Chapter One

The Middle of the World

She started with The Universe. Then she wrote The Galaxy, The Solar System, The Earth, Europe, England, Felling, Our House, The Kitchen, The White Chair With A Hundred Holes Like Stars, then her name, Margaret, and she paused.

"What's in the middle of me?" she asked.

"Your heart," said Mary.

She wrote My Heart.

"In the middle of that?"

"Your soul," said Catherine.

She wrote My Soul.

Mam reached down and lifted the front of Margaret's T-shirt and prodded her navel.

"That's where your middle is," she said. "That's where you were part of me."

Margaret drew a row of stick figures, then drew concentric rings growing out from each of them.

"Where's the real middle of the world?" she said.

"They used to think the Mediterranean," said Catherine. "Medi means middle. Terra means world. The sea at the middle of the world."

Margaret drew a blue sea with a green earth around it.

"There was another sea at the edges," said Catherine. "It was filled with monsters and it went right to the end of the world. If you got that far, you just fell off."

Margaret drew this sea. She put fangs and fins for monsters.

"There's no end, really, is there?" she said.

"No," said Catherine.

"And there's no middle, is there?"

Catherine laughed.

"Not really."

Mam prodded Margaret's navel again.

"That's the middle of the world," she said.

Later that day we went to the grave. Colin rus