At the edge of the forest a tall woman in a long black dress stood gazing at the entrance to Hobbes End. She was holding a cricket ball that had just plummeted from the sky, narrowly missing her head.
With a wry smile she strode forward until lost from view beneath the trees.
The archangel Sammael Morningstar was coming home . . .
AUTHOR’S NOTE
On pages 222, 267, and 271, Gabriel paraphrases from a poem. The poem is called “High Flight” and was written by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr. on August 18, 1941. At the time, he was flying with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War Two.
He was inspired to write the poem after flying his Spitfire at 33,000 feet. After landing he finished the poem and sent it to his parents on the back of a letter. Three months later, in December 1941, he was killed in a tragic midair collision and was buried in Scopwick cemetery, Lincolnshire, England. He was nineteen years old.
Hobbes End is partly inspired by the beautiful Norfolk village of Heydon, one of the few remaining privately owned villages in England. It remains wonderfully unspoiled, with the most recent building being the Queen Victoria commemorative well built in 1887. The only thing missing is a large pond.
Corvidae is the Latin name for a family of birds containing, among others, rooks, crows, and ravens. Their respective collective nouns are a parliament, a murder, and an unkindness.
Hilton Pashley
Norwich, November 2013
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HILTON PASHLEY lives in Norfolk, England. When he is not working or writing, he flies large kites and drinks enormous amounts of tea. Gabriel’s Clock is his first novel.
Gabriel's Clock Page 19
