Burning Ground by Pearl Luke

Author:Pearl Luke [Luke, Pearl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4434-1074-8
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2011-08-16T16:00:00+00:00

Date: 07 Jun 08:52:06

From: Gilmore A. Graham

<[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Subject: Pleased to meet you

Dear Percy Turner,

I know you’ve only been back on your tower for a few days, but I wanted to say that I’m sorry you were ill, and that I hope you’re doing fine now. I’m happy you copied my address, and by all means, let’s get to know each other. Why don’t you tell me what you do with yourself when you’re not here?

I’ve heard you on the radio as well. Interesting name, I thought, because I’m sensitive to names. All my life I’ve been plagued by the ambiguity of mine: Is that Gilmore Graham or Graham Gilmore? And then there’s the matter of my middle name: Audrey, if you can believe it. My grandfather’s name. I remember the look on my mother’s face when I carved my initials into a pumpkin one fall. I was fourteen, I think. GAG, she said. Her eyes went wide and she stared at me with such a look. I’ll never forget it.

So I’m glad you wrote. I was surprised … not too many people out here with e-mail. I notice voices too, and yours is an interesting mix of gentleness and determination. Or so I imagine, Percy Turner.

Percy blinks at the page. That’s it? She turns to the screen and scrolls to the beginning of the message: 1230 bytes, including the header. She searches for her response, pats around carefully inside herself, but feels nothing she can name. This surprises her, as if she has encountered a blank screen where she expected to find a complicated document.

She reads the message again. An interesting mix of fact and humour, and she wonders if he took as long composing this message as she took composing hers. She checks the header. Gilmore A. Graham. Apparently he’s not putting her on about his initials. And he does say she sounds gentle.

Gentle is a quality she’d like to have linked to her name. She prefers it to the ones she’s accustomed to hearing—independent, strong, diligent, creative. All good solid qualities, she knows, but better in an employee than a lover, certainly without allure. She supposes one is born into some adjectives and chooses others; given a choice, she’d elect to be associated with words like seductive, charming, mysterious, gracious. Words that allude to flawless skin, and loveliness, and impeccable taste. Or, if denied those, through plainness or a tendency toward frankness, she would opt for ones that denote compassion and caring—tender, kindly, considerate, magnanimous, and yes, gentle.

The second e-mail message is from Marlea. Percy highlights the subject line. Before she can reconsider, she presses the delete key.

THE sky is low and grey, and a light drizzle has reduced visibility to only a few kilometres, so there is no need to climb the tower. Instead, as she ambles along the trail toward the airstrip, Percy rattles a special walking stick she has designed and carved herself. She knows that bears are normally as eager to avoid her as she is to avoid them, so she has topped the stick with a six-inch length of steel pipe.

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