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We don't know who exactly Wedge is. We do know that he rummages through Wrack Line to see what he can find and places himself on the site at whim. We don't mind because he brings us stories of what he has been, done and seen.

He reckons he's immortal because, though fictional, once someone has heard about him, he's in their head forever.

Anyhow, I'll let him explain himself a little, though mostly what he says is a little bizare.

Wedge – my brief description.

I was born of someone’s mind, full adulthood, with a sampling of backstories that are emerging slowly. The hat you see is not the hat I wore then. Like the humble yard brush, it has had ten tops, three rims and some fancy feathers that flew somewhere long ago. From time to time, I will offer a little insight into my

existence.

Here goes an insight.

My first encounter:

‘I like your hat.’

   ‘I like yours,’ I answered, gawping an intensity of blue—eyes with the iris ringed in black. I was already sinking.

   ‘I’m not wearing one.’

   ‘You should do, they suit you.’

   ‘How do you know.’

   ‘Before I emerged from someone’s mind, I had a dream. I saw a woman like you on a catwalk modelling the latest slinky style for beginners, but it was the hat I noticed.’

   ‘Beginners?’

   ‘People like you and me, who have come from nowhere and so are beginners.

   ‘Do you have any tips for beginners, seeing as you arrived before me?’

   ‘Wear a hat.’

   ‘Wait there.’

   I did.  She sauntered into a side street that only materialised as she entered a millinery on its corner. A nice store where yellow candlelight flowed from the window to shine and morph the grass to cobles. She reappeared and strolled back. ‘Do you like it?’ I did; it suited her perfectly, and the dress, now Victorian, tight at the waist, flowed gently her grace. ‘Do you?’ she insisted, slipping an arm through mine as she turned me from the side street towards the sound of a weir.

   ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

   ‘The confluence, of course.’

   ‘The confluence?’

   ‘Well, you see, it seems I’ve distracted you. You should have begun to emerge from a mind upriver before the confluence, but you didn’t and are now in the wrong time zone, so I am taking you back.’

   ‘I don’t want to go back.’

   ‘Maybe? But I am a distraction,’

   ‘We are both distractions.’

   She stopped walking, turned to me, stared her mad blue eyes through mine and said softly, warmly, ‘You think we are figments of imagination; you are wrong. We are our own imagination, different, that’s all.’ She stepped on in silence until we came to the confluence, and she said, ‘I’ll explain more some other time when it is explained to me.’ She turned to the marshes and, fading into the dusk, left.

   Will I ever see you again? I murmured silently.

   You might. Keep looking. Choose another timeline. And listen for my footfalls. Her voice in my head was as if she still stood beside me.

   I listened through the silence for footsteps but nothing, though I saw a single flame glimmering the Ings.

   ‘What’s your name?’ I asked, wondering if she would hear me.

   I think I know, but I’m not sure. I’ll let you know if we meet again. Your name is Wedge.

That was the last time I saw her. Though I have heard her footfalls at night, through cobbled streets to saunter, in the alleys and ginnels of the old part of town, where the past lingers as a ghost to wander, link with, pester for a while.

Wedge, then. That’s how I got my name.

I will wind up for now. I have things to do, but I will be back and go a little deeper regarding my timeline and that ghost if the editor lets me. You might influence him on that if you wish.

Wedge.

I'm back.

When I sprang from that mind, I was a shadow, and a shadow found me, confided in me:

They did this

conjured lightning to strike bare

my veins to the root,

left me to rot, disintegrate

then came with axe and saw

to finish it.

    But I’m not finished

for they gave magic and when

they pass by and gawp I see

into their souls, wait to cast

everything I have crafted in mind

to revenge.

At night, under a three-quarter moon

when the sun has burnt all day

I leave this place and wander

the streets and byways as a shadow

to peer into secrets of others,

that is, those not exactly of this world,

of which I am one.

Those secrets I lock

with a key that is a promise

to a goddess whom

I have not yet met.

Our agreement

is a conversation

through minds.

To figure this out, I muddled along. I'll come to that later. I'll just say for now, I found my purpose.

The tree, a scream