EXCLUSIVE: Short Story From Olivie Blake’s New Collection, Januaries

Today we’re excited to present an exclusive extract from Olivie Blake’s new collection of stories of love, magic and betrayal. The internationally-bestselling fantasy author of The Atlas Six will release Januaries on 17 October 2024, a collection of new and existing short stories as magical ruminations on life, death, and the love (or revenge) that outlasts both. The collection also features modified fairy tales, contemporary heists, absurdist poetry, and at least one set of actual wedding vows. The BFS and Tor hope you enjoy The House.

The House

Charlene and Danielle, let me begin by ruminating wildly about marriage. After today, people will continuously ask you the same questions, which at this stage of life and love will be “Does it feel different being married?” (Later these questions will be more pertinent to one or more uteruses, so good luck.) I had a friend who was particularly exhausted by this question—which, in fairness, does seem to demand a specific but unguessable answer—and her pet answer was no, of course it doesn’t feel different being married. In her words, she chose to get married in the first place because she didn’t want anything to change. She liked her life exactly as it was and thought, Cool, let’s do this forever, then. A totally reasonable answer that I will now invalidate brutally behind her back.

Because actually, things will be very different after today. Maybe not right away, but soon you will begin to notice something that I like to describe in terms of architecture. To me, marriage feels like you have taken up residency in an unfinished house with a very, very long hallway, such that you cannot see the end from where you stand, and you are only allowed to progress through one room at a time. Which means that today, you’re standing in a beautiful room full of exquisite, exhilarating beginnings, but right outside this room is another endless stretch of as-yet-unmaterialized rooms, each one containing an unpredictable number of things you know absolutely nothing about. So what can you build next if you don’t yet know what rooms will be required? What can you create at this moment, with the tools you currently have, that can account for one of the rooms you haven’t yet seen? Conversely, can you afford to take any room for granted knowing you may not be allowed to stay there long? You can merely accept the room as it is and continuously make the choice to keep going. To say yes to every room that follows, regardless of what might ultimately live inside.

Which is to say that in marriage, there are consequences. The decisions you make today will impact an argument you have ten years from now; ten years from now, learning something new about the person you already know by heart will sweeten the promises you make today. Because you, as you are now, will not exist in this form forever. Your spouse in the future is technically someone you have yet to meet. Your marriage is, likewise, a shape-shifting entity, one that demands evolution, and while all relationships are alive in this way, marriage is particularly architectural. By choosing marriage, you are entangling lives and thoughts and beliefs and dreams that can never be fully extricated. You’re making vows to each other that will be significant self-fulfillingly, because you made them at all. You are looking each other in the eyes and saying the word forever, and while the act of making a promise of such magnitude is already a blind leap of faith, the act of choosing to accept it is terror itself, and therefore this, today, is an act of incredible dauntlessness. You, as you stand here today, are a miracle of happenstance and faith.

Because to allow yourself to be known is to allow yourself to be wounded. If intimacy is handing someone knives and saying please don’t stab me with those, then marriage is shedding your armor, too. It’s saying to the person you’ve chosen that you accept their love and plan to honor it. That your vulnerability comes at a high price, but a worthy one. That you will willingly suffer when they suffer because your solitary peace is unmatched by the peace you share with them. That you understand you are building a house of many mysterious rooms together, even when your co-architect in this matter can never be wholly understood.

And in the end, what a dazzling decision! No one will ever know this house as you have known it. No one can ever knock it down without your consent. No one but you and the person you build it with can ever do the work to fix it. And no one but the two of you will ever know how truly breathtaking the many beautiful rooms can be.

You could build this house on your own, but I think we all know it wouldn’t be as interesting. It wouldn’t be as weird, and I mean that in the truest sense—that real, awe-inspiring greatness only comes from divergence, from the weirdness that invention brings. It comes from the place where your passion and theirs intersect. So, to answer this incredibly annoying question for you: Will it feel different being married? Yes, and what a luxury it is to be this in love, and to build this life from nothing! After today, everything will be different—you will each be braver, steadier, and capable of dreaming bigger dreams, because you both know you have a place to call home.

Januaries is out 17 October 2024 in hardback from Tor UK. Pre-order it here.