It is difficult to tell from our distant observations whether or not Fecklessa contrives to show her abject indifference with regard to AJ or that she is simply deluded as to the pain her imprudence imparts. As life ebbs from her mother she continues to abstract herself from reality by tending her garden. We hear too that, just as Schopenhauer took refuge from rejection in his beloved poodles, Fecklessa has found some solace in the ubiquitous affections of a local cur.
AJ’s plaintive speculations as to why she is unworthy of an audience too oft give way to bouts of weeping that leave us with no answer except that of empty consolations. Though the bulletins of horticultural updates and canine misdemeanours are of an almost daily frequency, they fall like so many ‘buttons and Irish pennies’ into the collection box of the forlorn; a cheap and malignant form of altruism serving only to bolster the conscience of this most disaffected of benefactors.
As ye sow, as shall ye reap Fecklessa; though your garden is green and plentiful it cannot be beyond your vapid realization to perceive before you that the true nature of your meadow is as empty and forlorn as a desert and that nothing but drought dost brazenly menace its horizon. You must repent of your ill-doing with all haste before the plants, old and new, are cast forever to the dust. You must break your allegiance with the foul sisterhood you have nurtured, denounce the coven and in so doing cast out Sister Dunlop and The Old Gypsy that they may find their own way among the good of this world or else enter back into the mire whence they came. Harder though the task, you must further be unfaltering in your quest to break free from the shackles in which Sorebones has held you in bondage for so long. You must act, you must repent, you must set yourself apart forever from the evil that you have for so long found refuge within. Only in this way will you find your way back to the true lush green grass of love in its most pure and simple form.
