Sarah (Sidhe)

Childhood

When Sarah was a little girl, her mother would let her play in her garden. That was paradise to her. The budding roses were her closest friends. She could confide in them, and on spring afternoons, she would read stories to the flowerbeds. Even if she didn't know all the words in the books she got from her father's library, she would make up endless flourishes in the tales she told. The flowers always listened attentively, and the butterflies hovered near, soaking in the beauty of it all. When a breeze blew through the garden, Sarah would wish for wings to carry her off with the wind.

Youth

Sarah was an impatient young woman. Though she was repeatedly caught and chastised, she couldn't help sneaking out of her bedroom window on warm spring nights. She'd climb down the tree by her window and escape. Barefoot, she'd run through the moonlight and return in the middle of the night.

Her bedroom was a prison. She'd set stuffed animals on the windowsill and they'd watch the moon with her. She loved how the moon kissed the distant mountains and wanted to walk on that ground.

She ran away from home at 17.

The Oathcircle

Arthur, Jack, and Runcible found her in the parking lot of a Seven-Eleven. The rips, tears, and stains in her clothes made her look more like a feral animal than a 17-year-old woman. She'd been homeless for many weeks, and her dream was slowly turning into a nightmare. Running from one city to the next, she had journeyed from Albuquerque to Tucson to San Diego, and on to Northern California. The money stolen from her parents was running out, and the trip was slowly destroying her. Bathroom sinks are no substitute for a good shower, and the change she picked up on the street didn't buy decent food.

She began traveling up and down the coast with her oathcircle in Arthur's van. They were close. They had to be, living on the edge like that. They watched each others' backs.

When they ran out of gas money, they crashed in a house with a group of college students near a small university in Santa Cruz. The other three wanted to rest up for a while, and the motley soon considered the town their home, though Sarah always preferred the open road. She saved some money and then always made sure their was gas in the van so that when the spirit took them, they could take a trip along the Pacific Coast Highway, singing with the radio. She finally had her wings.

She was fond of tie-dye T-shirts and never kept the same boyfriend for more than a week, she could fall in love at the drop of a hat, and her mood swings made a hurricane look like an afternoon calm.

They used to gather around the fireplace every night (Sarah no longer remembers why). They had performed a ritual by it the first night. Her friends always argued. One night, she couldn't stand it and ran out of the house to be alone. She found their arguments trivial. Maybe they're spending too much time together. Arthur was jealous of how much time she was spending with Jack, and was always angry. Sarah figured he couldn't understand why she didn't want to spend her time trying to heal his endless bitterness.

After wandering by the oceanside, she found a swing-set by the beach. She was delighted. She tried to see how high she could go, carried through the sea breeze, daydreaming of a place over the sea to be alone; maybe an island with a garden like her mother's. She closed her eyes. She slipped.

The Lover

When she opened her eyes, she was bleeding into the sand. She tried to brush the sand away from her wounds but a hand stopped her. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around the cut on her arm. Wordlessly he picked her up and carried her to the his car. Methodically, he fetched a first aid kit from his car and cautiously tended to her.

Sarah's heart stopped. She looked up sweetly, smiled, brushed the hair out of his eyes, and descended into the longest kiss she had ever experienced. She moved in with him.

For months, each day was bliss. She did everything for love of him. Even when cooking plain rice for dinner, she thought about their candlelight dinner. Washing his socks made her want to keep his feet warm. Washing the sheets made her smile about other things. She occasionally thought about her old friends, but their faces became hard to remember.

Who knows what went wrong. He did everything the world told him to do to make her happy, mostly buying her things. They grew cold. Candlelight dinners became TV dinners and watching sitcoms.

10 years later, she has two kids. She sits by the kitchen window and looks into the backyard. Her husband spends more and more time away at work. The rose garden she planted is struggling since she doesn't have her mother's green thumb. Looking out the window makes her have trouble concentrating. Then the phone rings or the baby cries. The television drones in the corner to drive away loneliness. Her husband comes in at odd times, and drunk as often as not. She can't remember the faces of her friends.

Postscript

One day, Jack showed up at her door. He hadn't aged a day. They had some wine and sat and talked, though Jack seemed nervous. He asked about her life and she told him ending with "I have nothing outside my window except piles of dried leaves. Why? Why?"

And he answered, running his hand along her back. She dropped her drink. Jack left.

Now, on lonely nights when her husband is sleeping, she wanders the confined of her prison, learning to be silent. She might steal ice cream from the freezer in the middle of the night, turn down the television and stare into the screen at 3 am, then sneak up to the attic. It's where she can remember things she's set aside. She sits there and the tears roll down her face. She keeps boxes of old possessions there, and occasionally looks at the vestiges of her youth, remembering the past.

One treasure she keeps is a long white box. When she needs to remember the past, she opens it, unfolds the tissue paper, and looks inside. She can remember the faces of her friends. Inside the box, two gossamer leaves rest like fragile butterflies. They remind her of wind that will never come again. They remind her of the sacrifice she made for love. She sits and cries, and looks at what's left of her beautiful wings.