Cecilia Dart-Thornton

I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you about the more
unusual aspects of my childhood,
which began when I was discovered, as a baby, in a wooden
lifeboat that washed ashore on the
rugged coastline of a remote isle in the southern oceans,
between Australia and Antarctica. I'd
also like to describe my early years on Si-Sique Island,
raised with the family of the
lighthouse-keeper, Albert Ross, who found and adopted me.

My origins could not be traced. Who were my parents? Had
they been drowned in a boating accident?
Where had I come from? Was I of noble blood? Alas, no answer
could be found.

They named me 'Cecilia' and I flourished like a rare orchid,
even on that windswept isle, in the
rough-and-tumble company of my seven step-brothers. They
taught me fencing, archery and equestrian
skills, at which I excelled.

Last year, at the age of sixteen, I became aware for the
first time that I possessed an
extraordinary gift. Whenever I held in my hand one of the
seagull-quill pens commonly used for
note-taking on Si-Sique island, fantastic alien worlds would
flow from the sharpened nib,
positioning themselves on the nearest sheet of parchment in
flawless, three-dimensional detail.
Comprehending this might prove a money-making proposition, I
changed my surname from 'Ross' to
'Dart-Thornton', packed my mascara and departed from the
isle - to the sorrow of my seven handsome
step-brothers, who were all achingly in love with me.

On reaching New York I was staggered to learn that I must
update from the seagull-quill pen.
Fortunately, my astonishing powers worked equally well on a
computer keyboard. Any attached
monitor sprang to life, becoming a window that looked out
onto alternative worlds of vivid
strangeness, beauty, peril and passion, far grimmer and more
serious than I am leading you to
expect.

I'd LIKE to tell you all this, however I suspect they
actually wanted the real story, not just a
somewhat implausible reflection. Unfortunately, there's not
a lot of space on this page and I'm
running out ...