Cala by Laura Legge

Cala

Laura Legge

Euna, a young woman, escapes her cramped life in a Celtic religion based- women's community in the Hebrides after falling in love with an outsider. Muireall, head of the community, I found especially frightening because of her strange, erratic behaviour. Aram, the love-interest, also has a strange life but his motives for living the way he did I could understand. Feeling very satisfied after finishing this weird and intriguing tale.

Extract
She was crying. She must have looked deranged. Or as if she were doing a ritual, skyclad. But no one was there to see it, no mink or marten, even. She cried so dry that her brow pounded, her sinuses seared hard from the inside. She wiped her eyes, forgetting she still had salt in her palm, and then that hurt crept across her corneas.
She stood so the pain would have more room to diffuse. Here she was, as Lot's wife had been after looking at Sodom, turned to a pillar of salt. She should not have peered at that other life - Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain - and for her blunder she was going to burn.
After a few minutes, her tears flushed out the salt. She looked down at the underwear and saw that the stain, though it lingered, had faded significantly. And so she crouched back down. And so she resumed her chore. And so.
Parallels
  • Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
  • Beautiful Mutants by Deborah Levy
  • The Stornoway Way by Kevin Macneil