Back at Jesath’s, I rolled up my new coat and placed it in my Moreinen bag, which I tossed onto a pile of cushions.
Jesath had folded the shelves back into the table ledge. He sat at the ledge on a stool, tinkering with some object. Audrey had gone up the stairs in the corner.
“Would you mind if I had a look around?”
“Oh, mmm…” His voice came mumbling from among his tinkering. He didn’t bother to look up. “Go ahead, m’boy. Just right up those stairs… right up those stairs.”
So I followed the curve of the steps up into the tree. Along the wall of the staircase little round windows opened into the forest beyond. Twilight was falling over the world. As I climbed higher, I could see the tops of the woodland trees outside, their bulbous trunks turning into gnarled silhouettes. In the shade, fireflies danced.
Opposite the windows, on the other side of the twisting staircase, were circular wooden doors. At times, I heard scurrying sounds behind them. I stopped at the first one and knocked, wondering if Audrey was inside, but no one answered. At the very top, the steps led to just one small door. The round door only reached to my waist, so I had to bend to knock on it.
“Come in!”
It sounded like Audrey. Unfortunately, there was no doorknob to be seen, only a knot of rope sticking out from the center. I fiddled with it for a moment and succeeded in flipping the door open. It swung up towards me and I ducked beneath it.
A cluttered room greeted me. It was shaded in the dusk, with a jumble of odd contraptions sitting in the corners. Windows curved across the far wall and rafters filled the space overhead into the high ceiling.
Audrey was at a window, a raven in her hands. My footsteps creaked on the floorboards and stirred several other ravens; the birds flew in a flutter of wings to perch along the rafters, silhouetted before the stars of the ceiling windows.
“What are you doing up here?”
“Sending a message to my sister. Letting her know I’ll be there tomorrow.” She sat on the window’s edge, a pale figure against the darkening world behind her. The raven was nestled in her hands on her lap. I recognized it as a messenger, as all the ravens in the room must be. Beyond the windows lay the black line of forest trees below and a rugged contour of mountains across the horizon. It wasn’t until then I realized how high we were; we seemed to rise above the landscape.
The new stars lit Audrey’s skin into a glow like ice, contrasting sharply against the dark of her hair. Her gown hung white with the silver twilight, and she was elegant, ethereal in the wooden frame of the room. In her features, there was something that reminded me of her sister.
She bent to the messenger and whispered Satinah’s name. Pushing the window open, she let the raven out. We watched as the messenger flew away into the new night.
Overhead, within the blue-black sky, stars emerged in the pattern of a crescent moon. “The Stars of the Crescent are coming out,” Audrey said. From afar, a strange music lifted into the air, and Audrey leaned out the window. “Hey, looks like dinner’s ready.”
I joined her at her side and saw the glow of a bonfire on the forest floor. The sounds of singing and piping drifted up, mingled with the scent of a warm roast. Laughter carried to us on wafts of a chilly breeze.
“We better hurry before all the food is gone,” she said. Her gown fanned out as she turned abruptly from the windows.
I chased her towards the door. “Are those Jesath’s kids down there? They live here?” I asked. I flipped the door shut behind us and ran down the steps after her.
“Over the years following his retirement, Jesath adopted orphans to raise as his own. And of course they live here. Haven’t you noticed these other doors?” She pointed to a wooden door as we passed it.
“These doors could lead to Neverland for all I know.”
“They don’t. They lead to bedrooms.”
“You know what I mean.” I gave her a friendly push as we rounded the last steps. We came back into the main room and headed for a little door. The door was so buried behind a pile of cushions, I never knew it was there. Audrey threw a few cushions aside then flipped the door open.
And we ducked out into Jesath’s backyard.
• • •
The two hens from the market were turning over a spit, fully plucked, golden and roasted. A pot was boiling on a rack beneath them, giving off a cloud of steam. The scent was enough to remind me of how hungry I was. The only thing I’d eaten all day was the one tiny candied pie.
Around the fire, the children were of various ages, wearing an assortment of brightly colored clothes as they sat on stools, laughing and singing. Some wore capes and hats, and many of the girls had on skirts made of quilt patches with stockings underneath. Their shoes looked soft, woven of cloth, and curled to a point. Several of them piped on flutes. Buttercups of all colors carpeted the ground. Tall sunflowers nodded their orange heads at the edges of the firelight, tucked near the forest trees.
“Oh, m’littles! We have guests tonight!” Jesath flitted around the bonfire. “Back from the observatory, you two? Quick! Quick! The food’s almost ready!” He bounced on top of a stool, gesturing for us to sit down. I grabbed the nearest stool and sat on its quilted cushion. Jesath continued to flutter. “Call them! Hurry! kahll heh ouhehparra!” Call the others! The translator tickled my earlobe, vibrating with Jesath’s shouts.
A boy with curly crimson hair bellowed, “bhymmehp shyneh!” Dinner time! An older boy blew into a tusk-like horn, the sound resonating like a foghorn. The nearest kids doubled over as they covered their ears, laughing.
A girl fell from the air, landing on her feet in front of me. I looked up. The tree’s knobbly wooden tower rose into the forest. Vines hung outside the tree windows. Children were leaping from the windows, swinging to the ground on the vines. They descended around us in a shower and scrabbled for cups.
“Oh! Take turns, m’littles! Take turns!” Jesath hopped around the kids, even the youngest of whom was taller than him. None of them seemed to have heard. Audrey was laughing, thoroughly enjoying herself. The firelight warmed her pale skin, orange on her black hair. She clapped her hands to the music that the children still piped on their instruments.
Jesath was finally able to snatch a couple of cups and grab two clay ladles. “Oh! Here you go, m’littles! Here you go!” He thrust the items into our hands; somehow, in the midst of all the frenzy, he’d managed to fill our cups with soup from the pot. “Don’t know if there’ll be much hen left for you tonight, m’littles.”
“Don’t worry about that, Jesath,” Audrey said, tipping the cup to her lips.
However, I felt it was of much concern with the rumbling in my stomach, so I was glad when a tall boy spoke up. “You want some hen back there?”
“Oh, yes please!”
“Oh, yes please!”
Audrey and I had spoken at the same time. She grinned at me, giggling while she drank.
“What are you laughing at?” I said. But she only shrugged a shoulder. I tucked the ladle into my cup and spooned up the broth. It was surprisingly good. I wolfed it down. Over the cup’s rim, I could see the tall boy cutting off a slab of the hen with his pocket knife. He brought slices back to Audrey and me.
With a pat on my shoulder, he sat down, looking at me with a friendly curiosity. Beneath the layers of patchwork cloth he wore, he had an infant strapped to his chest, the child peeping out from under the colored fabric. “You’re a strange creature,” the tall boy said. “You’re not from around here, are you?” I drank down the last of my soup, chewing hastily on a tough bit of meat. Before I could answer, he continued, “You must be a new thing of my dad’s. He’s always cooking up something weird. But I see you’ve taken to our squirrel soup.”
He said those last words just as I swallowed the meat. I gawked at him.
He continued happily through my surprise, as though nothing was the matter. “My little sister over there caught the creature this morning,” he said proudly. He patted the infant as
he spoke, the babe playing with a white star pendant around its neck all the while. Someone called to him from across the bonfire. He said a quick goodbye before he left.
I turned to Audrey. “I just ate squirrel.”
She laughed hysterically.
“Now I know why you brought me here – for your own comic relief.”
“Come on, Kevin. A bit of squirrel never did anyone any harm.” Audrey patted my knee sympathetically. “There’re plenty of squirrels in your world. You’ll never look at them the same way again. Help you see the world in a new light.” Her smile dimpled her cheek.
I gnawed on a chunk of roasted hen and pretended to be mad.
A sudden clanking of bells sounded throughout the backyard. I looked over to see Jesath framed in the back doorway, the light from his house spilling past him onto the buttercups. “Dessert! Dessert! M’littles! Pass these around! More fairies’ blood in the house, m’littles!” he cried.
My heart leapt at the sound of the mystery drink. There was a mad scrambling as the bag of candied pies was thrown about. Hands everywhere grabbed for the contents. Quilted bags came around, and Audrey passed one to me.
My bag was sewn with different shades of blue patches. Attached to one end was a bottle’s top. The children were flicking off their bottle-tops onto the flowers at their feet. They tilted their heads, drinking from the bags as if the bags were canteens. A thick red liquid spilled from the corners of some laughing mouths.
“C’mon, Kevin, try your fairies’ blood,” Audrey nudged me. She flicked open her own quilted bottle and downed the draught. Quickly, she resurfaced, grinning with her lips and teeth stained red like blood.
“Alright. As long as it’s not really squirrel.” I popped off the lid and took a swallow.
“Actually, it’s squirrel’s blood.”
“What!”
“I’m kidding! It’s a kind of liquor.”
“I can’t tell what’s true anymore. You almost gave me a heart attack.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, bringing it away with traces of red streaked across it.
A giddiness began to spread across me, different from the warm contented stupor the pies had brought on. Instead of a friendly, satiated feeling, an ecstasy was prickling through me; it slipped through my mouth in a hiccup of laughter. All around, everyone was whooping with laughs, rocking back and forth on their stools in delirious conversation. The giddiness tickled at the tips of my fingers. I wanted to cry out with elation, pumping my fist like I’d just won gold at the Olympics. In fact, why not?
I jumped from my seat and hollered with joy. My voice reverberated through the forest and delighted me. I shouted again, laughing as the echoes rang through the boughs. I grinned with exhilaration. A few heads turned my way before they clapped their hands over their mouths, spurting with laughter as they slapped their knees, sounding like hyenas. I dumped the rest of the drink down my throat; it spilled over the sides of my mouth and stained my taris.
Audrey dragged me back onto the stool. I reached for a quilted bag as another round was passed to us, but Audrey snatched my hand away. “I think you’ve had enough.”
“You sound like my mom,” I said, and giggled sheepishly. I wiggled my toes. The prickling glee seemed to sparkle as I did; I could almost see sparks of happiness flying off my feet. I glanced around – everything looked different. The colors were incredibly bright, much more vivid than I remembered. The green was a lush sheen on the grass, the flowers a brilliant assortment of wild colors. The orange of the fire was almost maddening to see. I laughed.
“It’s so beautiful!” I cried. I flung myself backwards to take in the glory of beauty, my mouth gaping open. Starlight squeezed through the trees in splashes of silver, cutting like knives through the dark. The stellar light stabbed at my eyes and I cowered forward, covering my face as I whimpered.
Audrey sighed. “We should go for some air.” She took out her reed and whistled for the eira. The sound was beautifully deafening. With happiness tickling me all over like tiny fingers, she threw me onto the eira and swung herself on in front of me. At a lilting whistle, we sprinted into the woods.
“Oh, you’re burdening it. Burdening it with two riders!” I laughed, my cheek pressed into her shoulder.
She elbowed me roughly in the gut, knocking out my breath. “Wouldn’t trust you to walk, let alone ride,” she mumbled. I giggled at her words.
We rode for a while. The fresh air washed over me in an ecstasy I’d never felt before. The eira’s feet sent sparks of white light fluttering from the forest floor. I marveled in a swirl of joy until the strength was sapped from every muscle in me. A happy weariness crept into my limbs, so heavy I could no longer hold myself upright. I slumped forward, my face pressed into Audrey’s hair.
“I’m tired,” I murmured. “Maybe… stop and rest.”
Audrey slowed the eira as I slipped from the creature, toppling into a carpet of flowers. I lay with my back planted into the earth, splayed across the forest floor. I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t move a limb. I groaned. Beside my head, the flowers were white with five petals each, like stars the size of pinpricks. The entire ground was thickly covered with them, turning the earth into an image of the night sky, a forest floor coated with the pale swirls of galaxies.
The eira’s tread roused the flowers into the air. The air filled with flowers rising from the earth, sprinkling the boughs like diamonds, until I could no longer tell the difference between the boughs and the starry night sky beyond.
A flower flew close and turned into a miniature dragonfly, glowing silver-white.
Audrey’s face filled my vision as she bent to look at me. “Are you alright?”
“I’m hallucinating,” I said.
“No, the drink’s worn off, you can’t be hallucinating.” She sat down. Her motion sent tiny dragonflies flying like sparks of silver. It looked as if the flowers themselves had risen up. I managed to lift my head so my chin touched my chest. I surveyed the forest. The flowers’ glow was like a mist across the earth, and I was covered in the mist of the flowers’ nocturnal glow.
“But… I see… stars,” I slurred, “on the ground.” I let my head plop back. “I see stars… that look like flowers… that look like stars… that look like – dragonflies.”
“Hm? What are you muttering – oh! Those insects, those dragonflies, as you said, are, umm… hliarra ouh tsahparra.” Stars’ flies.
“Starflies,” I repeated.
“I almost forgot you had that translator.” She flicked my earring with her fingers before she continued. “These flowers…” She plucked a few, tossing them up in showers of silver. They landed in starry flecks on my chest. “These flowers are tsahparra ouh heh ehahph.” Stars of the earth.
I turned my head and spoke to her knee. “That’s pretty,” I said.
“The starflies tend to these flowers. They do all look alike – the flowers, and the flies, and the stars.” She leaned over me while I was studying her knee. “How do you feel, Kevin? Still feel like you’re hallucinating?”
The flowers were flying up to join the stars overhead. I blinked, and saw the flying flowers were the starflies. “I think I’m okay.” My voice was a murmur. It was the best I could manage. “But I feel weird… so… tired.”
“That’s what happens when the drink wears off.” I looked at her. She was like a reflection of the silver forest. She seemed to read my thoughts and smiled, a warmth touching the cool of her silver eyes, “Do you still think you’re insane?”
We were engulfed in a darkness broken only by silver. I would have thought I had fallen into the night sky, if it weren’t for the scent of the forest and the feel of the earth beneath me. I breathed in the light clean perfume of the stars of the earth.
“If I’m insane, then it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Chapter 28