Black Pearls - Louise Hawes [23]
There are other boys and girls my own age left here, but none younger than twelve. So we are half what we were, forlorn and sorrowful, though some of the parents have not given up hope. Even now, a full year since the piper led the children away, they light candles and place them in the front windows of their houses each night. Sometimes, when I am coming back from errands, I look up to see lonely shadows standing watch at all these windows. Our churches are filled to overflowing with mothers and fathers praying that their sons and daughters will be restored to them. Two crosses of white stone have been erected in the foothills outside the city gates, one on each side of the place where Berta's little sister and I saw the entrance to the cave.
As for Berta, her mother guards her so closely now, she is not even allowed in church. When Father sends me out with the wagon, I always drive past her house in hopes of talking to her. But all I see is a shadow peering from behind the windows, a shadow I fancy is Berta, waiting for another chance to run away.
And me? My good leg has not recovered from my climb up the mountain. It pains me often now, and Father says I am useless. Perhaps he is right, for I am grown sickly, too, like my mother. Sometimes I burn more wood than I work, sitting by the fire and shivering, even when the day is warm.
I have not forgotten the song of wings or the place the piper's music promised me. I remember every note, and I sing them over to myself when I am feeling well enough to work at the bench. I do not know if such a paradise exists or if, as the town fathers all say, the rat-catcher fooled the children and marched them into slavery. Use's dream, you see, never came true. Her mother died a few weeks after Use and the others disappeared. I went to see her once. I told her how Use longed for her to get well, but she only sighed and turned her face to the wall. Magic and life are both like God's will, impossible to understand.
I have put words to the rat-catcher's melody, words that speak what his pipe played. "Every hope you've ever hoped, every dream you've dreamed."It is a song I dare not sing aloud, but it is seldom out of my heart. "Every plan you've ever planned, every scheme you've schemed."Now and then, Father looks at me darkly, as if he knows what I am thinking. "Sit up straight," he growls. He shakes his head and nods at my leg, propped on a stool to keep it from throbbing. "You have carved too deep there," he will say, pointing. Or, "Do you want to shame me with that finish?"
I do not care. I draw my leg under the table and bend over my work so he cannot see my face. I keep singing, inside, where only I can hear. When I come to the part about rising off the ground like an egret, about letting my legs dangle in the sky, I feel those two burning kisses again on my back.
He who dares to follow me,
he who dares to fly,
shall set the wind against his breast,
shall see with God's own eye.
I swear to you, my new wings start to sprout, to unfurl in that small, close room where I work under my father's scornful gaze. The certainty comes stealing over me then, a tingling bright and clear as the bells of St. Bonifatius. Once more the piper promises me, once more the pledge is made—it will not be long before I, too, have flown away.
Mother Love
The first thing she noticed was that she wasn't cold anymore. When she opened her eyes to see if someone had stoked the fire, there was a pair of bare feet on the earthen floor in front of her. She had fallen asleep over the mending, and her fingers tingled, either from wearing a thimble too long or from the spectacular warmth that filled the whole room.
Gretel knew it was her angel even before she looked up, even though when she did, there were no wings. Or perhaps, she thought afterward, they had been folded behind,