Bird (7 page)

By early June, I was sleeping through the night again, all the doors securely locked and the house quiet. I had found it difficult in the days previous to keep my concentration with the nets and had accomplished little. As well, I had grown short-tempered with the Hounds, and they had left my peevish company to take their chances in the fog. The day the weather finally cleared, the shaggy beasts came back humble and hungry, and with them they brought Farley.

10

“U
p here! I’m up here!” Farley stood at the top of the elm above my window with a ribbon in his hand. “I came back, like I said I would. Here!” He held out the ribbon to me. “For your hair.” I could barely hear him through the thick glass. I signaled that I would come up to the walk.

“You’re back,” I said, looking over the railing.

“Yes, miss. I’m back.” A wide smile spread across his face. He held up the ribbon again. “A gift.”

“Thank you,” I said, lowering the anchor line. The ribbon was made of silk the color of summer wheat, and I immediately tied it into my hair. I was over-joyed to see Farley. I could not deny that his disappearance had caused me more sorrow than I had imagined possible.

“Where have you been?”

“Burlington. We brought up a new boat. That one out there,” he said, pointing to a large schooner at the edge of the bay.

“You’re not working today?”

He seemed surprised. “No, miss. I’ve been given the week off, but I wouldn’t work today anyway. ’Tis Sunday.”

“Oh, yes, of course.” The days had flowed into one another, though even with Wysteria here, Sundays were as any other day might be. We mended nets when there were nets to mend. There was no going to church or reading the Bible for us; these practices were for common people, Wysteria said. We had no need of them.

“Don’t you go to church, then?”

“No.”

“Are you a heathen?”

“I don’t think so. I know I’m not Catholic. Wysteria greatly dislikes Catholics.”

Farley laughed. “Then she’d dislike me.”

“Are you Catholic?”

“Me family is. I have me own ways, but I do go to church and keep at me prayers. Fishermen need more prayers than landlubbers like yourself. Praying can be a good thing.” He gazed up at the Manor.

I nodded. “You’ve heard about this place?”

“I’ve heard the stories, but I don’t go in for stories. Mostly I take things as they come to me, not secondhand.”

“I see.”

“Can you leave, then? Can you come to the beach and bring your kite?”

“I’m not sure.” It surprised me to think that I would not jump at the chance to leave, but I felt that strange pull come over me, that dread at walking outside, as if my leaving were a betrayal. Perhaps, I thought, it wasn’t Wysteria who kept me here, but the Manor that claimed my allegiance.

“Is it the old woman? Is that why you hesitate? Is she at home?”

“Wysteria? No. She’s ill. She has been taken to the hospital.”

“You’re alone, then?”

“Dr. Mead stops by to check on me.”

“ ’Tis an awful big house to be alone in. I’d ask you to stay on the boat, but we’re seven men and it’s not a place for a lady, to be sure.”

“Thank you, but I have to stay to watch the Hounds and light the lantern. It’s our duty . . . for the boats on the lake.”

“Can you not come out if I’m with you? I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

“Perhaps I can go for a short while, but I must be back before dark.”

“That’s grand.” Farley clapped his hands and began climbing down the elm.

“I’ll meet you outside the front door.” I did not want Farley to come inside the Manor, to ever walk across its threshold. In some strange way, I knew it would not like Farley. Whatever brought me happiness, I was certain the Manor would disapprove of.

“Bring the kite,” he yelled after me.

“I’ll bring two if you like.”

“You’ve more than one?”

“A whole roomful.”

“Remarkable!” Farley scrambled down the tree. I ran to the walk and retrieved the Red Dragon and a large blue kite with feathers etched into its sides that I thought Farley would like. I dressed in my heavy coat and boots but left the Hounds inside so they wouldn’t follow us and chase after the kites.

Farley and I spent the whole of that day together, the first of many to come. I had never played with any other children that I could remember and was unsure how one went about doing so, but Farley had an unending supply of ideas and plans, which occupied us into the late afternoon.

He was fascinated with kites and wings and everything to do with flight. He’d flown many kites with his brothers along the Irish coast, as that was where he had come from.

“A great green island,” he said of it. “With mountains and streams, dragons and wee folk.”

“Dragons?”

He laughed. “No. There are no more dragons, though people say they once roamed the high ridges. But there are wee folk still. Me cousin Leo saw one himself in the grove at St. Bernard’s. They live in the valleys mostly, but they’ll come out into the fields now and again.”

“What are they?”

“Small folk. A quarter the size of yourself. Mischief makers, the lot of them, unless you find one with his stash of gold, catch him and tie him fast. Then you’ll come out a rich man in the end, with no landlord to hover over you.”

“It sounds like a fairy-tale place.”

“It is . . . in a way. But it’s a hard place, too.”

“Are there all sorts of seabirds there?” I asked.

“By the ocean, you mean?”

I nodded.

“Get on with you. Have you never seen the ocean yourself ?”

“Never.”

“A girl like you? ’Tis criminal.”

“Why do you say that?”

He adjusted the tension on the line and swung his leg over the rock on which he sat. “You can’t imagine how many there are . . . like yourself. You can’t imagine until you’ve seen it with your own eyes.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re everywhere. Dodging and flying about. Small ones with tiny pencil legs and great big ones with beaks to beat the band.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you know what you are, girl?” I shook my head.

“You’re a bird, for sure.”

I laughed. “I am not.”

“The ones deny it are the ones that are. Me gran in Donegal used to know one.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s why you can’t go out on your own, why you wear those boots, isn’t it? So the wind won’t take you?” I felt my face flush.

“They’re all slight, like you, and bound to the wind and in need of protection till they can find their way. Me gran said the one she knew got blown away while she was still too young to know.” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“I’ve known it from the start. You can’t believe it yourself yet, only ’cause you haven’t known.”

“But I’ve never seen anyone else like me. I’ve never even heard of anyone who gets picked up by the wind.”

“You haven’t known who you are, so why would you look for others like yourself ?”

“If what you say is true, where would I look?”

“Have you ever had a thought to go somewhere? Someplace you’ve never been?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Aw, come on now. Don’t you know?”

“Well, I’ve always wanted to go across the lake,” I said, pointing to the opposite shore. “Close to the mountains. I had a dream once that I was sitting on that tall one. The one with the little bald spot gracing the top.”

“Maybe the mountains are calling you. Maybe there are others there like you.” His eyes lit up. “Maybe it’s the place the wind is always trying to take you, only you’re afraid to let it.”

“How would I get there?”

“Fly.”

“It’s not like that, Farley. I don’t fly. I just get picked up and the wind decides.”

“Then you need wings.”

I laughed again. “And where would I find wings?”

Farley pointed up to the sky at the Red Dragon and the Blue Devil, as he had named it. “There, miss,” he said. “There are your wings.”

11

I
dreamt of wings. All through the night. Wings of birds and dragons and even the tiny wings of fireflies. All beating at a constant rhythm. All open to the wind. I woke with the feeling of them about me, fluttering above my head, pulling at my shoulders, as if I too possessed appendages for flight.

I did not notice the day outside or even stop for breakfast but gathered as quickly as I could all the kites from the walk and those still remaining in the attic. Farley had proposed the idea that the kites might, if arranged properly, make a pair of wings. I could not imagine it but agreed to bring as many as I could. They were light but awkward, and I had to be careful not to trip on their strings and tear their delicate coverings as I descended the stairs to the main floor.

I let the Hounds out with me, holding on to their leashes for security, and hurried down to the lake.

It was a beautiful day, the sky clear and the breeze strong and warm. Farley was there, involved in some pressing concern in the sand.

“Come look at what I’ve made,” he shouted. I let the Hounds loose and laid the kites on the sand, placing a heavy rock on them so they wouldn’t fly away. Farley stood and stepped aside. He had crafted a house out of sand, an exact replica of the Manor, which towered above us.

“It’s magnificent,” I said.

“Why, thank you, miss.” He took a bow.

“However did you make it?”

“You wet the sand and pack it down. It’s best if you have a tin, like this,” he said, pulling an empty square tobacco tin from his pocket. “And a bucket.” He proudly displayed a rusty bucket he said he had found tangled in the driftwood.

“We’ll make another one. One that’s not so sad. This house . . . that house,” he said, pointing up at the Manor, “it’s sad.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is sad.” It’s more than sad, I wanted to say. It was full of something I didn’t understand, something that drew me and at times made me want to run from it and never return.

“Farley?”

“Yes, miss.”

“If you owned a dwelling such as the Manor, what would you do with it?”

“What do you mean, miss?”

“Would you live in it?”

“No, miss. I don’t think it likes me.”

“Would you sell it, then?”

“I think that would be the only thing to do.”

“Yes,” I said. “I think the captain, Wysteria’s husband, wanted to sell it, too. At least, that is what the doctor said.”

“But what of your mistress?”

“She would never have left it.” Suddenly, I understood the captain’s desire to be free of everything that had to do with the Manor, the curses and the rumors of madness and the ill-gotten fortune. And I also understood that Wysteria never would have allowed it. She would have stopped him any way she could.

“We’ll wreck it.”

“Oh, no. You’ve worked so hard.”

“It’s fun to wreck them. Then you can start over. Watch.” Farley took the bucket from beside him, walked down to the water’s edge and filled it to the brim. He poured the first bucket and I poured the second. After three bucketsful, the Manor had melted back into the beach, and I felt a surprising relief and joy at its demise.

“Now,” he said. “Let’s build a different sort of house.”

“What sort?”

“Your dream house.”

“I don’t have a dream house.”

“Every girl has a house of her dreams.”

“A cottage,” I said, remembering a tiny stone cottage I’d seen a long time ago in a storybook.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Perfect. A neat white cottage with a cozy fire.”

“And flowers in boxes beneath the windows.”

“Just big enough for wee folk.”

“Just big enough for me.”

“Indeed.”

We built a perfect little cottage out of sand with the help of Farley’s tin and the rusting bucket, and some lichen we peeled from rocks for window-box flowers. We left it there all day, and when the tide came up, the waves refused to disturb it, only lapping away at the foundation enough to cement it more firmly to the beach.

The morning we spent with the kites, arranging them in different combinations and attempting to lace them to each other, but they were unwieldy, and as the wind was strong, we spent most of our time trying to keep them from flying off. By late morning, Farley had managed to arrange several of the paper kites into something that resembled a wing, for these were the ones sturdy enough to bear weight and had the appropriate clasps attached to them.

“The paper,” Farley commented, “is like something I’ve seen before. It is strong in weave yet made so fine. Tough enough to endure the ravages of the wind, but light enough to ride upon it.” I explained that the captain must have made his own paper with the screens in the attic, for the kites and all his maps were of the same grade and texture.

When we stopped for lunch, Farley suggested we store the kites inside a small enclosure that backed up to the cliffs. To call it a cave would have been extravagant, but there was enough of an opening that we could wedge the kites and the wing inside, where the wind could not find them.

Farley had brought a large loaf of bread, which was his ration for the week, and a few sardines wrapped in a plain cloth. I’d brought a canister of dried currants from the pantry. Wysteria saved currants for special occasions, which never came, as she did not celebrate any, not even Christmas. She doled them out in minute amounts to be sanctimoniously consumed on the first of May, when the captains made their spring payments, and late in the summer, once all the fleet owners had signed her on again for the coming year. When she returned to the Manor, she would undoubtedly search for them, and I would have to find a reason for their absence, for I planned that Farley and I would feast on them until the jar was empty and take whatever punishment was due me at a later date.

“Are you sure you can spare these?” Farley asked.

“Yes. It’s a special occasion. That’s what they’re for.” He smiled and poured out a handful. In a playful and distinctly boyish manner, he lay back, popping the currants into the air and catching them in his mouth.

“What will you do when you grow up?” I inquired.

Farley laughed. “Why, miss, I’m already grown up enough to work. But I don’t want to be at sea forever, that’s for certain.”

“I thought you liked sailing?”

“I like the boats, miss. I like the clean, fresh smell of the open water. But I don’t like to pull up more fish than I need, or to obey the orders of another man.”

“What will you do, then?”

“Maybe I’ll build kites and sell them to people all over the world.”

“Will you go back to Ireland to build them?”

He shook his head firmly. “I’ll never go back. Me family is all but gone now, and the prospects of work are slim.”

“Will you stay here?”

“I’ll stay only as long as there’s work.” He opened his eyes wide and sat up. “I’m afraid to say, miss,” he said, looking suddenly sad, “that on our last trip we also purchased a new canal boat. It’s in harbor in Burlington, still. We’ll be taking it through the locks to the Hudson.” He paused and gazed down at his hands. “Leaving in a few days’ time. There’s no saying when I’ll be back.” I was stunned at his words, and could not find my way to a proper reply. Farley’s visits were unpredictable, but I had begun to rely on him. He was the one person I really knew. The only one who knew me.

“I’m sorry, miss. I am, truly. I would have liked to stay.” We sat for a long time before he spoke again.

“And what about yourself, miss? What do you wish for? To be a grand lady with a palace and land to spare?”

“Maybe.” I couldn’t imagine myself staying at the Manor without the prospect of Farley’s visits.

“Cheer up, miss. Let’s enjoy the time we have. Let’s see a smile on your face.” But I could not muster a smile.

“Come, now. What do you see for yourself ?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’d just like to go outside one day and not fear the wind.”

He smiled. “Then today is your day.” He stood and picked up the old ball of twine the Hounds had dragged with them and abandoned. Then he took off his leather belt and folded the waist of his pants over twice to keep them up. He unwound the twine, measuring it against the length of his forearm. When he had the right length, he took out his pocket knife and cut it.

“The Hounds won’t like it.”

“Blast the Hounds. They’ll never know. Come here, then, miss.”

“What?”

“Come on, now. No fear.” I stood up, shook the sand from my clothes and walked over to him.

“Now, put the belt around your waist.” I did as he instructed. He took the twine and double- and triple-knotted it around the belt’s buckle, not a weaver’s knot, but the hard, fast knot of a fisherman.

“Now take off your boots.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“If I do, I might get picked up.”

“That’s the point, miss.”

“Oh, no. Please, Farley. You don’t understand. It’s frightening being picked up.”

“But to be a great lady, you can’t fear the wind. What if you have to go out to survey your lands and check to make sure the peasants are well fed? Will you be forever holed up in your palace?” I laughed. “Besides, it’ll be different this time. You won’t get taken. I’m here and I’ll hold firm. Do you trust that I’ll hold you?”

“Yes. I do trust you, of course.” And I meant it. Farley was the person I trusted the most, though I had known him such a short time. He didn’t think me strange for my size or tease me for my fear. He understood something about me that not even I understood.

“Well then?” I looked down at my heavy boots and Farley’s bare feet and I longed to feel the sand against my soles. “You’ll have to leave them behind.”

“Yes, but I cannot promise what will happen, even whether I’ll be taken. The wind is unpredictable.”

I bent down and began unlacing my boots. When they were free, I tossed them onto the beach and dug my toes into the sand, the way any other person might. Perhaps I had once, as a small child, felt this sensation, but I could not remember. For me, it was entirely new, like tasting a sweet fruit for the very first time. The sand’s warm grains caressed the bottoms of my feet. I longed to stand in it forever, but Farley was impatient.

“Come on now,” he urged. “The wind is picking up. Take off your coat.” I slid out of my coat and dropped it on the blanket. I took Wysteria’s key ring and placed it beside the coat, feeling lighter than I had in a long time.

“What should I do?”

“Run. Run like we do with the kites. Make believe you’re the Dragon and I’m holding your line.” The line was long enough for me to run ten or twelve yards down the beach away from him. I’m sure it must have looked ridiculous, Farley holding on to me with a ball of twine, but I did as he said.

“When you feel yourself starting to lift off, yank on the line so I’ll know.”

“You’ll know,” I yelled over the wind. It did not take long. A gust swept under me and I was suddenly airborne. I yanked at the line, but by then it was obvious that my feet were no longer on the sand. Farley braced himself, wedging his legs between two large boulders near our blanket.

“Will you look at yourself !” I heard him exclaim.

I cannot fully describe the feeling of being lifted off the ground—I can only say it makes your stomach jump and something in your chest squeeze tightly about your heart. I waited for the moment when I would tumble out of control, be sent hurtling into a tree or against the cliffs. I braced for impact, but it did not come. Surprised, I lifted my head into the wind and saw only the open sky before me. Slowly, I put my arms out to my sides and glided above the beach, above the rocks and the gulls digging for clams, and above Farley, who stared up at me not in fear or disapproval, but in amazement. I could feel his strength on the other end of the line. I was airborne, and for the first time that I could remember, I was not afraid. As I soared above the earth, a sure and certain knowing swept over me that with Farley as my anchor, I could lean into the wind and it would carry me.

Farley was trying to tell me something, but I could not hear his words over the rush of the wind.

He mimed his request by holding his free arm out and tilting it at an angle. I nodded and tilted my own arms to the right and then to the left and the wind obeyed my commands and sent me in first one direction and then the other. Farley cheered.

There was no one to see me, no eyes upon me but Farley’s. All fear slipped away. I felt as free as a gliding hawk or an eagle. The wind filled all the space around me, so that I could hear nothing but its voice. I could move only as far as the line would allow, but with my newfound ability to guide myself, I soared over the whole range of beach where Farley and I had spent our days, seeing it all from a new perspective. I tried to find the spot where I thought the mysterious fire had been, but there was no evidence of it that I could see. I looked upon the Manor, dark and foreboding, perched precariously upon the cliffs, and I realized that no matter how bleak its facade, how dark its interior, neither the Manor nor Wysteria could ever truly threaten me. In their shadow, I had simply forgotten who I was. I had wrongly put my security in the hands of a house, a structure made of wood and nails, and of a woman who did not know my true nature. I was a creature of the air. This I knew now with certainty. I was not bound to any substance of earth, including that forbidding dwelling upon the cliff. I must always stay close to the wind, I told myself, as I caught an updraft and soared ever higher, pulling tightly on the line. No matter what happened, I must always stay within its embrace.

I could see the gulls, not unlike me, catching the currents and gliding at eye level. And I could see below me the Hounds, worried and confused, racing down the beach toward Farley, barking at the spectacle of my figure in the air.

Farley saw them, too, and quickly brought in the line, drawing me back to earth. I landed a bit roughly, but I was safe and intact and quickly surrounded, pushed into the sand by the Hounds’ giant, inquisitive paws and wet tongues. Farley rushed over and freed me.

“Off with you, beasts,” he laughed, pushing the Hounds aside. He regally bent over and extended his hand, gazing at me with quiet admiration.