Words in Deep Blue PDF
Preview Words in Deep Blue
About Words in Deep Blue Second-hand bookshops are full of mysteries This is a love story. It’s the story of Howling Books, where readers write letters to strangers, to lovers, to poets. It’s the story of Henry Jones and Rachel Sweetie. They were best friends once, before Rachel moved to the sea. Now, she’s back, working at the bookstore, grieving for her brother Cal. She’s looking for the future in the books people love, and the words they leave behind. Sometimes you need the poets The new novel from the award-winning author of Graffiti Moon. Contents Cover About Words in Deep Blue Dedication Epigraphs Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Henry Rachel Acknowledgements About Cath Crowley Also by Cath Crowley Copyright page To Michael Crowley and Michael Kitson, with love A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. KAFKA The Pale King by David Foster Wallace Marking found on page 585 Every love story is a ghost story. Prufrock and Other Observations by T.S. Eliot Letter left between pages 4 and 5 12 December 2012 Dear Henry I’m leaving this letter on the same page as ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ because you love the poem and I love you. I know you’re out with Amy, but fuck it – she doesn’t love you, Henry. She loves herself, quite a bit in fact. I love that you read. I love that you love second-hand books. I love pretty much everything about you, and I’ve known you for ten years, so that’s saying something. I leave tomorrow. Please call me when you get this, no matter how late. Rachel Rachel salt and heat and memory I open my eyes at midnight to the sound of the ocean and my brother’s breathing. It’s been ten months since Cal drowned, but the dreams still escape. I’m confident in the dreams, liquid with the sea. I’m breathing underwater, eyes open and un-stung by salt. I see fish, a school of silver-bellied moons thrumming beneath me. Cal appears, ready to identify, but these aren’t fish we know. ‘Mackerel,’ he says, his words escaping in bubbles that I can hear. But the fish aren’t mackerel. Not bream, not any of the names we offer. They’re pure silver. ‘An unidentified species,’ we say, as we watch them fold and unfold around us. The water has the texture of sadness: salt and heat and memory. Cal’s in the room when I wake. He’s milky-skinned in the darkness, dripping of ocean. Impossible, but so real I smell salt and apple gum. So real I see the scar on his left foot – a long-healed cut from glass on the beach. He’s talking about the dream fish: pure silver, unidentified, and gone. I feel through the air for the dream, but instead I touch the ears of Cal’s labrador, Woof. He follows me everywhere since the funeral, a long line of black I can’t shake. Usually he sleeps on the end of my bed or in the doorway of my room, but for the last two nights he’s slept in front of my packed suitcases. I can’t take him with me. ‘You’re an ocean dog.’ I run my finger along his nose. ‘You’d go mad in the city.’ There’s no sleeping after dreams of Cal, so I climb through the window and head to the beach. The moon is three-quarters empty. The night is as hot as day. Gran mowed late last week so I collect warm green blades on my feet as I move. There’s almost nothing between our house and the water. There’s the road, a small stretch of scrub, and then dunes. The night is all tangle and smell. Salt and
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