“Everyone! Look!”
Timothy lifted the goblet of strange red wine, the peculiar vintage, so all could see. Aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews!
He drank it down.
He waved at his stepsister Laura, held her gaze, to freeze her in place.
Timothy pinned Laura’s arms behind her, whispering. Gently, he bit her neck!
Candles blew out. Wind applauded the roof shingles. Aunts and uncles gasped.
Turning, Timothy crammed toadstools in his mouth, swallowed, then beat his arms against his hips and ran in circles. “Uncle Einar! Now I’ll fly!”
At the top of the stairs, flapping, Timothy heard his mother cry, “No!”
“Yes!” Timothy hurled himself out, thrashing!
Halfway his wings exploded. Screaming, he fell.
To be caught by Uncle Einar.
Timothy squirmed wildly as a voice burst from his lips.
“This is Cecy!” it cried. “Cecy! Come see! In the attic!” Laughter. Timothy tried to stop his mouth.
Laughter. Einar let him drop. Running through the mob as they rushed up toward Cecy, Timothy kicked the front door wide and …
Flap! went the wine and toadstools, out into the cold autumn night.
“Cecy, I hate you, hate you!”
Inside the barn, in deep shadow, Timothy sobbed bitterly and thrashed in a stack of odorous hay. Then he lay still. From his blouse pocket, from the protection of the matchbox used as his retreat, the spider crawled forth and along Timothy’s shoulder to his neck to climb to his ear.
Timothy trembled. “No, no. Don’t!”
The delicate touch of the feeler on his tympanum, small signals of large concern, made Timothy’s crying cease.
The spider then traveled down his cheek, stationed itself beneath his nose, probing the nostrils as if to seek the melancholy in there, and then moved quietly up over the rim of his nose to sit, peering at Timothy, until he burst with laughter.
“Get, Arach! Go!”
In answer, the spider floated down and with sixteen delicate motions wove its filaments zigzag over Timothy’s mouth which could only sound:
“Mmmmmm!”
Timothy sat up, rustling the hay.
Mouse was there in his blouse pocket, a small snug contentment to touch his chest and heart.
Anuba was there, curled in a soft round ball of sleep, all adream with many fine fish swimming in freshets of dream.
The land was painted with moonlight now. In the big House he could hear the ribald laughter as “Mirror, Mirror” was played with a huge mirror. Celebrants roared as they tried to identify those of themselves whose reflections did not, had not ever, and never would appear in a glass.
Timothy broke Arach’s web on his lips:
“Now what?”
Falling to the floor, Arach scuttled swiftly toward the House, until Timothy trapped and tucked him back in his ear. “All right. Here we go, for fun, no matter what!”
He ran. Behind, Mouse ran small, Anuba large. Half across the yard, a green tarpaulin fell from the sky and pinned him flat with silken wing. “Uncle!”
“Timothy.” Einar’s wings clamored like kettledrums. Timothy, a thimble, was set on Einar’s shoulder. “Cheer up, nephew. How much richer things are for you. Our world is dead. All tombstone-gray. Life’s best to those who live least, worth more per ounce, more per ounce!”
From midnight on, Uncle Einar soared him about the House, from room to room, weaving, singing, as they fetched A Thousand Times Great Grandmere down, wrapped in her Egyptian cerements, roll on roll of linen bandage coiled about her fragile archaeopteryx bones. Silently she stood, stiff as a great loaf of Nile bread, her eyes flinting a wise, silent fire. At the predawn breakfast, she was propped at the head of the long table and suffered sips of incredible wines to wet her dusty mouth.
The wind rose, the stars burned, the dances quickened. The many darknesses roiled, bubbled, vanished, reappeared.
“Coffins” was next. Coffins, in a row, surrounded by marchers, timed to a flute. One by one coffins were removed. The scramble for their polished interiors eliminated two, four, six, eight marchers, until one coffin remained. Timothy circled it cautiously with his fey-cousin, Rob. The flute stopped. Gopher to hole, Timothy lunged at the box. Rob popped in first! Applause!
Laughter and chat.
“How is Uncle Einar’s sister? She of the wings.”
“Lotte flew over Persia last week and was shot with arrows. A bird for a banquet. A bird!”
Their laughter was a cave of winds.
“And Carl?”
“The one who lives under bridges? Poor Carl. No place in all Europe for him. New bridges are rebuilt with Holy Water blessings! Carl is homeless. There are refugees tonight beyond counting.”
“True! All the bridges, eh? Poor Carl.”
“Listen!”
The party held still. Far off, a town clock chimed 6 A.M. The Homecoming was done. In time with the clock striking, a hundred voices began to sing songs that were centuries old. Uncles and aunts twined their arms around each other, circling, singing, and somewhere in the cold distance of morning the town clock stopped its chimes and was still.
Timothy sang.
He knew no words, no tune, yet he sang and the words and tune were pure, round and high and beautiful.
Finished, he gazed up to the High Attic of Egyptian sands and dreams.
“Thanks, Cecy,” he whispered.
A wind blew. Her voice echoed from his mouth, “Do you forgive me?”
Then he said, “Cecy. Forgiven.”
Then he relaxed and let his mouth move as it wished, and the song continued, rhythmically, purely, melodiously.
Goodbyes were said in a great rustling. Mother and Father stood in grave happiness at the door to kiss each departing cheek. The sky, beyond, colored and shone in the east. A cold wind entered. They must all rise and fly west to beat the sun around the world. Make haste, oh, make haste!
Again Timothy listened to a voice in his head and said, “Yes, Cecy. I would like that. Thanks.”
And Cecy helped him into one body after another. Instantly, he felt himself inside an ancient cousin’s body at the door, bowing and pressing lips to Mother’s pale fingers, looking out at her from a wrinkled leather face. Then he stepped out into a wind that seized and blew him in a flurry of leaves away up over the awakening hills.
With a snap, Timothy was behind another face, at the door, all farewells. It was Cousin William’s face.
Cousin William, swift as smoke, loped down a dirt road, red eyes burning, fur pelt rimed with morning, padded feet falling with silent sureness, panting over a hill into a hollow, and then suddenly in flight, flying away.
Then Timothy welled up in the tall umbrella shape of Uncle Einar to look out from his wildly amused eyes as he picked up a tiny pale body: Timothy! Picking up himself! “Be a good boy, Timothy. See you soon!”
Swifter than borne leaves, with a webbed thunder of wings, faster than the lupine thing of the country road, going so swiftly the earth’s features blurred and the last stars tilted, like a pebble in Uncle Einar’s mouth, Timothy flew, joined on half his flight.
Then slammed back in his own flesh.
The shouting and the laughing faded and were almost lost. Everybody was embracing and crying and thinking how the world was becoming less a place for them. There had been a time when they had met every year, but now decades passed with no reconciliation. “Don’t forget, we meet in Salem in 2009!” someone cried.
Salem. Timothy’s numbed mind touched the word. Salem 2009. And there would be Uncle Fry and Grandma and Grandfather and A Thousand Times Great Grandmere in her withered cerements. And Mother and Father and Cecy and all the rest. But would he be alive that long?
With one last withering wind blast, away they all shot, so many scarves, so many fluttery mammals, so many seared leaves, so many wolves loping, so many whinings and clusterings, so many midnights and dawns and sleeps and wakenings.
Mother shut the door.
Father walked down into the cellar.
Timothy walked across the crepe-littered hall. His head was down, and in passing the party mirror he saw the pale mortality of his face. He shivered.
“Timothy,” said Mother.
She laid a hand on his face. “Son,” she said. “We love you. We all love you. No matter how different you are, no matter if you leave us one day.” She kissed his cheek. “And if and when you die your bones will lie undisturbed, we’ll see to that, you’ll lie at ease forever, and I’ll come see you every All Hallows’ Eve and tuck you in more secure.”
The halls echoed to polished lids creaking and slamming shut.
The House was silent. Far away, the wind went over a hill with its last cargo of small dark flights, echoing, chittering.
He walked up the steps, one by one, crying to himself all the way.
The End
