The Swallow Man made a sound, once, quietly, like a laugh that had lost its way. “Huh.”
Anna squished her face down low to the ground to look at the angled pine needle from the perspective of others like it.
Shortly she sat back on her knees and looked up at the Swallow Man.
“Swallow Man?” she said, and the Swallow Man said, “Yes.”
“One day I would like to know everything, like you.”
Now the Swallow Man frowned in earnest, and he sat in silent thought for so long that Anna thought he might not ever answer. Eventually, though, he took a quick breath in, as small and sharp as the tip of a pine needle, and he began to speak.
“I do not know everything, my dear,” he said. “And I do not desire it, either. I cannot imagine it would be very pleasant. Knowledge is, of course, very important, because the things that we know become our tools, and without good tools at our disposal, it is quite difficult to remain alive in the world.
“But knowledge is also a kind of death. A question holds all the potential of the living universe within it. In the same way, a piece of knowledge is inert and infertile. Questions, Anna—questions are far more valuable than answers, and they do much less blowing up in your face as well. If you continue to seek questions, you cannot stray far off the proper road.”
Anna did not understand. “Why?”
The Swallow Man smiled. “Well done.”
If she had dozed, Anna woke; if she had only lain, she sat up. The old blue world passed out into the gray.
Again her eyes met the aged fisherman’s, and he smiled at her.
Anna sighed and turned her eyes back to the sea.
More time had passed around her closed eyes, and, slowly, it had succeeded in wearing away at the thickness of the clouds, enough for the sun to cast a clean shadow down onto the surface of the water.
It was the shadow of spread wings.
Anna squinted up against the diffuse brightness, toward the sky. It was a variety of bird she had never encountered before, so large that it seemed as if it shouldn’t fly. Like a guillemot’s, its belly was white, but as it banked and turned on the wind, she saw the rest of it shine out in the sun, black as shadow—head, back, and wings. Anna’s heart surged up to see it, as if her heart itself were a fishing bird, breaking through the surface of the still sea of her chest. Salt water stung her eyes. She wanted to yell out, to call to the bird in its own language, to cry and to hoot and to wave her arms, but before she could move, the bird tipped into the wind, circled, and sped off behind them.
The fisherman was smiling when Anna turned around to watch it disappear, but not because of the bird. His eyes were fixed over her shoulder.
“Look,” he said in his funny accent, and Anna turned back.
There, shading the horizon, far off ahead, a grouping of islands had broken out of the eternity of gray. Anna was on her feet in a flash, craning out beyond the prow, eager to see what new, strange country they were headed for, but the fisherman spoke again.
“Cold water,” he said. “Careful you don’t fall in.”
Anna wanted nothing less. She stood back, straight and tall, and looked out to the shore. There, hazy and indistinct, the great bulk of the land began to shade itself in behind the solidifying range of islands.
Yes. There it was.
It wasn’t going away.
The tears that had threatened to tug open her eyes when the shadow of wings had passed above her began to fall now, cool and soft, like a rain that broke through all the pressure of heaven. No matter what she’d feared, no matter even what she had thought she knew for certain, there was still a something at the end of the water, a new land and a new language and perhaps even new kinds of birds that could wink silently down at her from out of the sky.
Across the surface of the water, Anna’s shadow stood long and tall and sure, her head pointing straight to the coming country.
“What,” said Anna, as much to herself as to the fisherman, “what is out there?”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My love and thanks are due very first and foremost to Livia Woods, scholar, traveling companion, midwife to my notions, and bang-up amateur pastry chef.
Thanks and apologies to Kate Broad, who took the first brunt of my reflexive inability to properly process criticism.
Thanks also to Alexandra Lee Hobaugh for early reading and tireless cheerleading; to my parents, Bob and Kathy Savit, who did me the ultimate compliment of reading the book aloud to one another; to Bethany Higa, whom I really ought to call more often; to Nat Bernstein, who read well, advised well, and pushed me out of the nest when I needed to go; and, of course, to John Rapson for his attention, his help, and his true and priceless friendship.
Oh, and Greg Jarrett, too, I guess.
I am indebted to Brent Wagner and his faculty for teaching me to be an adult and professional artist; I hope this may begin to alleviate the absence of many long-overdue thank-you notes.
Likewise, I would like to thank all the teachers and surrogate parents in my young life who saw me through when I didn’t necessarily deserve it. People like me don’t get to places like this without you. Susan Hurwitz. Avi Soclof. Many, many others.
Immeasurable thanks to Catherine Drayton, who is a force of nature and who has changed my life. Thanks also to Lyndsey Blessing and all of my other InkWell champions, and to Kalah McCaffrey and Danny Yanez.
And, of course, great thanks to Erin Clarke, my editor and new friend; to her assistant, Kelly Delaney; to Erica Stahler, Stephanie Engel, Amy Schroeder, and Artie Bennett; and to the whole team at Knopf BFYR.
Thank you all!
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Anna and the Swallow Man Page 19
