by Neil Gaiman
A scattering of cold rain met him as he hit the beach. It was windy. The sea glinted gray and silver, like crumpled tinfoil. Clumps of seaweed covered the sand, and small round disks that resembled pieces of clouded glass: jellyfish, hundreds of them. Robbie prodded one with his foot, then continued down the shore.
The dune was on the north side of the island, where it rose steeply a good fifteen feet above the sand. Now, a few hours before low tide, the water was about thirty feet away. It was exactly the kind of place you might choose to launch a human-powered craft, if you knew little about aerodynamics. Robbie didn’t know much, but he was fairly certain you needed to be higher to get any kind of lift.
Still, that would be for a full-size craft. For a scale model you could hold in your two cupped hands, maybe it would be high enough. He saw Emery pacing along the water’s edge, vid cam slung around his neck. The only sign of the others was a trail of footsteps leading to the dune. Robbie clambered up, using the tripod to keep from slipping on sand the color and texture of damp cornmeal. He was panting when he reached the top.
“Hey, Dad. Where were you?”
Robbie smiled weakly as Zach peered out from the windbreak. “I have a sinus infection.”
Zach motioned him inside. “Come on, I can’t leave this open.”
Robbie set down the tripod, then crouched to enter the makeshift tent. Inside, bedsheet walls billowed in the wind, straining at an elaborate scaffold of broom handles, driftwood, the remains of wooden deck chairs. Tyler and Zach sat cross-legged on a blanket and stared at their cell phones.
“You can get a strong signal here,” said Tyler. “Nope, it’s gone again.”
Next to them, Leonard knelt beside a cardboard box. Instead of his customary white tunic, he wore one that was sky blue, embroidered with yellow birds. He glanced at Robbie, his gray eyes cold and dismissive. “There’s only room for three people in here.”
“That’s okay-I’m going out,” said Zach, and crawled through the gap in the sheets. Tyler followed him. Robbie jammed his hands into his pockets and forced a smile.
“So,” he said. “Did you see all those jellyfish?”
Leonard nodded without looking at him. Very carefully he removed the Bellerophon and set it on a neatly folded towel. He reached into the box again and withdrew something else. A doll no bigger than his hand, dressed in a black frock coat and trousers, with a bowler hat so small that Robbie could have swallowed it.
“Voilà,” said Leonard.
“Jesus, Leonard.” Robbie hesitated, then asked, “Can I look at it?”
To his surprise, Leonard nodded. Robbie picked it up. The little figure was so light he wondered if there was anything inside the tiny suit.
But as he turned it gently, he could feel slender joints under its clothing, a miniature torso. Tiny hands protruded from the sleeves, and it wore minute, highly polished shoes that appeared to be made of black leather. Under the frock coat was a waistcoat, with a watch chain of gold thread that dangled from a nearly invisible pocket. From beneath the bowler hat peeked a fringe of red hair as fine as milkweed down. The cameo-size face that stared up at Robbie was Maggie Blevin’s, painted in hairline strokes so that he could see every eyelash, every freckle on her rounded cheeks.
He looked at Leonard in amazement. “How did you do this?”
“It took a long time.” He held out his hand, and Robbie returned the doll. “The hardest part was making sure the Bellerophon could carry her weight. And that she fit into the bicycle seat and could pedal it. You wouldn’t think that would be difficult, but it was.”
“It-it looks just like her.” Robbie glanced at the doll again, then said, “I thought you wanted to make everything look like the original film. You know, with McCauley-I thought that was the point.”
“The point is for it to fly.”
“But-”
“You don’t need to understand,” said Leonard. “Maggie will.”
He bent over the little aircraft, its multicolored wings and silken parasol as bright as a toy carousel, and tenderly began to fit the doll-size pilot into its seat.
Robbie shivered. He’d seen Leonard’s handiwork before, mannequins so realistic that tourists constantly poked them to see if they were alive.
But those were life-size, and they weren’t designed to resemble someone he knew. The sight of Leonard holding a tiny Maggie Blevin tenderly, as though she were a captive bird, made Robbie feel light-headed and slightly sick. He turned toward the tent opening. “I’ll see if I can help Emery set up.”
Leonard’s gaze remained fixed on the tiny figure. “I’ll be right there,” he said at last.
At the foot of the dune, the boys were trying to talk Emery into letting them use the camera.
“No way.” He waved as Robbie scrambled down. “See, I’m not even letting your dad do it.”
“That’s because Dad would suck,” Zach said as Emery grabbed Robbie and steered him toward the water. “Come on, just for a minute.”
“Trouble with the crew?” asked Robbie.
“Nah. They’re just getting bored.”
“Did you see that doll?”
“The Incredible Shrinking Maggie?” Emery stopped to stare at the dune. “The thing about Leonard is, I can never figure out if he’s brilliant or potentially dangerous. The fact that he’ll be able to retire with a full government pension suggests he’s normal. The Maggie voodoo doll, though…”
He shook his head and began to pace again. Robbie walked beside him, kicking at wet sand and staring curiously at the sky. The air smelled odd, of ozone or hot metal. But it felt too chilly for a thunderstorm, and the dark ridge that hung above the palmettos and live oaks looked more like encroaching fog than cumulus clouds.
“Well, at least the wind’s from the right direction,” said Robbie.
Emery nodded. “Yeah. I was starting to think we’d have to throw it from the roof.”
A few minutes later, Leonard’s voice rang out above the wind. “Okay, everyone over here.”
They gathered at the base of the dune and stared up at him, his tunic an azure rent in the ominous sky. Between Leonard’s feet was a cardboard box. He glanced at it and went on.
“I’m going to wait till the wind seems right, and then I’ll yell, ‘Now!’ Emery, you’ll just have to watch me and see where she goes, then do your best. Zach and Tyler-you guys fan out and be ready to catch her if she starts to fall. Catch her gently,” he added.
“What about me?” called Robbie.
“You stay with Emery in case he needs backup.”
“Backup?” Robbie frowned.
“You know,” said Emery in a low voice. “In case I need help getting Leonard back to the rubber room.”
The boys began to walk toward the water. Tyler had his cell phone out. He looked at Zach, who dug his phone from his pocket.
“Are they texting each other?” asked Emery in disbelief. “They’re ten feet apart.”
“Ready?” Leonard shouted.
“Ready,” the boys yelled back.
Robbie turned to Emery. “What about you, Captain Marvo?”
Emery grinned and held up the camera. “I have never been readier.”
Atop the dune, Leonard stooped to retrieve the Bellerophon from its box. As he straightened, its propellers began turning madly. Candy-striped rotators spun like pinwheels as he cradled it against his chest, his long white braids threatening to tangle with the parasol.
The wind gusted suddenly: Robbie’s throat tightened as he watched the tiny black figure beneath the fuselage swing wildly back and forth, like an accelerated pendulum. Leonard slipped in the sand and fought to regain his balance.
“Uh-oh,” said Emery.
The wind died, and Leonard righted himself. Even from the beach, Robbie could see how his face had gone white.
“Are you okay?” yelled Zach.
“I’m okay,” Leonard yelled back.
He gave them a shaky smile, then stared intently at
the horizon. After a minute his head tilted, as though listening to something. Abruptly he straightened and raised the Bellerophon in both hands. Behind him, palmettos thrashed as the wind gusted.
“Now!” he shouted.
Leonard opened his hands. As though it were a butterfly, the Bellerophon lifted into the air. Its feathery parasol billowed. Fan-shaped wings rose and fell; ailerons flapped and gears whirled like pinwheels. There was a sound like a train rushing through a tunnel, and Robbie stared open-mouthed as the Bellerophon skimmed the air above his head, its pilot pedaling furiously as it headed toward the sea.
Robbie gasped. The boys raced after it, yelling. Emery followed, camera clamped to his face and Robbie at his heels.
“This is fucking incredible!” Emery shouted. “Look at that thing go!”
They drew up a few yards from the water. The Bellerophon whirred past, barely an arm’s length above them. Robbie’s eyes blurred as he stared after that brilliant whirl of color and motion, a child’s dream of flight soaring just out of reach. Emery waded into the shallows with his camera. The boys followed, splashing and waving at the little plane. From the dune behind them echoed Leonard’s voice.
“Godspeed.”
Robbie gazed silently at the horizon as the Bellerophon continued on, its pilot silhouetted black against the sky, wings opened like sails. Its sound grew fainter, a soft whirring that might have been a flock of birds. Soon it would be gone. Robbie stepped to the water’s edge and craned his neck to keep it in sight.
Without warning a green flare erupted from the waves and streamed toward the little aircraft. Like a meteor shooting upward, emerald blossomed into a blinding radiance that engulfed the Bellerophon. For an instant Robbie saw the flying machine, a golden wheel spinning within a comet’s heart.
Then the blazing light was gone, and with it the Bellerophon.
Robbie gazed, stunned, at the empty air. After an endless moment he became aware of something-someone-near him. He turned to see Emery stagger from the water, soaking wet, the camera held uselessly at his side.
“I dropped it,” he gasped. “When that-whatever the fuck it was, when it came, I dropped the camera.”
Robbie helped him onto the sand.
“I felt it.” Emery shuddered, his hand tight around Robbie’s arm. “Like a riptide. I thought I’d go under.”
Robbie pulled away from him. “Zach?” he shouted, panicked. “Tyler, Zach, are you-”
Emery pointed at the water, and Robbie saw them, heron-stepping through the waves and whooping in triumph as they hurried back to shore.
“What happened?” Leonard ran up alongside Robbie and grabbed him. “Did you see that?”
Robbie nodded. Leonard turned to Emery, his eyes wild. “Did you get it? The Bellerophon? And that flare? Like the original film! The same thing, the exact same thing!”
Emery reached for Robbie’s sweatshirt. “Give me that, I’ll see if I can dry the camera.”
Leonard stared blankly at Emery’s soaked clothes, the water dripping from the vid cam.
“Oh no.” He covered his face with his hands. “Oh no…”
“We got it!” Zach pushed between the grown-ups. “We got it, we got it!” Tyler ran up beside him, waving his cell phone. “Look!”
Everyone crowded together, the boys tilting their phones until the screens showed black.
“Okay,” said Tyler. “Watch this.”
Robbie shaded his eyes, squinting.
And there it was, a bright mote bobbing across a formless gray field, growing bigger and bigger until he could see it clearly-the whirl of wings and gears, the ballooning peacock-feather parasol and steadfast pilot on the velocipede; the swift, silent flare that lashed from the water then disappeared in an eyeblink.
“Now watch mine,” said Zach, and the same scene played again from a different angle. “Eighteen seconds.”
“Mine says twenty,” said Tyler.
Robbie glanced uneasily at the water. “Maybe we should head back to the house,” he said.
Leonard seized Zach’s shoulder. “Can you get me that? Both of you? E-mail it or something?”
“Sure. But we’ll need to go where we can get a signal.”
“I’ll drive you,” said Emery. “Let me get into some dry clothes.”
He turned and trudged up the beach, the boys laughing and running behind him.
Leonard walked the last few steps to the water’s edge, spray staining the tip of one cowboy boot. He stared at the horizon, his expression puzzled yet oddly expectant.
Robbie hesitated, then joined him. The sea appeared calm, green-glass waves rolling in long swells beneath parchment-colored sky. Through a gap in the clouds he could make out a glint of blue, like a noonday star. He gazed at it in silence, and after a minute asked, “Did you know that was going to happen?”
Leonard shook his head. “No. How could I?”
“Then-what was it?” Robbie looked at him helplessly. “Do you have any idea?”
Leonard said nothing. Finally he turned to Robbie. Unexpectedly, he smiled.
“I have no clue. But you saw it, right?” Robbie nodded. “And you saw her fly. The Bellerophon.”
Leonard took another step, heedless of the waves at his feet. “She flew.” His voice was barely a whisper. “She really flew.”
THAT NIGHT NOBODY SLEPT. Emery drove Zach, Tyler, and Leonard to a Dunkin’ Donuts where the boys got a cell-phone signal and sent their movie footage to Leonard’s laptop. Back at the house, he disappeared while the others sat on the deck and discussed, over and over again, what they had seen. The boys wanted to return to the beach, but Robbie refused to let them go. As a peace offering, he gave them each a beer. By the time Leonard emerged from his room with the laptop, it was after three A.M.
He set the computer on a table in the living room. “See what you think.” When the others had assembled, he hit Play.
Blotched letters filled the screen: “The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon.” The familiar tipsy horizon appeared, sepia and amber, silvery flashes from the sea below. Robbie held his breath.
And there was the Bellerophon with its flickering wheels and wings propelled by a steadfast pilot, until the brilliant light struck from below and the clip abruptly ended, at exactly seventeen seconds. Nothing betrayed the figure as Maggie rather than McCauley; nothing seemed any different at all, no matter how many times Leonard played it back.
“So that’s it,” he said at last, and closed his laptop.
“Are you going to put it on YouTube?” asked Zach.
“No,” he replied wearily. The boys exchanged a look, but for once remained silent.
“Well.” Emery stood and stretched his arms, yawning. “Time to pack.”
Two hours later they were on the road.
The hospice was a few miles outside town, a rambling old white house surrounded by neatly kept azaleas and rhododendrons. The boys were turned loose to wander the neighborhood. The others walked up to the veranda, Leonard carrying his laptop. He looked terrible, his gray eyes bloodshot and his face unshaven. Emery put an arm over his shoulder and Leonard nodded stiffly.
A nurse met them at the door, a trim blond woman in chinos and a yellow blouse.
“I told her you were coming,” she said as she showed them into a sunlit room with wicker furniture and a low table covered with books and magazines. “She’s the only one here now, though we expect someone tomorrow.”
“How is she?” asked Leonard.
“She sleeps most of the time. And she’s on morphine for the pain, so she’s not very lucid. Her body’s shutting down. But she’s conscious.”
“Has she had many visitors?” asked Emery.
“Not since she’s been here. In the hospital a few neighbors dropped by. I gather there’s no family. It’s a shame.” She shook her head sadly. “She’s a lovely woman.”
“Can I see her?” Leonard glanced at a closed door at the end of the bright room.
“O
f course.”
Robbie and Emery watched them go, then settled into the wicker chairs.
“God, this is depressing,” said Emery.
“It’s better than a hospital,” said Robbie. “Anna was going to go into a hospice, but she died before she could.”
Emery winced. “Sorry. Of course, I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay.”
Robbie leaned back and shut his eyes. He saw Anna sitting on the grass with azaleas all around her, bees in the flowers and Zach laughing as he opened his hands to release a green moth that lit momentarily upon her head, then drifted into the sky.
“Robbie.” He started awake. Emery sat beside him, shaking him gently. “Hey-I’m going in now. Go back to sleep if you want, I’ll wake you when I come out.”
Robbie looked around blearily. “Where’s Leonard?”
“He went for a walk. He’s pretty broken up. He wanted to be alone for a while.”
“Sure, sure.” Robbie rubbed his eyes. “I’ll just wait.”
When Emery was gone he stood and paced the room. After a few minutes he sighed and sank back into his chair, then idly flipped through the magazines and books on the table. Tricycle, Newsweek, the Utne Reader; some pamphlets on end-of-life issues; works by Viktor Frankl and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
And, underneath yesterday’s newspaper, a familiar sky blue dust jacket emblazoned with the garish image of a naked man and woman, hands linked as they floated above a vast abyss, surrounded by a glowing purple sphere. Beneath them the title appeared in embossed green letters.
Wings for Humanity!
The Next Step is OURS!
by Margaret S. Blevin, PhD
Robbie picked it up. On the back was a photograph of the younger Maggie in a white, embroidered tunic, her hair a bright corona around her piquant face. She stood in the Hall of Flight beside a mock-up of the Apollo lunar module, the Wright Flyer high above her head. She was laughing, her hands raised in welcome. He opened it to a random page.
…that time has come: with the dawn of the Golden Millennium we will welcome their return, meeting them at last as equals to share in the glory that is the birthright of our species.
He glanced at the frontispiece and title page, and then the dedication.