historical-fiction

Last night I dreamt Moses and I were rowing underwater.We could breathe and talk to one another.We rowed past schools of fish and sea anemones and Moses named them for me.___ules Finn

I make up as little as possible. I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the background details and the biographies of the people involved there, and I try to run up all the accounts side by side to see where the contradictions are and to look where things have gone missing. And it's really in the gap - it's in the erasures - that I think the novelist can best go to work because inevitably in history in any period, we know a lot about what happened, but we may be far hazier on why it happened. And there's always the question, why did it happen the way it did? Where was the turning point?

Rumors are the children of truth.

Elsa's mother no longer spoke to her of men and love, but of duty and fate and accepting one__ burden. As far as Elsa could tell, if love really was the inherited female domain, then women were saddled with the biggest burden of all. It was pressing down upon them, the way the sea pressed down upon the creatures of the deep.

I had turned to leave and he had called after me. __iss Maria, I kin no other woman who could be wearing men__ trousers and be dripping such as ye are and look quite so lovely. It__ a right shame your mother is marrying you off to that great sot!__ had turned to call back to him, __ doubt very much we will have to worry about that after today!

It seemed ironic to her that women were considered far too meek for the morbidity of war, and yet a child could give their life in a battle they did not even understand.

Rebel Number Four" is waiting patiently by the door. I named him "Rebel Number Four," for he is the fourth of his kind I have given the name "Rebel." To many he may be just a hound dog, but to me he is a champion and a friend to the end.

According to Robert, his friend Moses was a soldier in the first war, as he described it. He fought Indians and soldiers in red coats.

The curtains were not yet drawn and with the moonlight spreading across the room, I could see clearly. I undressed and slipped a soft cotton gown over my naked body. I pulled the blanket off the foot of my bed, covered my shoulders and wa...lked out on the balcony. The cool night air blowing through my hair served as a reminder that only a hint of summer remained in this year of 1860.

I stop to brace myself against the walls, which are painted with the fingerprints of family.

The sun had just slipped behind the trees and evening cast its dark, smoky shadow.

Today__ breakfast consist of rice and a piece of bread fried in a bit of salt pork grease. At least I have my memories of grand banquets and fine foods, but this is all the children have ever known. I suppose it is best not to have anything to compare.

I can hear my steps echo as I follow him to the end of the hall. The door to the small closet under the steps is standing ajar. He closes the door and latches it.

Before I disappear behind the door, I stop and turn around to look at him.

It was a warm and natural feeling to be there. We were not black or white people. We were just people bound together by love and understanding. As I walked out of that church, I felt like I had rediscovered my inner peace.

They did go on so, don't you think, those Victorian poets, they took themselves so horribly seriously," he said, pushing the lift button, summoning it from the depths.As it creaked up, Blackadder said, "That's not the worst thing a human being can do, take himself seriously.

Like the magnolia tree, She bends with the wind,Trials and tribulation may weather her, Yet, after the storm her beauty blooms, See her standing there, like steel, With her roots forever buried,Deep in her Southern soil.

I know not by what power I am drawn to you, but it is as a moth is drawn to the flame, and I cannot fight it, I must be consumed.