Secret Rivers Anne Reynolds
Draw near and hear the tale of Effra the Queen of Snow Island, born in the storms off Falcon Edge in the year of the ghostly octopus. Beloved by all her people, she danced with the seven-pronged starfish and bathed in the icy waters of Beverley Brook. One black day the hot springs opened up spewing boiling plumes from the centre of the earth into the Antarctic sky condensing into icicle fireworks before swallowing Effra into the lost world of Black Ditch. The evil Lord Vidin had only to look once on her chilled loveliness to know that she must be his for all time. Under the London streets the secret rivers flowed through Stamford Brook, Parr’s Ditch and Walbrook. Vidin’s galleon powered by the beating of a thousand butterfly wings en route for Westbourne. ‘What now my love, do you weep tears of joy?’ he cried as they neared the muffled bells of Wandle Church where they would be wed before the clock struck Noon. He wrapped sweet Effra in his arms and held her close as she dissolved in the heat of his passion drop by drop, into Ravensbourne until there was nothing left of her at all. 34
