She can see through their skin to their blood and their bones. Oh, she would protect them from harm, if she could. She watches as they lie on their backs on the sand, cleaned of ochre, side by side, squinting up at the sun. She whispers in their ears, to see if they can hear her, like the girl can.

Her breath ruffles their hair.

One of them puts her hand up to her cheek, as if to brush away a fly.

But of the words themselves, they hear nothing.

Fatigued, even angered, Cwen raises a tempest and calms it again in a beat. The girls, lying on the sand, haven’t even noticed.

Cwen thinks of the child, now almost a woman. It is time to call her in.

So they rode tyll they com to a laake that was a fayre watir and brode. And in the myddis Arthure was ware of an arme clothed in whyght samyte, that helde a fayre swerde in that honde. ‘Lo,’ seyde Merlion, ‘yondir ys the swerde that I spoke off.’ So with that they saw a damesell goynge uppon the laake. ‘What damoysel is that?’ said Arthur. ‘That is the Lady of the Lake,’ seyde Merlion. ‘There ys a grete roche, and therein ys as fayre a paleyce as ony on erthe, and rychely besayne. And thys damesel woll com to you anone, and than speke ye fayre to hir, that she may gyff you that swerde.’

Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur (English), 1485

I don’t know whose fault it was, mine, yours, or Raphael’s, but we never thought of asking, and he never thought of telling us whereabouts in the New World Utopia is ... For one thing, it makes me feel rather a fool, after all I’ve written about the island, not to know what sea it is in. For another, there are one or two people in England who want to go there.

Thomas More, Utopia (Latin), 1516

9
Stella

The press fell in love with Stella and Tara during the inquiry.

JUDGE: Are you responsible for the website, PatriarchyPantsDown.com?

STELLA: No.

JUDGE: Are you aware of the website to which I refer?

STELLA: Yes.

JUDGE: The IP address is the server at Ayrness High School.

STELLA: Er, there are, like, seven hundred pupils at the school, and fifty members of staff?

JUDGE: What is your opinion of the site?

STELLA: [Sighs] Actually, we think this kind of stunt is of limited value, in the real world. We think there are other, more sympathetic ways for the sisterhood to address those kinds of troubles. [Pause] But at least the pictures were heavily pixellated.

JUDGE: This was the kind of ethos that was allowed to develop at school?

STELLA: No, I wouldn’t say that.