Delusion is the story of a farm boy left with no choice but to flee his confusing and dysfunctional family and strike out on his own. All he needed was space, time to think, a chance to clear the dross of his life from his mind. The independence he sought and the free life he craved was so close he could taste it, then the girl came along. Riding a trail bike in Coringup National Park, black gown flowing behind her and, from what he could see, intricate designs painted on her neck and her face. He wasn’t to know it at the time, but that was the moment an ethereal, mystical, persuasive new force took a hold on his life. If he’d had just a little more fire in his belly, a little more steel in his spine, was less of a fantasist and dreamer, the bizarre beauty who appeared out of nowhere may not have taken over his life quite as easily as she did. But from the moment he stumbled across her his unmaking had begun. And he could do nothing to stop it, like she’d gone inside his head and controlled him. Even when she rebirthed him and renamed him as Draigh, the Dragon, her Protector, he missed his chance to put a stop to her theatrics and nonsense. The question is, had he known what a train wreck she was going to make of his life, could he have done anything about it? Guilty, the foreman had droned over and over to each accusation, spoken with a malevolence he could taste. And yet he’d done none of it, not that anyone cared. It was her, Arachne, who created the trail of carnage left strewn in their wake. Why would they want to blame him? Right from the outset he was against taking GranJude’s little yellow car. GranJude was in Summerland and would be back soon and would need it, but Arachne prevailed and that was the key to what happened, the beginning of the end. Once he slid behind the wheel and headed north from Coringup there was no turning back. He was Draigh now, Draigh the Dragon, Arachne’s companion and protector and dupe, riding with an exotic who reckoned she owned him and probably did. She knew every thought he was having, she pushed him to corners he didn’t want to go. Never mind her clear rules of distance and non-engagement, when a bloke’s stricken it’s too easy to be swept up in the flurry and be carried along. Stricken or smitten, he could never be sure. Arachne, the Weaver of Webs, the writer of Scripts. Love-hate, no doubt about it. He wanted her and needed her, he didn’t want her and didn’t need her. But it was like she was him, it was like he was her. Oh, the places she led him. The people whose lives they impacted and meshed with. And yet, whatever she was doing, whatever she was plotting, he knew none of it. Like helping a geriatric bank robber finance his simple daughter’s wedding and his overdue retirement. Like witnessing her own death in a previous time. Helping the beautiful but melancholic Levis Bretherland dispose of his demons and burdens and possessions. Loving Pet Picolla. Bringing new dimensions to the mundane lives of Fatarse and Shortarse The Dwarf.