The Click of a Pebble

by Barbara Spencer

‘No need to fret, your memory will return.’

  Yöst felt an arm around his shoulders anchoring him to the ground. It felt good. He listened to the rhythm of his heart, so much faster in his carinatae form, and his mind began to slow in tandem with its steady beat. Gradually, his familiarity with his body began to edge cautiously into place, like a child who has done something naughty and wants to beg forgiveness, yet is reluctant to do so in case they are punished. ‘I am not sure I know who I am,’ he murmured. ‘Swan or human?’

  He felt the man at his side relax. ‘You are both. After you have made the transition a few times, it will become as natural as breathing. And soon you will possess all three forms. The second embodiment, and the greatest, is the celeste. If you are able to achieve that … then you become a true child of Zeus.’

  ‘Natural?’ The word stuck. ‘I don’t feel in the least bit natural. My chest feels as if it’s been stamped on, and I’m so tired.’

  ‘I should have warned you to stay close. You could so easily have been lost.’

  ‘If I am a bird, why don’t I possess their homing instinct? It was luck rather than foresight that brought me back in one piece. I saw the river and headed for it.’

  ‘You weren’t born a bird, Yöst. Developing your instincts will be rather like going back to school. The world is open for you to learn about it. How much or even what you learn is up to you. More worrying than your lack of instinct is your changing back so abruptly. Whatever happened?’

  Ignoring the question, Yöst leant wearily against the older man’s knees, tears flooding his eyes. He let them fall, too tired to wipe them away. ‘Why did I have to change now? So suddenly there was no time for anything.’

  ‘I can’t say for sure. Maybe we mistook your age and you were older. Even so, this never takes place in winter. And your feathers know it. You should have been pure white, not grey. Perhaps that’s why it was so very painful; I don’t ever remember this degree of pain.’

  ‘What happened to change me then? Was it the rope climbing in the barn, my pretending to be airborne?’

  ‘No! Of course not. That was simply a childish game. The only possible explanation is some strong emotion. Usually love or anger. We are not designed to cope with powerful emotions.’ He stopped and peered at the boy. ‘Is that what happened to you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he replied cautiously.

  M. Meijer gave a brief chuckle. ‘I obviously didn’t listen to that advice either because I fell in love with my wife. Such a lovely girl. She became my world, still is. That is why I chose to spend my life as a human.’

  ‘Before those men came to the island,’ Yöst ignored his reminiscing, ‘I was happy with my life. I was happy again at the farm. Yet what I felt when I took to the air was something … so much greater than anything I had ever experienced. It was heavenly. I can’t describe it … Yes, I can. It was like being wrapped in a glorious rainbow of colour. At that moment I found my life as a human fading away. It didn’t bother me, not then, not until I remembered picking grapes, the sunshine and Maestro playing his guitar. I knew then that I wanted that life, too.’ His eyebrows twisted in mock reproach. ‘That’s most likely why I crashed to the ground.’

  ‘I see.’

  Yöst stood up, the blanket tight around his shoulders. ‘Do I have any clothes?’

  ‘Yes. Pepe brought everything that belonged to you.’

  ‘Ramon is making sure I don’t return, isn’t he?’ he commented bitterly. ‘If I’d been an ordinary boy, he wouldn’t have sent us away, would he?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Then why? Are we so very different, Monsieur Meijer? Rico and Pascual, they wouldn’t have cared.’

  ‘Did you tell them?’

  He winced, his tone defiant. ‘No! Maestro knew and it didn’t matter to him.’

  M. Meijer didn’t reply, and silence fell.

  ‘You mean,’ Yöst burst out, unable to bear the silence any more. ‘It didn’t matter to Maestro because he recognised a fellow freak.’ He dropped to the ground again. ‘Why does it have to be this way?’ he called, his voice muffled by the blanket around his shoulders. ‘Why couldn’t I have stayed as I was?’

  ‘Leave the questions for another day, Yöst,’ M. Meijer gently stroked his hair. ‘At the very least until you have experienced all three manifestations. Then you can decide.’ He made to rise. ‘Come, I will cook you something to eat.’

  In his absence Pepe had left a basket filled with soup, bread and slices of raw meat. M. Meijer had built a small fire inside the hut to cook their food, the rusty galvanised sheeting obscuring traces of smoke from anyone looking out across the river. Yöst ate hungrily, cleaning his plate with a crust of bread. ‘What about clothes? What happens if there are people about when I change back?’

  ‘That’s one of the reasons the clan lives apart. Fortunately, it’s only from carinatae to human that this problem arises.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘As a celeste, you remain upright. You have no need to shrug off your clothing.’

  He slept, yet even that was different, dreaming of windblown skies. He woke anxious to set off again, yet still afraid of the pain of changing.

  ‘It’s easier the second time,’ M. Meijer comforted.

  ‘How does it happen? Do my bones all break and mend again?’ he gasped out, between spikes of pain that convulsed his body, desperate for the pain to pass, to feel again that sense of liberation from his earthly bonds.

  ‘I don’t know exactly what happens to your bones,’ M. Meijer heaved a sigh. ‘I’m sure they don’t break. Think of it as a tadpole developing into a frog.’

  Yöst flinched.

  ‘I promise, you don’t resemble a frog in the slightest, Yöst. You are as beautiful as a swan as you were a human, at least, you will be once your feathers have moulted and regrown white. The secret is to let your mind do the work and control the change. Close your eyes and imagine a new state – carinatae, celeste or human – it doesn’t matter which, and your body will respond. Picture your wings, your feathers soft and full, and very powerful.’

  Recalling the day when he had shinned along the branch of the apple tree, Yöst obediently directed his thoughts, sensing his weight retreat as swiftly as a hedgehog rolling up into a ball, ready to defend itself. And then he was airborne, once again eager to penetrate the sky with its ever-changing cloud patterns.

  He flew towards the sea, his path taking him over the hilltop, where he discovered the stones of the plateau to be undulating rather than flat. Perhaps in another millennium, they had been swept by water. Keeping the ocean to his left to avoid becoming disorientated, he flew south across the bay. From the cliff-top of the island, the bay had seemed unending, yet, from the air, he could make out both coasts, the cliffs, their arms outstretched, embracing the ocean. Then he was across the coast and into a different country, one Rico had called Spain. Gradually those images faded into the mist in which the rest of his human memories were stored. Concerned he would lose track of his starting point and wander lonely and lost forever, he began to retrace his path, discovering sunset to be sweeping the horizon to the west, and it was almost dark before he recognised the hillside on which the vines grew.

  ‘Don’t you ever miss it?’ he asked, once again shape-shifting into his human form, ‘not even sometimes? I know I would.’

  ‘Of course, I do,’ M. Meijer admitted frankly. ‘Anyone would, who has experienced the majesty of the carinatae life. But I was selfish, Yöst. I wanted my three score years and ten, more than the glories of Earth.’

  ‘Three score and ten? What is that?’

  ‘The years of human life; carinatae are not given the same number of years.’

  ‘Who cares? Even for a day … an hour … a minute!’ Yöst shouted triumphantly, and hugged himself. ‘Each time I reach up into the heavens … it’s pure magic. How can there be anything finer?’ He leapt to his feet spinning round and round.

  ‘For pity’s sake,
’ M. Meijer shouted in alarm as he lost his balance and crashed to the ground. ‘I warned you about emotion.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ he shouted. ‘This has to be the greatest of blessings, if only all humankind could experience this.’

  ‘What about friends? Isn’t that greater? It can certainly last longer.’

  ‘Friends!’ Yöst’s ebullience faded. He swung away, staring up at the beehive-shaped house on the distant hilltop. ‘Uncle Albert, I don’t remember when I’m airborne. No, that’s not right,’ he beat his fist against the palm of his other hand in frustration. ‘I do remember except it’s blurred, as if everything to do with my former life had been wrapped in mist. This morning when I flew over the beehive house, its outlines were precise and clear and I could remember everything that had happened in the past three years as if it was yesterday. A few hours later, those same images had become a blank; my mind empty. Even my words were stuck.’

  ‘Yes, there was something,’ he replied in response to M. Meijer’s evident concern. ‘Except I couldn’t put a name to it. It warned me to hurry back before I became lost. If that’s instinct,’ Yöst confessed, with a wry grin, ‘I’m a pretty pathetic bird.’

  M. Meijer guffawed. ‘Well, at least you sound more cheerful.’

  ‘It reminds me of … waves on the seashore, coming and going. I see figures in fields and I know somehow that image is important except I can’t remember why. I sense my memory is searching about, looking for something it has misplaced, without knowing where it can be found or even what it is. Why is that?’

  ‘It’s your nature, Yöst. While you are carinatae, you become one with nature and your earthly life among people fades.’

  ‘Why can’t I have both?’

  ‘Remember what I told you about a tadpole that becomes a frog. Once created, the frog cannot remember being a tadpole. That’s the way of nature … and of Zeus,’ he added hastily. ‘Unfortunately, love for earthly things results in so much passion and emotion, it weighs you down and ties you to the earth. With that degree of emotion, you could never maintain your carinatae form. That is why we are offered a choice. It’s not usual for the carinatae to opt for a human life because of its many difficulties. If we do choose that road, we cannot remain carinatae.’

  ‘Will I change every day?’

  ‘That again is your choice.’ M. Meijer’s smile was joyful, echoing his own experience so many years before. ‘At first, it will prove easier to spend the better part of each day as a human. After all, it’s been your state since birth. Gradually, you will discover that you require less sleep, and you will use those night-time hours to explore the heavens with the celeste.’

  ‘Why at night?’

  ‘Because the celeste never reveal themselves to mankind.’ Noticing the incredulous expression on the boy’s face, he hurried on, ‘That is something else you will miss, your initiation by the Black. Members of the clan promise … no, it’s more a sacred undertaking, never to reveal the celeste to humans. Don’t bother with that now, we can talk about it another day.’ He peered through the doorway. ‘It will soon be dark and you need to sleep.’

  It was a week before Yöst felt sufficiently confident to control how and when the metamorphosis from one state to another took place, each day finding his transformation easier, as if his joints had been oiled, although aware pain was never far away, waiting to strike at a weak moment. Pepe visited each day bringing food and although it was not the face he wanted to see, he was still very welcome … the click of the reins as the cart approached, recalling Yöst to the place he’d called home for more than three years. Pepe made no attempt to communicate, although once or twice, Yöst saw the giant regarding him with compassion and remembered that Pepe too had once been an outcast.

  It proved a dismal week, cold and uncomfortable, with nothing apart from a single chair and sacking to lie on. During this time M. Meijer kept silent about his concerns for his wife and the two children, aware in his fragile state Yöst couldn’t cope with anything other than his own survival. Surprisingly, though, the spartan conditions brought them closer together; M. Meijer expressing sympathy for Yöst’s confusion whenever he shifted back into his human form, scrabbling for clothes to put on, the shack anything but warm even with a stove. In the evenings, wary of losing his way, he didn’t travel far. Once they had eaten their meagre supper, he curled up at M. Meijer’s feet watching the stars, while M. Meijer smoked his pipe and told stories from his past, a past he had previously shared only with his wife.

  ‘Monsieur Meijer, why do we have to go north, why can’t we stay here now the priest has gone?’

  ‘Child, there is no going back, not from this. Have you not understood? Since we are known to be childless, if three children suddenly appear, gossip is bound to start up again. No, when you are ready, I will ask Pepe to drive us into town and there we will board a train and travel north.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘The past is over, Yöst, accept it. You can’t hold on to the life but you can its memories,’ he added. ‘Not the same as the real thing, I grant. Nevertheless, they are yours to keep for as long as you want to keep them.’ He waved his arm embracing the sky and trees on the far side of the river. ‘There’s an entire world waiting for you out there … surely you can be content with that.’

  Yöst stayed silent, unable to speak for emotion. Could this alteration that Monsieur Meijer spoke of in such glowing terms, really be worth losing the past? The discomfort and pain, the bewilderment at what was happening to him, when those first barbs thrust out through his skin, was that even comparable to the pain that struck whenever he dreamed of Rico, and woke to the knowledge that he would never see him again … at least, not in this life. Was possession of the skies really worth all that?

  Yet if he had possessed a pair of scales, the two sides, pain and joy, might they not have balanced out?

  Two days later, when he finally achieved the celeste, standing tall, with wings twice the length of his arms brushing the ground, that was the moment he began to understand the grandeur and value of what Zeus had gifted his children. No one apart from a god could have created something this perfect, his celestial shape no heavier than a strand of cotton floating on the breeze.

  Equally there were no words to describe his pleasure at being one with the skies, as if Zeus himself had offered him mastery of his kingdom. The second time he made that winged transformation, he flew high into the celestial plane viewing the curvature of the earth, and watching the moon revolve on its axis. They had learned about that in school. Twenty-eight days was the time the moon took to orbit the earth, less to rotate once on its axis. Now he understood why the cobs loved beyond anything their ability to shape-shift into the celeste. In addition to their bodies, they were able to retain all their human characteristics, including memory and speech.

  High in the sky, he called out, his cry as full of joy as it was of unshed tears, aware on his first flight when he was lost, it had been love that had carried him safely back to the place he had once thought of as home.

  ‘Zeus,’ he prayed, ‘grant me one wish. Let me return.’

  The End

  Yöst’s story continues in An Ocean of White Wings