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she lives the maiden in her bedroom the top of a tower sleeps & eats there hearsrain outside and counts the drops her parents own her say she cannot leave andshe cannot leave her parents who love her she says combing her hair soft likevelvet blonde like moonlight that stays soft in towers out of weatheriiishe waits for me in her bedroom behind a shut door her father owns her says shecannot leave and she cannot leave the burly father who needs her she says lockedin the room wrapped in blankets as soft as her skin but I slip under the door likepaper she is scared has never seen me before covers herself in blankets on her bedshe stands in water buckets and pales water to her ankles her mother owns hersays she cannot leave and she cannot leave her mother who shows her the futurein vanity mirrors she says standing in buckets eels swimming infinity around herankles she boards up her bedroom window plywood over glass sheets from herbed she wraps around her torso I am not allowed to enter this room and watersways against her anklesshe hears me outside her bedroom window boarded up inside she sees onlyshadows on the ground I am throwing stones from a cairn to her window a bed oflilies grows for her to sleep her parents say she does not listen but she hears thestones clacking against her windowiiiivby Tim Mook SangIssue 6 www.newfairytales.co.uk - 33 -