This is an excerpt from ‘A Suitcase in Berlin’ the novel I’m currently working on.
Dark
clouds of night still imprisoned the sky over the river and a quarter moon
floated in a ring of mist. Leaves rustled in the wind as dawn gradually
lightened the sky. The three women in the car, windows open, watched water
foaming over the weir, white on cold silver. The clouds thinned to grey and
bats darted between trees. Two pelicans coasted low over the water and landed
near the row of others still asleep on a small sandbar.
(As
they talk, one of the women starts telling a tale.)
“Once
upon a time,” Anna interrupted, “three women sat by the river of life. One was
a weaver, another a teller of tales and the third, a creator of magical
symbols.”
“That’s not strictly accurate,”
Hanne protested.
“Their lives,” Anna continued
loudly, “over a matter of years, had become intertwined like the currents of
the river. They shared stories, understood one another’s metaphors and each
woman recorded the progress of the river in her own way. Some of the people who
walked by the river noticed three odd-shaped rocks that they called the three
sisters. Others claimed that late at night they had seen three women sitting
under a tree and spinning.”
At that moment the sun broke free of
the horizon and a patch of the river reflected gold.
“Still others said that on misty
summer morning they had heard the sweet harmony of three voices floating over
the river.”
“She’s working everything in,” Hanne
said.
“Shh,” Phoebe whispered. “Look.”
A dark shadow slipped from the bank
of the river into the water with barely a ripple.”
“Alberich, right on cue,” Anna said.
“You’re naming beavers now?” Phoebe
asked.
“Poor Alberich,” Hanne said. “He was
ugly, awkward, and obnoxious.”
“It wasn’t all his fault,” insisted
Anna. “If the Rhine maidens hadn’t been so nasty to him, and stupid, he
probably would never have stolen their gold.”
“And
Wagner wouldn’t have had a story.”
