Under The Willows | Bright Raven Press
Bright Raven | Fiction
In the quiet, misty expanses of the Fenlands, Gabe finds comfort in the predictable rhythms of his woodworking workshop and the slow steps of his aging retriever, Muffin. But beneath the steady hum of his machinery is the suffocating silence of loss.
His son, Rowan, with A-levels looming, is struggling with a world and mind that has grown too overwhelming.
The fragile quiet of the house begins to fracture. Both men possess a deep, intense way of feeling the world around them, yet they lack the words to bridge the gap.
Under the Willows is a tender, deeply sensory portrait of a father and son navigating the aftermath of loss.
Under The Willows
“I really love this little story. It needs to be read by a wide audience.
The relationship between these two men was portrayed with deep sensitivity and understanding. The author recognised the silence between them and yet the comfort of mutual ‘knowing’ that filled the silence.”
About The Book
For Gabe, silence has become the only language he has left
Since Marie, Gabe has wrapped their fenland home in quiet. No music, no noise, nothing that might replace the vibrancy she once filled it with. He spends his days in the workshop, his evenings watching his son Rowan disappear a little further into himself.
Neither of them has the words for what happened. So the silence grows, meal by meal, evening by evening, until Gabe catches sight of something that neither of them expected: Rowan, moving through it the way his mother once taught him to, letting his body say what his voice can't.
Set along the willows and lodes of the Cambridgeshire fens, Under the Willows is a novella about the particular quiet that follows loss, and the unexpected, wordless ways a family finds its way back to itself.
Music As Mood
Coming soon.
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the specific hush of a house that used to be loud with music and life.
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two men circling each other's pain, unsure how to close the distance.
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Music, movement and dance as a route back to feeling when words fail.
A form of stimming to find emotional connection.
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The willows, a heron, and the pure song of the wren holding a family's grief in the landscape around them.
“Our emotions are connected to our senses – very much so. If you are happy or sad, you can display it by a stim.”
Emma Dalmayne