WHIMSY
Autumn 1958
Winter was Fable’s middle name but her least favourite season, shipwrecked halfway as it was between Raff Going and Raff Coming. And the winter of fifteen and three-quarters was proving interminable. The summer of fifteen had been full of Raff sightings and even, remarkably, close encounters. The latter being the only thing sustaining her now through the months of Raff gossip laid on thickly by Adriana. Had Adriana known how famished Fable was for any word of Raff’s faraway uni adventures, or how much her gloating reportage of Raff’s latest model-beautiful, college-sophisticated girlfriend hurt, she couldn’t have wielded more power. Enduring Adriana all through autumn, winter and spring just for the summertime boon was tough going.
A sigh escaped Fable. She reached automatically to cover her mouth, but there was no one awake for miles – the splendorous dawn hour was hers alone. Orchard Hill, here overlooking Heartwood, was her favourite place to watch as morning light limned the valley with gold. It wasn’t a perfect vantage point. Enclosed within their steep mountain basin, Fable could only invent the full, theatrical colour of the coastal dawn from the spilling crescendo which lipped the ranges. She might one day come to begrudge these restricted horizons, to resent being left behind in the small antechamber of regional life. But here and now, on Orchard Hill, Fable felt herself an enchantress, conjuring forth the day. Magic quivered in every atom. The future was a green bud, perfect and complete, already curled within her.
This was Fable’s morning pilgrimage: escaping secretly through her bay window, from behind her now lockable sunroom doors.
Following Sonnet’s degrading announcement of her menarche to all and sundry, Fable had gone privately to Gav to petition for a lock on her doors – which he had done without question, and without consulting Sonnet. Sometimes, when especially irritated with her sister, Fable enjoyed a revenge daydream of the door-rattling moment Sonnet tried to sneak into her sunroom, and met unyielding physical resistance.
Fable kept her door locked at all times.
Some mornings, Fable slipped out of her window bare of foot and hand, threading between the giant golden orb webs built in the garden overnight, tiptoeing past the grass spiders’ faerie handkerchiefs. Other times, she carted watercolours, pencils and notebooks along with her. She had not yet mastered either the description or depiction of the valley sunrises and despaired of her skills, which failed her dreaming heart, time and time again.
Every morning so far, she’d managed to sneak back in through her window before breakfast, with no lectures from a bossy sister. But Fable’s hackles rose when she even thought of Sonnet having the nerve to criticise her for secretiveness, when the whole town knew Sonnet had been hiding out in Old Man Shearer’s bookstore for over a year.
What Sonnet was doing in there behind the newspapered windows was anyone’s guess, and Fable heard people make plenty of guesses: pawing through his undies drawer, maybe sniffing his pillow, burning books, spying on passing townsfolk, or playing some imaginary game of bookstore owner; serving make-believe customers and giggling with the ghost of Alfred Shearer.
Fable snorted. Thank goodness Sonnet’s shop renovations were almost finished. The Hamilton girls should not provide any more cause for ridicule. The bullseye on Fable’s back was already big enough without Sonnet making a spectacle. After the shop’s grand reveal next month, they could finally put this whole strange chapter behind them.
Fable reached for the sugarcane flower rescued earlier. She held it before the sunrise, squinting so that light flared through the silvery-lilac feather duster. Inflorescence: the name of the flower faerie she was currently working on, though her sun-speared sugarcane skirts were coming out all wrong in sketches. She needed more time for practice.
If she could evade Sonnet late this afternoon, she’d come out again, armed with her sketchbook. The golden hour, as the sun slipped towards the western ranges, suffusing the valley with light, was Fable’s second favourite. Sunset was best enjoyed at the creek: sunlight glittering on the water even as darkness slid up from valley floor to looming peak, swallowing mountains whole. ‘Darkrise’, Sonnet had coined it, and though it nearly choked Fable to use her word – Sonnet was right.
It was much harder to get out for a sunset. Sonnet was always in a mad flap – hurrying them into baths, hushing Plum’s pre-dinner whingeing with both exaggeration and ineffectualness, packing lunches with one hand and ironing uniforms with the other, while stirring saucepans with her foot. Sonnet’s amplified stress made Fable’s own heart beat faster, her breath come shorter. Sonnet called it the ‘witching time’, referring, Fable supposed, to the way she turned into an unbearable witch. Evenings were calmer when lucky Plum had escaped to Heartwood for a sleepover. If only Fable were permitted the same freedom.
Fable’s coping strategy had been to hide down the creek at dinner time, until her aunt had put a stop to it with a distinctively Olive lecture about Sonnet’s job being hard enough and how Fable’s help could make such a difference. Blah, blah, blah. Fable couldn’t understand how her casual flinging of knives and forks onto the table made one iota of difference to Sonnet – nevertheless, she had reined in her sunset forays.
Well, mostly . . .
She’d made stubborn exceptions for herself during Raff’s last homecoming, after the serendipitous discovery that she was not the only one who enjoyed meditative time alone in the rainforest. Close to dusk, Raff could be found scything quietly along the creek in his kayak, arms moving confidently at the paddle. Or, he might be encountered walking home again, strong, tan arms holding aloft the kayak as he negotiated the narrow pathway. And though her face froze up and all words were sucked into a gormless whirlpool, just raising wide eyes to Raff’s as he passed by with a chummy greeting, was everything.
One afternoon, Zephyr had followed her to the creek, and Raff’s grin as the dog bounded up to him with a bark of long familiarity was heart’s elixir. When he gently stroked Zephyr’s tawny pelt, it was her skin which shivered with pleasure; her hair that stood on end. From that afternoon on, she made a point of whistling for Zeph every day as she set off on her meanderings. That Olive and Gav were soon singing her praises daily as diligent dog-walking niece did not cause Fable a moment’s guilt. In the realm of contrived coincidences, she was comfortably innocent.
If Raff thought it odd that Fable was always at the creek at the precise time of his solitary kayak, he didn’t let it show. In her most regularly played fantasies, he actually slowed his pace to ensure they caught each other.
On Raff’s last day in Noah for another long year, a miracle had occurred. Standing aside for Fable on the cane bridge, Raff handed her a treasure: one solitary Ulysses butterfly wing cast asunder, and found glistening on a rock.
‘Got any use in your scrapbook for this, kiddo?’
Fable received the iridescent blue wing in her cupped hands with the reverence of one taking communion. And, looking up at him, finally found her words. ‘So, you’re still pulling wings off bugs, then . . .’
He chuckled, and his serious lips stayed curved to one wry side long after she had passed by.
For days, Fable petted that delicate wing like a lucky charm capable of bringing Raff home again, or speeding up the endless months of school ahead. Eventually, the wing had disintegrated in her hands; turquoise glitter falling through her fingers. In a fit of fancy, she smeared the last iridescent shimmer on her forehead, behind which she guarded his image.
Sonnet, predictably, had ruined it with one swipe of pungent tea towel.
So now, Fable was waiting the long way. How long? Still five dry months to go!
Fable sighed again, and blew hard at the cane arrow; scattering the shiny motes into the golden light.