She slept.
Later in the day she walked down to the shore, earlier than usual. This time she carried binoculars hurriedly purchased in town, and she scanned the seaward sky from north to south, searching for a familiar silhouette. Gulls she saw, gulls in plenty, soaring, swooping for food, perching on rocks. Fat gulls, grey on top and white beneath. But no hawks, no eagles. She turned the binoculars westward toward the rooftops of the town, just visible beyond the intervening trees. She saw flecks that might be pigeons, crows, even sparrows, near and far. Ordinary birds. Nowhere did she see the short head, broad tail, and flared wings that marked her quarry.
She ate a quick dinner and returned to the painting by the waning, rosy glow of dusk. One could not evoke the depths of night, she thought, under a bright sun. She lightened her palette, reworked the moon and sea and even the dark air between them, trying to capture the radiance against which the bird had seemed so intense a shadow. Past midnight she realized that there was a contradiction in her mind, a double image of that instant, in which the sky was bright and dark at the same time. She could feel it, but the painting was only a poor reflection of that feeling, two-dimensional and—by now—muddy. She cleaned the palette and brushes and set the canvas aside against the wall. Stifling a yawn, she mounted a fresh, blank canvas on the easel.
The bird this time, nothing else. She sketched quickly, placing tail and flared pinions, adding details that she felt rather than remembered. The light was moonlight of course, but there was no sky, no ocean, only the dark wingspan and the merest suggestion of curved beak and piercing eye. And when she reached the limits of both her recollection and her invention, she went downstairs to the study and looked eagles up in the encyclopedia. She knew now that it had been an eagle; she wouldn't allow it to be anything else. The encyclopedia illustrations gave her some inspiration and corrected a few of her assumptions, and she hurried back upstairs to make adjustments.
By dawnlight again, she viewed her new effort with a critical eye. She had never painted birds before; at most, they had been pieces of background in her few landscapes, a brushstroke or two in the sky. The black eagle showed her lack of familiarity with his kind; he was naive and awkward, though bold. If she squinted, she could see a family resemblance to the bird on the back of a dollar bill.
At twilight she walked by the shore, searching the darkening sky for him, staying on till the moon was high, that night and many after. Night upon night, as the moon waned and the stars brightened by contrast. Night upon night, in fair weather and foul, when the waves were slick as glass, when the waves were wild things clutching for the sky. She waited for another glimpse, straining at clouds or a late gull or a speck of flotsam on the water. She waited late, late, and past midnight she returned home and worked on one or the other of the paintings, striving to recreate the bird.
She had never gone to town much, less since the deaths of her parents. Now she had no use for the place at all; she had her groceries delivered and paid her bills by mail. Every scrap of her spare time was spoken for, by paint or binoculars or the sleep that she grudgingly allowed herself. Only the postman saw her, dropping off a few bills, catalogues, advertisements a couple of times a week. And the people who walked by the sea. But the weather was beginning to grow chilly for both tourists and lovers; soon the moon waxed full again, and only Lydia stood on the shore to watch it touch the waves with silver.
She heard the bird now, sometimes—she was sure of that, though she never saw his broad, dark wings. She heard him beat the air once, twice, high above her head, and then there was silence as he soared and she stared upward, trying to pierce the blackness with her human eyes. She thought he could probably see her well enough, eagles' eyes being so much sharper than humans', and she tried to imagine how she must appear to him—her face a pale speck amid the darkness of rocks and scrubby grass. A small thing, earthbound, of no significance to a creature who sailed the dark ocean of air. What would it be like, she wondered, to have wings and look down upon the creatures who could only walk?
The paintings had proliferated by this time. They lined the studio, view after view of the subject she had seen only once. Yet there was a clear image of him in her mind's eye, as if she could reconstruct his whole form from the sound of his wings. His eye, she knew, was golden, like a great amber bead set above the corner of his beak. The beak was dark as his plumage, like polished jet. And to display their true span, the great black pinions would require a canvas larger than any Lydia had ever worked. She contemplated ordering the proper size from Boston, stretching it and preparing it herself. She measured the door of the studio to be sure the finished product could be carried out of the room, and then she made the phone call.
Autumn was waning by the time the painting was well begun. The sea breeze that washed her studio was chill by day now, and gusty, though she still opened the windows to it, and painted wearing an old sweater. When she walked by the shore, she could see scarlet leaves floating among the restless waves. The color of the ocean was changing, too, and the color of the sky; the daytime world was beginning to grey out for winter. Only at night were the changes invisible. At night the buoy still clanged far out on the water and the moon still splashed its shimmering highway to Europe almost at Lydia's feet. At night ebony wings beat the air, and Lydia strained for a glimpse, just a single brief glimpse of the bird that glided somewhere, somewhere, in the vast, unchanging darkness.
The days grew shorter as the chilling wind ruffled the waves to a restive froth, and the nights were long—long for walking by the choppy water, long for painting by lamplight. Lydia slept the whole short day through now, seeing the sun only at dawn and dusk. The bird preferred the night hours, and Lydia had begun to understand that preference. Day was jarring, stark, revealing too much of reality. Night was kind and soothing, hiding the world's flaws in velvet. At night Lydia could look into her dimly lit mirror and see the girl she had once been, the girl whose skin bore no sign of wrinkling, whose hair was yet untouched by grey, whose life still lay ahead of her. That girl could walk on the shore and dream dreams; she could look upon the moonlit highway to Europe and imagine herself traveling it, light as a feather, eastward, over the horizon.
She finished the painting half a dozen times. At dawn she would step back from it, cock her head to one side, and nod to herself. She would clean the brushes and palette carefully, then, and go to bed satisfied. But when she woke at dusk, the light of the setting sun showed her flaws, approximations, incompleteness, and she would eat a quick breakfast and go out to the shore again in search of her model, and inspiration. Inspiration she would find, in the clang of the buoy or the whisper of the wind, or the faint rustle of wingbeats high, high. But the model would not show himself, not even his shadow, and she would return home and work determinedly through the dark hours until she laid the brushes aside again come dawn.
Half a dozen times, she finished and slept—and then one blustery sunset found her with nothing left to do.
Not that the painting was perfect. She eyed it critically from every angle, brushes poised in her fingers, palette in the crook of her arm. She approached it several times, as if to lay another stroke upon the canvas, then drew back. The paint was very thick in some places. But she knew another layer would not make it better. The painting was beyond her ability to improve. She set her brushes aside and went out to walk.
Lydia understood the limits of her skill. She did not expect the canvas to be a photographic reproduction of the image in her mind's eye. She knew she would have to be satisfied with the faintest hint of the beauty and grace and power of the original. And down by the shore, in the pale light of the full moon, she had to weep for her own limitations. She wept, and she shivered a little because the night was very chill, and her coat was not quite heavy enough.
High above her head, she heard his wings.
She knew the sound instantly and looked up, straining to pierce the darkness, her tears a chilly patch upon each eye, blurring he
r vision for a moment. As a blur, she saw him silhouetted against the moon, and then she blinked and brought him into sharp focus. He was poised above the shimmering path that the moon laid down on the surface of the sea, his great wings motionless as he glided lower, lower, almost touching the white-topped waves. An eagle—yes, she had been right all the time, right in every detail, even to the amber eye that glittered with moonlight, glittered as it regarded her.
He swooped toward her, his great dark wings blotting out the moon, the sky, the world. She gazed at him in wonder, in adoration; the painting had not matched his true size, not remotely. He was the grandfather of eagles, she thought—the god of eagles. She felt a great gust of air as he hovered over her a moment. And then, as delicately as she might cradle a kitten, his great talons locked about her waist and hips. Her hair blew wild as his pinions cupped air to rise again, and then her feet floated free of the earth. Upward they soared—upward —and the rushing wind was a tonic to Lydia's soul. She felt light, young, and beautiful as the bird himself. Looking down, she could see the silver moonpath flowing far below.
Eastward they flew. Eastward toward Europe.
As the first rays of sunlight spread out over the ocean, Lydia saw the island. The only land visible from horizon to horizon, it was dominated by a huge mountain and, as they drew closer, she realized that the summit of that mountain was their destination. This did not surprise her; where else, she reasoned, would an eagle rest?
Closer still, and she saw the nest, big as her parents' house, built of bushes and driftwood and spars from sailing ships, some with ropes and tattered canvas still clinging to them. And then, at the last moment, just before her feet touched the soft, shadowed interior of the nest, just before they brushed the lining of feathers torn from the bird's own downy breast, and his mate's, she struggled. Poor dried-up spinster, she struggled— weakly—as she fell toward those small, dark, gaping beaks.
Terry L. Parkinson has "done clerical stuff in a hospital, telephone soliciting for a Republican newspaper when I was really desperate a few years back, and folded W. C. Fields T-shirts in a factory." He lives in San Francisco and this is his first professional sale— a story of shadows that may or may not be destroyed by the light.
ESTRELLA by Terry L. Parkinson
The window curtain is the enemy; she pulls it back slowly. The world comes into view as she moves into the frame her hand has made. Green fog crawls about the yard, occasionally pooling and rising vertically, tornado-fashion, then dissipating down into waves, which break at the front door.
There is the iron gate, insubstantial in the fog. A man-shape slides through the bars.
I am a bird in the center of this fog-bound cage, in the clear eye of the creeping, shifting weather; the eye of my house sees and pulls back.
She pulls a handkerchief from the waistband of her dress; with her free hand she dabs at her wet forehead. Heart racing, she is about to take flight.
She drops the curtain. It floats back into place. In a moment it is still. But, out of hand, the curtain lures her; she must peer through again. Will she see a face on the pane as she lifts the curtain a second time?
The shadow of the pursuer is more clear, an area of uncanny defined dark moving against a confusion of gray light and vague bars. She cannot tell whether the pacing figure is inside the gate or outside. Estrella falls back, the breath knocked out of her. Why did he pick this morning to take shape? She stumbles until the backs of her knees break at the familiar edge of the divan, which coughs dust, receiving her.
The cushions provide temporary solace. Has she locked the gate? Will he come knocking?
Shadows, she decides, have a disconcerting habit of always knocking, of never passing by. She counts the ten strikes of the clock. But no knocking comes. She strains, and hears faint footsteps, human footsteps (two-footed, brisk, then shuffling).
She rises, smoothing the wrinkled blue silk dress, shaking dust from her hair. She plunges down the long dark hall to the kitchen; stops; the light from the front door is changed, a slow darkening. He stands there now; she has pulled too far away, and he is coming after.
She closes her eyes. She wishes hard. Be gone. Another day, maybe, when I'm feeling stronger. But the black of her eyelids are him and she opens her eyes, falling into the kitchen, where the shutters let in a bit of healing light.
She puts a pot of water on the stove, removes a cup of spidery blue porcelain from the cupboard, and sits down to wait. A slat of the chair is broken and her legs become numb and heavy. She wonders if she can get up and check the tea water. In three minutes she has decided she must try. Walking now seems completely magical. But she manages to walk on prickly feet to the stove, where the water is unfinished. She reseats herself, and the teakettle begins its furious internal bubbling; she waits for the shriek of the whistle, irritably.
She blows out the fire. The tea leaves—from an unlettered tin—crumble in her hand. She looks about for the strainer, finds it in the sink—unwashed—but uses it anyway. Tea—even old tea—is cleansing, therefore clean.
The weak tea burns down her throat, chasing the pursuer, which is stuck in her mid-chest wall. He had fallen from her inner eye upon entering the kitchen. A warm line crawls down to her belly. She finishes the tea in a gulp. The residue in the bottom of the cup engenders a thought. What if she has swallowed so hard that the intruder has been taken deeper inside her, where there is plenty of nourishment and he could take root? Shadows are so tricky, when inside. Her stomach coils and knots.
She clutches herself as best she can, cinched tight under the dirty and slippery silk; she kneads her stomach for signs of movement; in the same fashion she examines her breasts. She feels a twitching through the fabric. Jesus, she thinks, have I forgotten something? Am I pregnant? And rushes into the bathroom, the house spinning about her. She gasps for breath, leans over the basin, and vomits. Pale brown water trickles out her nose. She cannot bring up more. She carries the fullness in her belly into the front room, walking with tiny fast steps, lies on the couch and breathes deeply, slowly, trying to trick herself into the experience of birth. She falls asleep instead, facedown in the old velvet.
The room is black as pitch. Where is my left arm? She gropes for it, finds it on a pillow. This is mine. Sits up, but cannot orient herself to space—what is that called? Proprio—something. Stands up. This is a room. A room in whose house? Father's house. Things are coming clear. She stumbles, grabs a table's edge. There appear to be four walls—north, south, east, west. This is my house; I have fallen asleep in one of the rooms. She strains to look through the thick black.
Now I remember. The shadow at the front door. The tea. Something in my throat (a tea leaf?). Silly to have panicked so. She pulls at her damp skirt, which is crumpled about her waist. She finds the lamp table— final proof that she is in the front room—and lights the lamp. The room leaps out at her like an angry yellow dog. The clock cranks up, chimes three times.
She walks to the stairway; at the top a cold blue light gleams through a half-open door. The long sleep has emptied her.
She wonders, as she climbs the stairs, how he will look, who he will be this time, what it is she must do. She rustles down the hall, her skirt improperly pulled down and the left leg exposed like a blue cane.
She sighs, makes an attempt to straighten her hair, and opens the door.
As she finishes, dawn breaks over the house. The morning glow fills the walls with warmth; Estrella strides down the stairs to meet this new caller, who is golden-fingered and waving.
She waits on the last stair while the mailman sorts the mail. She watches his circular shadow through the curtain, amused that yesterday she had been so terrified of contact. She stares at the door; waits. Wall is warm. Looks at her toes. Feeling nothing in particular, she starts to think. I feel good, although I haven't slept. Haven't slept. A memory cuts through the morning on a cold wind. Father would chastise her for not sleeping through the night. Often she woke him with her gen
tle sobbing at his bedside. "A man with a blank face stood at the end of my bed. The room filled so full of light I was afraid it would burst. I closed my eyes against the light and, when I opened them, it was dark and the man was gone."
The mailman finishes. Estrella starts at the sound of the letter slapping the floor.
What should I do about the slot? Should I tape it up and let the mail be left in the box? That would require going out onto the porch. The morning sun, who is not always friendly, falls directly on the porch, unobstructed by the hedges.
She feels she has been patient with the hedges, but they have become a nuisance, She obviously could not tape up the slot until they grew higher. They grew very, very slowly, contrary to her will. She had gone out many times and talked to them in her most even, reasonable voice. Please grow faster so that I can walk about in the day without fear; I am sensitive to the sun, as you are. Surely you understand. The hedges remained obstinate and went about their growing with slow cruelty. Parts of the hedge actually seemed to be dying out, to be opening into the other yards. Soon neighbors would be pouring through with questions and admonitions.
Hedges were humming little animal engines; bees filled their insides. I will drink my tea without honey, as revenge.
The letter lies on the floor, radiant and dangerous. The mailman's dark hand had delivered it, reaching out from the circle of his head. Some, Estrella realizes, trying to see all viewpoints and recapture the feeling of morning, would find it desirable to receive such an attractive envelope, to come down the seductive stairs and find that the world has a message for you. Someone more foolish than I might even run down the stairs to retrieve this invitation to another world; someone might even have been insensible from their night-sleep and trip on the last step, breaking their long eager neck. Black blood, like tar, would stain the carpet, setting off the golden packet.
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