The House Without Windows

by Barbara Newhall Follett

  That night a bird of modest wood colour, with speckled breast, sang of moonlight; and, rippling faintly, softly, came echoes from his silver-tongued mate. They sang and they answered, and the moon-frost-tipped pines were quiet, and clouds floated near, snowy palaces of silence. Spellbound, Eepersip was borne away to fairy kingdoms where she danced – and where birds sang the only melody in the world.

  The next morning the sun came out and shone through every raindrop in splendid crimsons and purple-greens. Eepersip looked about her and discovered a little plant with a peculiar flower of white and crimson. She found that its leaves were quite delicious, unlike anything that she had had in the meadow or by the shore of the sea. They were green – a strange pale green, delicately outlined and veined in marble white and pale gold. Eepersip loved their pleasant flavour, but could not bear to touch them, they were so beautiful.

  Then she looked up and beheld the strange rough outline of the mountain, and far in the distance, almost on the top, was a great snowfield, on which the sun shone directly, covering it incredibly with brilliant tints and shades of gold. And, oh, the bright green foliage, shining in the clear golden light!

  ‘Fairyland!’ whispered Eepersip. ‘I loved the meadow, I loved the sea more, but even before I am really in the mountains, I love them the best of all.’ Then, after a pause, she added: ‘That snowfield of gold, these heavenly little flowers – oh, such beauty!’

  After a few more moments of breathless gazing, gazing upon everything, she started up the mountain. The first few hundred yards she followed a woods, over great boulders covered with dark green moss. Occasionally a little rushing brook trickled across her path. For quite a way Eepersip kept climbing over the huge boulders, and the path was very mossy. After a while it began to grow fainter and harder to follow, and at last it was shut off entirely by the thick bushes and trees which surrounded it. Here she sat down to rest and to think a while.

  She looked about and came upon a bubbling spring, at which she drank. No water she had ever found was like this. It tasted of the strong, delicious mountain air. She drank deeply, and, when she had quenched her thirst, continued her way. Here flowers which made her think of foam at sea – white, star-like, with silver-tipped petals – twined themselves among the trees mingled with wild roses – dawn flowers of deep pink or sun-bright yellow. Strange orchids grew about, many of them pure white and fringed like fluffy clouds. One had green blossoms with long whitish spurs – mystic flowers on tall spikes with two smooth leaves. Yellow lady’s slippers made her think of butterflies with folded wings or of the sun peeping out from dark clouds. But the loveliest of all were pink orchids – hosts of them with more deeply tinted lips fringed like fairies’ fingers; hosts of them on slender stems, each stem a dawn-sprite’s wand.

  ‘Like the dawn I saw once,’ she thought, ‘when snow-pink fringey flowers wreathed the sky. The sun was pleased and smiled. I danced for him, and the bobolinks and skylarks greeted him with song.’ There were tall flowers, too, pink silk beneath white tissue, with very dark and curious leaves up the stalks among the blossoms. Butterflies were playing like sunrays, winging softly from flower to flower. And as she went on she passed through forests of thick bushes and poisonous thorns, open pine groves and great pastures smelling of hay-scented ferns and budding steeple bush. All the time the path, or rather the easiest way through the thick bushes, had been fairly level, but now it began to shoot up steeply, and it was all Eepersip could do to keep herself from sliding back in an avalanche of pebbles and stones. A bit of tough scrambling followed, and at last she broke out on a comparatively level piece of ground, on one side of which was a deep ravine in which she heard a brook rushing and rippling. On the other side of the ravine was a peak of the mountain, crowned with snow and with the sun flashing upon it.

  Eepersip longed to see the brook, which, by the sound, she judged to be quite large. She was not actually afraid to go down over those steep walls of dirt and sand, but she was rather afraid that, once being down, she would not be able to get up again. So on she went, and it grew so steep that, even by digging her feet into every crevice and clutching the roots of the trees, which were getting much scarcer and more stunted, she could just manage to cling on.

  But at last a change came. She stood on that high peak, on which there were only bare rocks and a little snow, no roots or plants. On either side it went down, down, and it was getting late in the afternoon. She could see nothing to do. Still the highest peak was many miles ahead, and she knew that she could not make it in the remaining daylight. So she climbed warily down into a little crevice, where a few ferns and luscious mountain blueberries managed to grow. She ate a supper of these and of another hardy little berry which she found; then slept in peace till daybreak, her tired mind dreaming of strange things – of deep palaces at the bottom of the sea and snow palaces at the tops of the mountains; of fairies, nymphs and elves.

  In the morning she breakfasted on the mountain blueberries again, and found, much to her delight, that they quenched her thirst almost as well as water. After her juicy breakfast she went on down for about a mile; then up, up again on sheer walls of rock, where there was not a sign of a plant of any kind. After a stretch of difficult climbing, snow again began to appear, as the slope became more level. Eepersip went down through a snug hollow in the rocks, where it was thick with small, scrubby trees and where very little snow had managed to penetrate the thick branches.

  Oh, but it was cold up here on these tremendous heights; the wind was keen and shrilly whistling. But, however cold, it was a mountain wind, an exhilarating mountain wind which made Eepersip leap into the air – leap and dance as on the meadow. Then, after she had rested a while under the welcome branches of the stunted firs and eaten tart mountain blueberries again, she went on, up out of the hollow and on to the solid rock covered with deep snow, into which she sank at every step. Another mile she trudged along, pulling herself through it. And still the mighty peak retreated before her, so that she could make no progress – or, at least, it seemed so. It seemed as far away and as faint in the snowy distance as from where she had been when the night had come on – a dreaming peak caressed with fingers of mist.

  At last the ground went up abruptly again. However steep, Eepersip found it much easier, because there wasn’t so much snow. It rose and rose, becoming more gradual, until she stood on another high peak, looking off over a tremendous range of mountains. Large flakes of snow were falling gently, so that she could not see much of these. She thought that she was now on the highest peak, and she sat down to wait for the snow to cease and give her a clear view. After a time it did; and then, and not until then, she saw another peak, the true summit of the mountain, going up, up and up on the other side of a deep valley into which she would have to descend. After sucking a few handfuls of the pure mountain snow, she set off with a light heart and a happy spirit, her feet falling fast through the light drifts. After a while she got down into the valley; and here she came upon a brooklet full of icicles, winding through the long ravine and dashing over the green slimy rocks in great cascades of rattling icicles and foam: Eepersip drank deeply and was refreshed.

  Then, after resting a few moments, she went on, up that steep wall of snow and rock which would take her to the longed-for summit. Eepersip counted sixteen brooklets rushing down over it, carrying hundreds of icicles with their currents; foaming and dashing with spray and myriads of shiny iridescent bubbles.

  Across brook after brook she went, watching the colours change in the dazzling snowflakes. The sun was shining brilliantly now, making everything unimaginably beautiful in magnificent shades of ruby, copper, silver-gold, emerald and sapphire. Each snowflake seemed covered with an almost invisible layer of tiny sparkling gems. And once, when Eepersip sat down in a deep snowbank to watch and to rest, the sun happened to strike directly on one of the many brooklets that went dashing down the mountainside, making it a blinding ribbon of silver and gold. Occasionally Eepersip saw the blossoms
of the beautiful talatuna, with ruby-red leaves and blossoms of pale green and changing white. She thought that the leaves were all red, but when the wind flipped one over she saw that their backs were moon-white, pale but glistening.

  On she went, through the incredible beauty of the fairyland about her. ‘Oh,’ she murmured to herself, ‘how marvellous it is! Oh, fairies, fairies.’ She whirled happily around. She had felt a few delicate touches on her shoulders, and at once the air was a-flock with glistening snowflakes. Each fern in her dress was bordered with a row of the fairy things, and her autumn hair was crowned white.

  After a while a slight breeze sprang up and the big flakes whirled faster. The breeze rose and rose until it was a strong, cold wind, and she could not see a foot before her. The only thing to do was to wait for clear weather. But in that she was disappointed, for it was growing darker and darker, and at last she realized that night was coming on. So she lay down and ate a supper of snow, as it fell and fell.

  All night the snow whirled and whirled, and in the morning Eepersip was completely buried. It was a long, hard task to find her way out, or rather to push her way out, for almost as fast as the snow fell it froze into ice, so that there was on top of Eepersip a thick layer of ice. But just before she decided to give up and wait for warmer weather, she broke through. Out into the bright sunlight she came; and lo and behold! all the ferns on her dress and the dainty blossoms, together with her hair, were covered with a layer of ice which shimmered and sparkled in the sun like jewels set in something brighter than the brightest gold.

  But as soon as she came out into the sun the ice began to melt and run off in all directions, and as she skipped and jumped about she was almost hidden in the shower of water drops which flew from her as she ran.

  And how beautiful, how fairy-like she was! Each fern was covered with a thin layer of the melting ice, and the crown of pink blossoms around her curly hair was frozen likewise, their fair colour persisting through the ice. Once in a while, when the sun touched her, she was a blaze of colour – of silver and gold, with here and there a splotch of brilliant red as the sun struck a red flower.

  After she had found that there was nothing to be eaten except snow, she sucked a few handfuls, flavoured with the petals of the flowers which she wore. Then she went on, through paradises of silver, gold and red, through deep hollows of shining green. Everything was something besides white, and the world that was in Eepersip’s range of vision was fairyland.

  But, as she went on, clouds began to float in – little white clouds. They grew thicker and thicker, until, before she had come near the highest peak, there was nothing but pearly mist – scudding grey mist, curling into fantastic shapes as it rose. She could see nothing, and she sat down in the snow to wait. That night a gale came up, whistling and howling around the peaks, reminding Eepersip of that storm at sea. What an awesome sound it made! It sleeted, too, and when she awoke the next morning the snow was covered with a crust. The mist had partly cleared and she pushed on again. She went through icy hollows and up on shimmering peaks, until, finally, she saw near her that long-sought summit, and, with a shout of joy, she dashed up. Fast she went, but when she really reached it at last, the mist had closed in again, the wind was up and it was sleeting furiously. It was only through a break in the mist that she had made the summit at all.

  The next morning it was still misty, but not nearly so thick. There was a faint purple glow over on the eastern horizon where the sun was rising. Occasionally the mist would break open above and she would see glimpses of blue sky – the deep deep blue of that day in the meadow with Fleuriss. And lying all around on the boulders were frost feathers. When Eepersip first saw them she thought that she was dreaming. But no, they were really there, delicate ferns and feathers with scalloped edges – ferns and feathers of frost.

  ‘Oh, mountain fairies – fairies have left them here,’ she said quietly. Some were as long as her forearm, and others tiny – oh, so tiny; some were almost round like the inner feathers of a bird and others long and narrow like the outer plumes. Down in a hollow were some stunted firs laden with snow and covered with those fronds of ivory chiselled by wind sprites, lovelier than anything Eepersip had ever seen, lovelier than anything ever made by Nature. No, Nature could never have carved them, Eepersip thought. The fairies – fairies!

  Once she found a hollowed rock entirely lined with them, like a fairy’s crystal palace with strange shadowy recesses. They crowded everywhere they could find room, and sometimes, when there was no other place, rippled on the snow. They overlapped on the rocks and hung from windward crags, pointing into the wind. And behold! Eepersip’s dress and her head were covered with small ones, like a diadem – a fairy crown and fairy ornaments. Moving gently, so as not to disturb them from where they rested, she wandered from one cluster to another, looking carefully at each one, noting each special pattern, each magic tracery. All day she followed the winding rabbit trails amid the feathery firs.

  The sun, too, had been pushing out. Now the mist opened in one direction and Eepersip caught a fleeting glimpse of snowy peaks; but it closed again. It opened a trifle longer in another direction and Eepersip saw, ’way down below, first low blue-green foothills and lakes golden with the sun, then higher purple hills, melting into range after range of billowing mountains, and valley after valley filled with white clouds rapidly lifting. The mist shut in. Another direction opened in the same way, with hills fading into mountains; and far off on the horizon was another range of snow mountains, lying just under great white clouds. There were clouds hanging over the valleys too, and they cast strange shadows on the sunlit trees far below. When the mist shut in, the golden lakes seemed to stay the longest, and after the mountains had entirely disappeared they could be seen as if hanging in mid-air, limpid pools of gold. And more sides opened, and more, the waits growing shorter in between, until, on a gust of mountain wind, the last of the mist went scudding away, banished, and the sun broke out into the blue sky. The snow sparkled, the mountains sparkled, the lakes and rivers sparkled, the frost feathers sparkled, the air itself sparkled. And the mountains of the range that Eepersip was in, crowned with snow, gleamed like gold. Down on one side of the snowy peak dashed a great river, green and swirling, covered with clots of foam. Sometimes it would cascade over the rocks – throwing up a fountain of spray – and sometimes it would slip over a smooth slide, then, whirling round and round in a rock basin, thunder down another great cliff in a shower of bubbles, rattling icicles and foam. It cut its way through a green hollow in the snow, and where it tunnelled under the snowbanks it was overhung with long, gleaming icicles.

  Eepersip danced in the snow, among the frost feathers, all that day – danced like a mountain sprite, leaping high, then running gracefully in a shower of water drops which flew from her as the frost feathers melted in the warmth of the sunlight. She danced down to the river and played there a while – played with the white foam.

  At sunset she was again at the peak of her mountain. The sky was flushed with magic; a great cloud in the west became brilliantly fringed with gold and red-gold, the east was all submerged in a lilac sea and a delicate laciness of pink trailed across the zenith. Sunset fairies alighted on the snowpeaks: they were fiery for a moment, and all the great snowfields were flaming. Then the colour faded to pink on the summits. But in the sky Nature still flung about her colours wildly – fire was in the zenith, the long bank of clouds was vividly fringed with red-gold and there to the south it changed to caverns of shadowed pink and strange violet. Seas and bays and cloud islands formed out of it – seas of a strange greenish rose. Then one thrill and flame of gold spread about the whole earth; the snow at her feet was shadowy gold and a pathway of it danced upon the air ’way to the horizon. It played upon each frost feather; the eastern mountains were flushed with this soft gold.

  And then, dizzy with the colour and the beauty, Eepersip fell asleep, her fingers clutching the rosy snow.

  The next morning the frost
feathers had almost disappeared underneath a new snowfall. The air was full of its fresh scent, as it came down gently in tremendous flakes. Here and there Eepersip saw one of the lovely blossoms of the talatuna, with those same ruby-red leaves. How beautiful they were, growing in great clusters, just peeping through the snow! Once in a while a pale cream-coloured mountain moth would flit before her. Occasional gusts brought swarms of tiny bottle-green, white-winged snow beetles, and the air was a-buzz with them. Sometimes a blue or white insect like a firefly would hover past, a strange red light gleaming about its transparent body.

  On and on Eepersip explored, seeing nothing but the wonderland about her – the fairy palaces of snow, the fluttering, hovering insects and the beautiful mountain flowers. Following the icy river down, she came sometimes to a great cascade of the green water – a cascade coming over one of those great cliffs, washing down the snow, throwing up fountains and clouds of spray in its furious descent. Sometimes it cut under the banks, making a green cave hung with icicles gleaming strangely. One of these had been made when the river was in flood; now it was large enough for Eepersip to stand in, and, wading in water about up to her knees, she went back into its innermost recesses, where the roar of the stream was muffled. There were fish there – trout playing in the whirlpools and riding swiftly with the current. She found some odd bright stones and gleaming pebbles in this mysterious place, silent save for the deadened rush of water.

  Sometimes, again, the rushing brook took such a steep course that Eepersip was forced to make a detour into the woods for a little way, through clumps of the firs, now growing less stunted, but hung with icicles which clicked together in the wind, sounding to Eepersip like fairy castanets. Even at this high altitude, she saw occasionally a white pine, each cluster of pale green needles laden with snow – tufts of snow which seemed to make little faces peering out from the tree. Bursts of happiness would overwhelm her now and then, and she would leap high and dart like some frightened deer or mountain nymph.