Like most of my stories, this came to me more or less in one piece, as you see it above (in fact, this one came to me in a dream, but NO-ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THAT), ambiguous ending and all. I did think about giving Briony more overt reasons for sacrificing her brother, but in the end decided against it. I wanted this story to be about the betrayal of Jamie’s childish trust, and for that betrayal to be as complete as possible: his inability to understand her motive is meant to reflect the gulf that adolescence has opened up between them.

I tend to prefer ambiguous stories; they’re obviously tougher on the reader, but it’s so entertaining as the writer to see the interpretations – perfectly consistent, defensible interpretations – that come out of them!

I liked the line “The only occasions when Jamie makes its acquaintance is when a ball or Frisbee is dragged into its baleful orbit and needs retrieval.” I can picture this. My dog sometimes pushes her toys just under the hutch and in order to retrieve it she gets down on her front legs and tries to bat it out as if the hutch were going to collapse on top of her.

Well told.

I think you have attempted something difficult here and I began reading with some skepticism that the ideas could go anywhere new or transport me away from the forest (did ya see what I did there?) of tree-filled-children-barefoot-in-night-time-garden literature and film already out there. Poltergeist, Sleepy Hollow, Tom’s Midnight Garden all tried to elbow their way back into my thoughts but you have, I think, marked out your territory.

Making me small again, compelling me to look in “The tangle of roots below is mirrored by the knot of branches above” worked brilliantly. Paragraph three is absolutely convincing in evoking the irrational drives behind childish behaviour: “the black plastic of the dustbin blurring his peripheral vision” becoming the “imaginary spectator” and the thin line between laughter and hysteria. So too the relationship between brother and sister in paragraphs six and seven where Jamie is troubled by his increasing realisation of the complexity of gender roles.

Jamie seems a boy teetering on the precipice… experiencing the first intrusive thoughts of adolescence and as a consequence finding the relationship with his older sister, who he obsessively thinks about while throwing his ball “ticking off the seconds before Briony explodes”, hard. He seems attracted and repulsed waking up “at once frightened and frustrated”. Hmm… but then it concerned me that I was being a big perv and reading something other into this. The Briony character did make me think of Holden Caulfield – or rather his antithesis – not trying to save her brother at all. I found the ending ambiguous in that I wasn’t certain about my interpretation.

Thank you for the story. I have found enjoyment and puzzlement within it and I think this is a good thing

A very good story…

If I had a niggle, it was that I wasn’t sure what Briony had sold him for – there’s no hint in the story of a tension in her that getting rid of him would ease, other than it’s better him than her. Which is fine, of course.