Emily van Lidth de Jeude

Tripping a little over an unexpectedly-high tuft of moss on the log I was stepping over, I heard shouts from the children, up ahead, and looked up to walk smack into the dangling tips of a soft wet cedar bough. I brushed the water off my face as the shouts were joined by gasps of horror or awe, and then guttural, powerful noises, and a loud “YEAH!!” As a small arm jutted up above the ferns that still stood between me and the kids, holding a rather long piece of deer-spine, that then fell apart in mid air, dropping a piece of itself unceremoniously back to the forest floor. The kid holding it up looked a little disappointed, but continued smiling, as they and their classmates experienced what was, for some, the first sight of a nearly-complete deer skeleton.  Some of the kids gathered as many bones as they could carry; some fought for their perceived rights to the skull; the spine; those amazing paddle-like shoulder-blades that always seem to become useful tools in the hands of t...

This story is also available in audio form, with pictures, on MakerTube . Dear little Emily, Today, when you’re almost ten, my little old self, you’re sitting in the dark sparkly sand by the waves lapping. Barnacled rocks poke up from the sand into your thighs, but you don’t care. You have Pappa’s sweater on over your swimsuit, and you’re fine. You hear Mum’s guitar up on the beach, and she mutters that her fingers are too cold to play, even though the fire is right in front of her. It’s September and the family has gone to the beach, maybe for the last time, this year. It gets dark so early right now that it feels almost like Christmas, even though it’s 8pm, and you haven’t gone home for dinner. The end of the box of Old Dutch crackles between Adrian and his friends as they sit around the fire. The aunties are chatting and you can’t hear what they’re saying, but Pappa’s laugh breaks the night for a moment. You’re waiting for the stars to come out, and your heart sings, Oh watch the st...