orange_crushed (
orange_crushed) wrote2005-12-16 02:47 pm
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Wendy
Wendy. Peter Pan, or something like it. I had a lovely childhood, and at least one small part of it is thanks to J.M. Barrie. PG, or not. No bad language.
She remembers that walking in the air over the island was like walking on a map come to life; all the nooks and crannies caught at odds with pencil and pen; and that she traced lines of latitude in the air with her bare feet. It makes her shiver in her slippers.
She knows everything is ended in this way: when she locks the window herself, before going to bed.
It's too windy outside for visitors, too cold inside for dreams. At least she thinks so. She remembers that walking in the air over the island was like walking on a map come to life; all the nooks and crannies caught at odds with pencil and pen; and that she traced lines of latitude in the air with her bare feet. It makes her shiver in her slippers.
For the first time in nine years, she cannot fall asleep without a light on. Magazines and music-boxes don't help. The fire burns steadily, like a tree grows.
She'll be married on Sunday.
There's a rattle against the panes of glass and she's awake instantly, joyous and frightened, racing to throw aside the hook and eye. The city's dark. And at her feet, instead of a boy, is a dead sparrow.
There is also a tiny sparkle, which glitters shamefully up at her like the laughter in a ruby. She picks it up. The wings are broken but the dust catches underneath her fingernails and she knows this is the last chance.
It's the work of a second; a brush across her hair. She thinks about the rock of the ship against the great blue, dancing in slippers with corals sewn on, the first time that Adam said I love you, you're beautiful.
She might see him again, and she might not, but just the thought of him lifts her over the railing and into a spray of stars.
As it turns out, she remembers how to steal from birds; but they all find it infinitely less amusing than the last time.
It doesn't look as she imagined it, her reunion.
It was hardly this cold. From a distance of many miles it was like a sad grey wave rising out of the dark; the mountains are covered in snow and the lacy trim of the coastline is ragged with ice. The trees are leafless and bowed. No smoke rises from the caves, or the plateau, or the woods where they sang mournful songs for the native dead.
She approaches the lagoon with caution, but there's no need. A thick skin of frost has made playful water silent. Touching down, she realizes with some shock that her slippers have fallen off, and that her feet are quite naked. They leave ellipses in the snow where she's walked. Steam rises up, and disappears.
Some distance up the coast, there's the skeleton of an overlarge bird, wings folded around the rotting remains of a leather hat. In death it's still unbeautiful, but the bones of the wing have a certain elegance, and she says a small prayer.
The skeleton was a sign, and there are others. The magic here is all but extinguished. Ships are sunk into the makeshift harbor, and she finds more broken arrows than toadstool rings.
Peter has gone.
In her pocket there is still a way home. If she leaves now, she can explain it away with a sick friend or a lonely cousin or one of John's many minor breakdowns. Thinking, she breaks off a twig of hollyberry. She can take this with her, as a souvenir. Maybe even a skeleton leaf, or a seed for a tree. It will grow in the garden, and her children will swing from its branches, and she will never allow herself to give in to such longings again.
She'll forget. It's the right thing to do.
She finds herself floating above a stand of white birches, crossing a stream, heading for the sea. There's a dark blot against the frozen white sand, and she thinks driftwood, but circles closer. It begins to look like a coat, and then like the clothes of a dummy or a Guy. It has the same boneless drape.
When she flies closer, she sees that it is a man.
His face is out of the water, but only his face. The rest of him lies in the shallow edge of the water, the clothes stiff with ice. He's young, no older than she is. She believes that he is dead, until a puff of air escapes his mouth.
She pulls him out and drags him underneath a broken canoe, throwing her robe around his shoulders. He wakes a little while she studies his face. It's handsome, not overly serious; with a gentle mouth and a sharp, distinguished chin. His hair is thick on his head and black as soot, though it crackles a little with crystals of ice and melting snowflakes.
"Hello." she says. His eyes open, and search her out. "Are you alright ?"
"I don't know." He sits up. "I'm freezing."
"How did you get into the water ?"
"I- fell." He rubs his hands together and blows into them, and then touches the braid at his cuffs with something like awe. He runs his fingers along it, stops at the buttonholes, and waggles a finger through them. There's a faraway look in his face. "From a ship."
Her mind connects these things in another instant, like webbing on a wall, and she claps a hand over her mouth. There's no scar on his throat where Barbeque tried to slit it, but it is him all the same. She reaches for his hand, and he lets her.
The hand is soft and wrinkled from the water, like the skin of an old apple. It's a whole hand, a young hand. There are two of them. The fingers are long and more delicate than a man's ought to be, but still strong.
"Did the island forgive you ?" she asks, and lets his hand go. He draws back, hesitant and embarassed.
"No." he says. And then, "I think so."
She decides, without deciding, that she will stay.
The more they walk in the forest, the more ice falls quietly from the trees. She digs apart the scattered remains of the tepee village and finds him something to wear before he dies of frostbite. Oddly enough, she can't find a single hollow tree. Instead they build a fire in a cave by the inland sea and sleep wrapped in bearskins, nose-to-toe.
"My name is James." He tells her solemnly the next morning. "I think that I was an awful person."
"You're not him anymore." She resists the urge to smoothe his hair down. She very much does not want to be his mother. "You're James. Just James." They catch fish and roast it for breakfast. Her dress hangs loosely on her shoulders, which makes her cross.
Although they do not notice it, they have grown a little younger in the night.
Slowly it becomes spring, and the birds return. The sea gobbles the sheets of ice up like cake, and swallows back into itself. She can smell the earth when she puts her head against the scraggly grass; and it smells like her hands, like her hair.
When he says her name, Wendy, Wendy, the hawthorn trees burst into bloom.
She remembers that walking in the air over the island was like walking on a map come to life; all the nooks and crannies caught at odds with pencil and pen; and that she traced lines of latitude in the air with her bare feet. It makes her shiver in her slippers.
She knows everything is ended in this way: when she locks the window herself, before going to bed.
It's too windy outside for visitors, too cold inside for dreams. At least she thinks so. She remembers that walking in the air over the island was like walking on a map come to life; all the nooks and crannies caught at odds with pencil and pen; and that she traced lines of latitude in the air with her bare feet. It makes her shiver in her slippers.
For the first time in nine years, she cannot fall asleep without a light on. Magazines and music-boxes don't help. The fire burns steadily, like a tree grows.
She'll be married on Sunday.
There's a rattle against the panes of glass and she's awake instantly, joyous and frightened, racing to throw aside the hook and eye. The city's dark. And at her feet, instead of a boy, is a dead sparrow.
There is also a tiny sparkle, which glitters shamefully up at her like the laughter in a ruby. She picks it up. The wings are broken but the dust catches underneath her fingernails and she knows this is the last chance.
It's the work of a second; a brush across her hair. She thinks about the rock of the ship against the great blue, dancing in slippers with corals sewn on, the first time that Adam said I love you, you're beautiful.
She might see him again, and she might not, but just the thought of him lifts her over the railing and into a spray of stars.
As it turns out, she remembers how to steal from birds; but they all find it infinitely less amusing than the last time.
It doesn't look as she imagined it, her reunion.
It was hardly this cold. From a distance of many miles it was like a sad grey wave rising out of the dark; the mountains are covered in snow and the lacy trim of the coastline is ragged with ice. The trees are leafless and bowed. No smoke rises from the caves, or the plateau, or the woods where they sang mournful songs for the native dead.
She approaches the lagoon with caution, but there's no need. A thick skin of frost has made playful water silent. Touching down, she realizes with some shock that her slippers have fallen off, and that her feet are quite naked. They leave ellipses in the snow where she's walked. Steam rises up, and disappears.
Some distance up the coast, there's the skeleton of an overlarge bird, wings folded around the rotting remains of a leather hat. In death it's still unbeautiful, but the bones of the wing have a certain elegance, and she says a small prayer.
The skeleton was a sign, and there are others. The magic here is all but extinguished. Ships are sunk into the makeshift harbor, and she finds more broken arrows than toadstool rings.
Peter has gone.
In her pocket there is still a way home. If she leaves now, she can explain it away with a sick friend or a lonely cousin or one of John's many minor breakdowns. Thinking, she breaks off a twig of hollyberry. She can take this with her, as a souvenir. Maybe even a skeleton leaf, or a seed for a tree. It will grow in the garden, and her children will swing from its branches, and she will never allow herself to give in to such longings again.
She'll forget. It's the right thing to do.
She finds herself floating above a stand of white birches, crossing a stream, heading for the sea. There's a dark blot against the frozen white sand, and she thinks driftwood, but circles closer. It begins to look like a coat, and then like the clothes of a dummy or a Guy. It has the same boneless drape.
When she flies closer, she sees that it is a man.
His face is out of the water, but only his face. The rest of him lies in the shallow edge of the water, the clothes stiff with ice. He's young, no older than she is. She believes that he is dead, until a puff of air escapes his mouth.
She pulls him out and drags him underneath a broken canoe, throwing her robe around his shoulders. He wakes a little while she studies his face. It's handsome, not overly serious; with a gentle mouth and a sharp, distinguished chin. His hair is thick on his head and black as soot, though it crackles a little with crystals of ice and melting snowflakes.
"Hello." she says. His eyes open, and search her out. "Are you alright ?"
"I don't know." He sits up. "I'm freezing."
"How did you get into the water ?"
"I- fell." He rubs his hands together and blows into them, and then touches the braid at his cuffs with something like awe. He runs his fingers along it, stops at the buttonholes, and waggles a finger through them. There's a faraway look in his face. "From a ship."
Her mind connects these things in another instant, like webbing on a wall, and she claps a hand over her mouth. There's no scar on his throat where Barbeque tried to slit it, but it is him all the same. She reaches for his hand, and he lets her.
The hand is soft and wrinkled from the water, like the skin of an old apple. It's a whole hand, a young hand. There are two of them. The fingers are long and more delicate than a man's ought to be, but still strong.
"Did the island forgive you ?" she asks, and lets his hand go. He draws back, hesitant and embarassed.
"No." he says. And then, "I think so."
She decides, without deciding, that she will stay.
The more they walk in the forest, the more ice falls quietly from the trees. She digs apart the scattered remains of the tepee village and finds him something to wear before he dies of frostbite. Oddly enough, she can't find a single hollow tree. Instead they build a fire in a cave by the inland sea and sleep wrapped in bearskins, nose-to-toe.
"My name is James." He tells her solemnly the next morning. "I think that I was an awful person."
"You're not him anymore." She resists the urge to smoothe his hair down. She very much does not want to be his mother. "You're James. Just James." They catch fish and roast it for breakfast. Her dress hangs loosely on her shoulders, which makes her cross.
Although they do not notice it, they have grown a little younger in the night.
Slowly it becomes spring, and the birds return. The sea gobbles the sheets of ice up like cake, and swallows back into itself. She can smell the earth when she puts her head against the scraggly grass; and it smells like her hands, like her hair.
When he says her name, Wendy, Wendy, the hawthorn trees burst into bloom.