Esther Wood

“In a city it's impossible to forget we live in places raised and built over time itself. The past is underneath our feet. Every day when I leave the house , I may walk over a place where a king killed a wolf in the Royal Forest of Stocket, one of the medieval hunting forests ,where alder and birch , oak and hazel,willow, cherry and aspen grew. The living trees were cut down , their wood used to fuel the city's growth , it's trade, it's life.The ancient wood ,preserved in peat, was found underneath the city(The site of the killing is fairly well buried -the wolf and the king had their encounter some time around the early years of the eleventh century)It's the same as in any other city, built up and over and round , ancient woodlands cut down , bogs drained , watercourses altered, a landscape rendered almost untraceable, vanished.Here, there's a history of 8,000 years of habitation , the evidence in excavated fish hooks and fish bone reliquaries, in Bronze Age grave-goods of arrowheads and beakers, what's still under the surface, in revenants and ghosts of gardens , of doo'cots and orchards, of middens and piggeries, plague remains and witch-hunts, of Franciscans and Carmelites, their friaries buried , over-taken by time and stone .This is a stonemasons' city , a city of weavers and gardeners and shipwrights and where I walk , there was once a Maison Dieu, a leper house; there was song schools and sewing schools, correction houses and tollboths, hidden under layers of time, still there””

“Can I ask you something very personal while you try things on?”“Yes, of course, what do you want to know?”“…well, it’s just that… I don’t want to offend you,” she said uncertainly. “Oh come on, Akane, out with it!” Mitsuko prompted her, “I want to know the answer too!”“Very well,” agreed the little auburn pixie and cut to the chase: “Where are your wings?”The question was so unexpected that I burst out laughing. “I had to part with them when I came down to Earth. “It’s something every angel has to deal with if they’re planning to spend any length of time down here.”“And what’s your life like, up there?” Akane asked. “In the Kingdom of Heaven, we live as beings of pure light.” “Up there, there’s no such thing as fear, pain, hot or cold. We don’t know hunger, suffering, ageing or death. We have no need of food and we don’t sleep. We are the messengers of God and we watch over the lives of mortals. We come to Earth often, but only as spirits, and once we’ve completed our task down here, we always go back to the White Woods.””

“Grandfather?””