10
“Up 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.”