voice unheard within its pages. So the frantic fight began. One rejection roared at her after another, Sheena’s confidence crushed but her will strong. More letters, a series of cordial no’s, until that one day … the piece of white paper in her hands jumped with a jubilant yes. Her hand shook. She had done it. Sheena was to be published.
The days flowed in to a river of waiting, as the eve of publication slowly, painfully dripped nearer. Finally the day dawned: her book was released. Sheena wore an unaccustomed smile to work, and was still smiling as she visited the first house on her list that day. She slowly drove down an unfamiliar street, her smile freezing as she drew up to the address. It felt like she could never stop smiling, a senseless smirk sculpted on her face for all time. She was looking at the cottage. Her house.
In unblushing third dimensional brick and stone, her dream had come true. Sheena stepped back from the car, crossing the street hurriedly to drink in the impossible sight. Caught in a fog of disbelief, she did not see or hear the approaching car. The driver braked in desperation, too late. Sheena lay on the road, shaking as her last breath left her body.
The dream life danced in her soul, an eternal embrace, the comfort of a favourite reverie. It was real, she was here, in her house. How strange, she thought, that what once was unreal, now had substance … while she was no more than a ghost. Free to live in her dream cottage forever.
The novel was a surprise success. Like loose leaves the pages turned, and turned, so many readers enjoying her private dream. The voices started, at first vague murmurs, and then louder. She was hearing her readers. How strange, she mused, a ghost haunted by … the living.
One day, Sheena was pulled rudely from her little cottage, to a room where a plain middle-aged woman read her novel, a smile of satisfaction on her face. She was lonely, without many friends, in fact her books were her buddies. Sheena stayed with her until she finished the novel, listening to her thoughts, an invisible companion.
Relieved, she returned to the house. Loose leaves danced in the garden. It was autumn. Soon, someone would buy the cottage. A family perhaps. It might be good. Haunting an empty home was, after all, a boring business…
Every so often she would be plucked like a stray leaf and blown to another house, where an avid reader of her novel sat alone, dreaming of some company, of a friend. That’s what she was, if only they knew. In little ways, she learnt how to help them. Throwing books off the shelf, spilling cups of tea, all designed to point something out to them, or to stop them making a mistake. Then, like a leaf in the wind, she would be gone.
Her secret hope was that Stephanie would join her. Like a dying leaf she wandered the corridors of the cottage listlessly, the breeze of life banishing her hopes. Stephanie was not there, her novel’s plot falling apart like leaves in the winter wind. But one day, she would come. Sheena knew it. Day turned to night, autumn to winter, as she searched each room.
Her latest reader turned over in bed, dreaming of the cottage. Two figures were in its window, a woman and a girl. Together, they waved. The dreamer smiled.
Sheena continued to wait, the tree of eternity in her, and in its roots forever unfurled. She had forgotten how to smile, as invisible tears fell like leaves.
Writer Unblocked 
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