Windblowne

by Stephen Messer

  to Miriam

  1

  Oliver sat back on his stool. He was finished. His hands were blistered, his head ached, and his nostrils burned with the stink of boiling glue, but he was sure this one would work. After a lifetime of embarrassments and disappointments that made his toes curl to think about, he’d finally done it. This time he would fly.

  For two days Oliver had snipped and sewn, boiled glue in the glue pots, lit new candles when the old ones had burned down to nubs, cursed and sucked on his cuts when he was clumsy with a knife, and paced back and forth crumpling up papers covered with his carefully drawn designs before hurling them into the corners in disgust. Then he would sit at his workbench to draw up new designs, and snip and sew some more. All the while, the midsummer winds had howled ceaselessly outside the treehouse.

  Oliver stood, kicking aside discarded fragments of bamboo spars. With a triumphant sweep of his arm, he cleared the workbench. Everything spilled onto the floor with a tumultuous crash. He pulled open drawers and laid out his tools. He had new twine, new reels, his handvane, and several other useful odds and ends. He jammed it all into his pack.

  He dashed to the window and threw it open. Cold wind blasted into the room. Oliver leaned out into the tossing branches of the oak. He closed his eyes, listening to the winds as they blew over the mountain and through the oaks. They were just right for flying, he decided, but twilight would be settling soon. If he hurried, there would be time for one test flight before the night winds came.

  He slammed the window closed, then tore off his smock and hurled it over a stack of rejected spars. He donned his warmest flier’s outfit: leather gloves, fur-lined boots, loose-cut pants with toughened knees, a thick sweater, and a heavy wool cap fastened under his chin. Feeling very professional, he slung his pack over his shoulders and, with his creation tucked under one arm, peeked down the hall.

  No one had bothered to light the lamps, of course, and the hallway curved into darkness in both directions as it followed the shape of their tree. The only light was a faint flickering spilling through a doorway halfway to the stairs. From within that room came the continuous scratching sound of pen across paper.

  Oliver crept down the hall. He had nearly mastered the pattern of the creaky floorboards. Left two steps, right one step, now over to the wall, then a hop, then left… no, right! The floorboard groaned, and Oliver froze as a voice called out.

  “Oliver, lad, is that you? Fetch me a cup of tea, will you? There’s a lad.” As usual, his father’s voice sounded distant and distracted.

  Oliver peeked into the study. There was the customary sight: his father’s back hunched over a desk piled with books and pages covered with cryptic scrawl. The room was nearly dark, as the shades had not been opened and a last flickering candle was about to die. Just beside his father’s arm was the untouched cup of tea, now cold, that Oliver had brought up hours ago.

  “Yes, Father,” Oliver said, trying to hide his creation behind his back on the remote chance his father turned around. “I’ll bring it right up.”

  “There’s a lad,” his father replied vaguely. His pen had not stopped scratching.

  Oliver hurried to the staircase and dashed down into the kitchen. The rest of the treehouse was silent and dark. As he passed the pantry, his stomach growled, and he realized that he had not eaten all day. No time for that, thought Oliver. I’ll have a victory dinner when I return. Yes, a triumphant homecoming involving crowds of people apologizing for all the mockery he’d received over the years. Thinking these happy thoughts, he pushed open the creaking front door.

  He stopped on the landing, forty feet up, and looked worriedly at the signs of Windblowne preparing for the coming of night. In the treehouses of nearby oaks, lamps were sputtering to life. Townspeople were reeling in the rope bridges that connected one treehouse to another. On Windswept Way, far below, people were hurrying home, hands thrust deep into pockets and shoulders hunched against the suddenly cold winds.

  A brown oak leaf drifted by. Oliver plucked it from the air. Another one, he thought. The leaf was dry and brittle, as though midsummer had been interrupted by autumn. He’d been seeing leaves like this for weeks, and what was most curious was that Oliver, who could normally tell from which of the giant oaks any leaf had fallen, did not recognize these. They had to be from an oak he didn’t know, and he was certain he knew almost every oak on the mountain. This meant he was never lost, but from looking at this leaf he could see that the map in his mind must have a gap in it somewhere.

  He shook his head. No time to waste on leaves. Oliver yanked his handvane from his pack. He snapped it onto his wrist and held it high. The pointer spun before settling southish. Oliver studied the result with an expert eye. He might not be much good at flying, but he was a superb wind-reader. The north-by-northeast wind was still blowing, best for flying, but the pointer was trembling, indicating an increasingly unsteady flow. The wind’s direction and speed would be changing soon. Night was drawing near.

  Dare he risk it?

  Oliver nodded his head. He did. The kite must be tested tonight.

  Down the circular staircase he ran, winding dizzily around the trunk of his familiar home oak, sliding his hand along its bark for luck and comfort. On the ground, he raced across the small front yard. Off to one side was his mother’s workshop, and coming from it was the usual cacophonous assortment of muttering, the clash of hammer on chisel, and the occasional loud curse. Surrounding the workshop were several—Oliver was not sure what to call them—perhaps sculptures? that his mother was working on, or had already finished. Oliver could not tell either way. Maybe they had just fallen over. Oliver sighed and kept running.

  In a moment he was on Windswept Way, Windblowne’s only road, which curled round the mountain from foot to crest like a coiled spring. Oliver ran upward, passing under treehouses high overhead as the winds pushed him higher, faster. He kept furtively to one side of the Way, hoping that the late hour meant he wouldn’t be noticed and snickered at. Or worse, prevented from going to the crest at all. He kept running up, up, up as the Way wound higher.

  Oliver’s fears were realized when he spied a member of the Windblowne Watch waddling down the Way and lighting the oil lamps on either side. Like all members of the Watch, he was fat and friendly and long retired from a life of flying. Normally the Watch had little to do in peaceful Windblowne, but each midsummer they were forced to rise from their usual seats on the balcony of their tavern headquarters to manage the crowds of tourists who came for the Festival.

  Oliver put the kite behind his back and slowed to what he hoped was an inconspicuous stroll.

  “Oh! Hullo, Oliver!” the Watchman said cheerily as he lit the next lamp.

  “Hullo,” said Oliver quickly, edging past.

  “I say,” said the Watchman in surprise. “That’s not a kite you have there, is it?”

  “No,” said Oliver.

  “Oh,” replied the Watchman, looking puzzled. “Well, that’s good. The night winds are coming, you know. No time to be flying!” He pulled a sheet of stiff paper from within his coat and affixed it to the lamppost.

  Oliver resumed his dash for the crest the moment the Watchman’s back was turned.

  Oliver had been trying to ignore those papers, but it wasn’t easy. They lined the Way every midsummer, tacked to trees and fences and lampposts and the occasional wagon. They littered the lands beyond the mountain too, their message carried far and wide by the winds. Some of them blew across his path, mocking him, and he kicked at them savagely. He knew their message by heart:

  YE OLDE FESTIVAL OF

  KITES

  IN ITS 455TH YEAR

  THE MOUNTAIN TOWNE OF

  WINDBLOWNE INVITES

  ONE AND ALL


  COMMENCING ON THE NINTH

  DAY OF THE SECOND MOON

  FIVE DAYS OF FANTASTIC

  CREATIONS AND DARING

  FEATS

  THE WONDER OF ALL THE WORLD

  THE LEGENDARY FLIERS OF

  WINDBLOWNE AND THE

  TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS!

  Today was the Fifth Day of the Second Moon. Four days remained.

  The wind blowing down from the crest brought a chorus of young voices, shouts mixed with laughter. Oliver grimaced. The voices belonged to those he had most been hoping to avoid, but there was no help for it. He marched grimly upward, gripping his kite.

  A group of children came into view, all carrying kites. Oliver felt his usual shudder of envy, and a surge of embarrassment for his own kite. For his classmates’ kites were more than just kites; they were brilliantly painted eagles, bats, and dragons. The elaborate kites had hinges and latches that allowed them to be folded flat and carried, and then opened to full size when launched. These were kites that were, without question, worthy of the Festival, and all of the children were brimming with excitement and confidence.

  They spotted Oliver. He braced himself.

  “Marcus, do you see that?” one of them called, in mock astonishment. “Oliver has gotten hold of another kite somehow!”

  Marcus held his eagle kite behind his back as though shielding it. “Oh, Oliver,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “What did that poor, defenseless thing do to deserve this fate?” He turned to his friend. “Alain, do you think there’s room in the trees for another one of Oliver’s kites?”

  Alain looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure,” he said. “They’re getting pretty crowded up there. It might be more merciful just to burn this one. Need a match, Oliver?”

  Peals of jeering laughter were carried off on the wind as Oliver quickened his pace, leaving the others behind.

  All but one. A black-haired girl with a dragon kite broke away and hurried after Oliver. She had a red knit pouch slung over one shoulder, and it bounced on her hip as she ran. He groaned. Of all the humiliating episodes in his ill-fated flying career, this girl represented one of the worst. She had spent months making one of the most beautiful kites Windblowne had ever seen, a school of flying fish fashioned from silk and bamboo. In a moment of poor judgment, she had asked Oliver if he would like to fly it. Unable to resist, he had accepted the reels—and to his horror, had promptly steered the kite directly into the ground, destroying it. The violence with which he had managed to accomplish this was a frequent topic of discussion at school.

  “Ilia!” Alain shouted from down the Way. “Better stay away from Oliver! Bad luck before the Festival.”

  Ilia ignored him and dashed up beside Oliver. “Oliver,” she said anxiously, “you’re not going to the crest, are you?”

  He did not answer. He wished she would stop being so nice about everything. She ought to hate him for what he had done.

  “Well,” said Ilia after an awkward pause. “Be careful, Oliver. The night winds are coming.”

  “Ilia!” shouted several of the others.

  “Wait!” she called. She rummaged in her red knit pouch and produced a tiny golden kite charm on which a name had been etched—Ilia. She offered it to Oliver. “For luck. You can give it back to me tomorrow.”

  Oliver shook his head, wounded. Why did Ilia think he needed her luck? “No thanks.”

  “Well, good luck anyway,” said Ilia. Before Oliver could react, she pressed the charm into his hand, then raced down the mountain to her friends.

  Well, that’s over with, thought Oliver miserably, dropping the charm into his pocket. But then he heard more voices, carried on the wind—more classmates, coming home late from practice. More ridicule. He would have turned around if he weren’t so desperate.

  He paused. How desperate? Desperate enough to use his secret path? It lay just ahead.…

  No, he reminded himself sternly. That’s only for emergencies. Someone might see!

  But the voices were advancing, and the pointer on his handvane was wobbling violently. If anything qualified as an emergency, this was it.

  He spied the entrance to the path, hidden behind a seemingly impenetrable wall of brush. He would never have discovered it were it not for two oaks located on either side, like twin sentinels guarding the trail, their lower branches dipping down just so.

  Here lies the path, the sentinels seemed to say.

  The voices were nearly upon him. He dove into the wall of brush, gliding through an almost invisible gap. From the safety of this hiding place he watched as more children passed, laughing and waving their wonderful kites. He burned at the sight. He burned particularly because he wanted to join them so very badly. When the children were gone, he turned and stumbled up the path.

  Although it was a more direct route to the crest than Windswept Way, the path was overgrown and difficult to traverse. Fallen tree limbs mostly concealed what remained of the trail. Oliver crashed along. It must have been years since anyone had walked this old path regularly. He had used it only a few times himself.

  A flash of color caught his eye.

  Oliver crouched beside a sharp bit of broken oak limb. Hanging from the tip of it was the tiniest scrap of crimson silk. He touched it.

  Kite silk.

  Someone else had come this way.

  Oliver stood, furious. This path was his secret! Now that he looked, he could see other signs—snapped twigs, footprints. Someone else had been through. Not far along he found a low branch that had a torn bit of wool on it, like the wool from which his own flying cap was made.

  Oliver began to smash along. Maybe the person was still on the trail. Maybe he could catch up. Perhaps the other person would be willing to keep the secret. It would be better than having all of Windblowne tramping up and down the path every day.…

  But whoever it was had not gone to the crest. The trail of snapped twigs and footprints and torn thread ended abruptly, halfway up. Or rather, it didn’t end but turned off the path and went deeper into the forest.

  A cascade of dead leaves tumbled past.

  Odd! Oliver thought, and for a moment he wavered. Then determination returned as he saw how the twilight gloom was gathering. He hurried up the path, resolving to come back after the Festival and explore this mystery further.

  Soon he neared the crest.

  As always, Oliver thrilled to the sound of the rising, rushing winds racing through the oaks. Normally he liked to look up into their tossing branches. Not tonight, though. Tonight he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the path. No more distractions, Oliver, he told himself. Focus.

  He emerged onto the crest through another invisible gap in the brush. The oakline ended abruptly at the crest border, forming a wide circle around it. From this line the open ground rose a quarter mile to the peak, where the most unpredictable and treacherous winds blew. Nothing was able to grow on the crest itself but a thin covering of hardy mountain grass. Strong as they were, even the giant oaks could not withstand the crest winds.

  He had hoped he would be the only one here at this late hour. Surely no one, at least no one who wasn’t as desperate as Oliver, would risk damaging his kite or himself this close to the Festival. But near the peak, a few daring fliers were getting in some final minutes of practice. Oliver recognized them. They were all young men and women who had nearly made the final rounds last summer. They were braving the winds in these last hours, hoping to find some edge that could catapult them to the championship this year.

  As he removed reels and twine from his pack, Oliver could not resist an intense and grudging admiration for those fliers. They were handling, with expert skill, the most sophisticated type of power kite, built specifically for jumping. Each kite had precision folds and angles designed to master the shifting winds of the crest. Complicated lines wound down from the kites to the reels held by the fliers, who heaved on the multiple strands, causing the kites to plunge in breathtaking dives and rise in swooping arcs. The ki
tes danced about in complex forms, sometimes joining their neighbors to create intricate aerial patterns. Each kite commanded the air, seeming as though at any moment it might break free and fly off on its own, sweeping all of the others from the sky.

  As Oliver watched, a flier left the group and fought toward the peak. Oliver held his breath.

  For the briefest moment, the flier balanced herself, pulling hard against the unpredictable gusts, jousting with the wind. Then, in one expert motion, she swung her kite into the teeth of the gale and jumped.

  She flew up and out, over the heads of her friends, who whooped and cheered. She twisted in flight, still in control, her legs kicking. At last she landed, far from the peak. Oliver was in awe. Her leap was just yards shy of the flat granite marker that noted the spot of the farthest jump on record. The dream of every flier in town was to break that record, but the marker had not been moved in almost fifty years. For this jumper, however, the extra practice was paying off. She looked as though she were ready to enter the first rank and threaten that mark.

  With a guilty start, Oliver realized that he had gotten so caught up in watching that flier that he had delayed longer than he intended. He checked his handvane. The pointer was dancing wildly. He knew he ought to come back in the morning. The other fliers were urgently reeling in their kites.

  There’s still time for a quick test, he decided. He looked nervously at his kite. It was a simple flat-wing model, or at least an attempt at one. He had heated the spine too quickly, and the whole thing was rather bent. He tried to ignore the other flaws, the clumsy rips and awkward joins. “You’re not so bad,” he whispered, stroking the kite in an attempt to smooth out its wrinkled sails. “I’ll just give you one test flight and then fix you up in time for the Festival.”

  He looked around sheepishly, glad that no one was nearby to hear him talking to one of his kites, a childish habit that he could not seem to break.

  He made his final preparations hastily, fastening lines to each side of the kite and securing them to the reel. He gripped the reel firmly in his hard leather glove. Time to fly. He grasped the kite with his other hand and, with what he hoped was a smooth, correct motion, tossed it up to catch the winds.