This is a story about people, really, about how they are all still people, no matter where they come from, or where they go. It’s also a story about love, in a way, the kind of sincere and unadulterated love you can feel for a total stranger. One of these days, you’ll know what I’m trying to say here, maybe you already do; that day, let me know. I’d be grateful. This is a story of how we begin to remember, how a wind picks up the clouds from our eyes, leaving us to see some other, very distant, stars. We are stardust, they say…
Imagine a steep sided valley of sharp rocks and outcrops, scattered with patches of greenery. The sun is just rising and dawn’s mellow light appears to slide over the landscape like an avalanche of honey. The tinkle of music, wild and sure, climbs up from the valley bottom; both ruining and improving the peaceful scene. High among the crags (the locals call them the teeth) small flock of sheep begins to stir. Then, an inhuman howl resounds in the valley, filling every nook and cranny with dreams of horror and pain…
Jay stood up, clasping his rheumatic back firmly in his hands and sweating the pain away. Hearing the complaints of his dependants, he grabbed his crook and took a deep breath. Stumbling from under his shelter, he made to count the sheep, his chest heaving from the pressure. He reflected briefly that he might be getting too old for this after all.
The pain in his back had been intensified by the weather these days, forcing him to work less every day. His brow curling in concentration, he raised one arthritic finger to his lips and counted under his breath. He had the disconcerting impression that the valley was holding its breath; waiting. He ended with a half-hearted groan: two were missing; terrible by most standards, but for him it was an improvement.
They started as the clamour of the carnival renewed, echoing haphazardly against the valley sides to create a strangely hollow tune, both lilting and idyllic. Muttering under his breath, Jay checked his sheep one last time before setting out to search for the stragglers, trying hard not to think of the carnival down bellow. Of course, he could have been down there, enjoying himself with the rest of his friends and family; dancing the streets with irresistible joy. Yes, he might even survive it too… His face set in a grim mask, he started to walk… slowly. But he knew that, were he down there, he would not have survived the first day; he did not have the energy it demanded. Ecstatic, the carnival fever would have pushed him to show his joy and his body would have given up, incapable of sustaining the pressures. Better bored and alive than dead, he thought grimly.
Now, where were the little critters? The two missing were old lambs, two ewes; he thought he could hear one of them cry from over the lip of the nearest outcrop, it sounded scared but unhurt. Gritting his teeth, he pointedly ignored the insistent complaints of his rheumatism, and set himself to scrambling over the rock; it took him far longer than it should have. You are getting old, Jeremy, old! Jay ignored the jeering voice and tried to still the beat of his heartbeat against his temples so he could think. She was stuck on a tiny plateau a few metres down from the lip’s overhang. There was no way he could pull it up onto the rock, maybe years ago, but not anymore.
He had to find another way… wincing as he stood up, he searched around the area for a while, squinting slightly against the glare. That is one thing he had always prided himself on, he could still se better than any man in the city. Yes Jeremy, you can’t move but you can see all the places you can’t go. He grinned, showing precious few teeth, but those in good condition; Rubbing his hand through a mane of thinning white hair, he set off towards the other edge of the lip. Half-hobbling, half-tripping, he reached a large stone and sat there, looking precariously over the edge at the interminable fall below…
There, a meter or so down from the edge, a loose bush of Yew eked a living on the rocks. Setting his teeth, he reached down with his crook’s curled head to catch a tight knot of branches, shaking it a few times to make sure it was secure. His heart beating so hard that he feared it would give way, he paused to check his breath; wiping his weather tanned hands on his shirt, he positioned himself at the hoof of his crook. With a deep breath, he set the main body of the crook against the lip and used it as a lever; leaning on the tip so that the other end would tug the bush up and away from it’s crack in the cliff face. After an eternity of tugging at the crook’s hoof, it gave away and dropped him rather ungracefully on the floor.
The impact was still ringing his bones when he finally managed to disentangle the crook’s head from the branches and drag it over to the other side. Panting and chest heaving, both from pain and exertion, he lowered the bush down to rest on her platform and hit it hard a few times to make sure it was safe before whistling for her to come to him. He was gratified to see her comply, climbing disinterestedly up the bush’s tangled branches to clamber onto the lip’s surface.
Checking his crook, he ran a hand in the ewe’s wool and murmured comforting nonsense to her before guiding her back. He had always believed that the words he used were less important than the feelings with which he said them… Back at his shelter, he planted his crook into the soil and walked her into the flock. He stood there, hoping the wind would bring hints of where the other might be. It did not, not a sound or smell. Brushing his hands in their wool, he stood and thought, listening to the fractured echoes of the carnival’s melody diving among the valley walls. Lost in thought, he did not see her until she was there, standing small at the edge of the flock; a young child dressed and hooded in black rags.
With a smile, he noted that she held the younger lamb at her side; it was chewing on a mouthful of grass and soil with a ludicrously thoughtful expression. With a grin, he pulled his crook out of the ground and walked towards the child through his sheep, feeling lighter than he had before. As he walked, the child reached a pale hand up to her hood and pulled it down. He stopped in his track, sweat breaking on his temples. The child’s features were incredibly thin, almost skeletal and her skin as pale as mountain snow. Her mouth was almost lip-less and seemingly frozen in a sad smile, her hair ashen. But that was not what stopped him… it was her eyes. Cold and aloof, as if gazing across from another world, they seemed to tug at his very soul; beckoning. Forcing a smile, he brushed his hair back and walked the rest of the way, finally stopping a few feet away; his temples and the back of his shoulders drenched in sweat.
“Bles’t be, miss.” he intoned, his hands slipping along the crook’s shaft, “… I see ye got me lost lamb.” His back screaming for revenge, he gestured towards the shelter. ” ’D you like summin’ t’eat? ‘S not much there, but yer welcome t’some if ye want.” Hearing his words, he was surprised to realise that he meant them; no matter, the child deserved better. Blinking against the rising sun’s glare, he shut his mouth and waited for a sign that she even spoke the language. After all, he reasoned, I don’t see why they should all speak the same tongue as we do. Never letting her gaze drift from him, she let the lamb go and it ambled forward to join the flock, still chewing with an intent expression.
Somehow, that simple action was all it took to put him at ease; wiping the sweat from his brow, he gestured to the shelter and out of the sun with his crook. With no visible acquiescence, she followed. Jay wondered idly if her eyes might be the result of some strange illness, but somehow he knew that was not the case; there was something about that child that was wholly inhuman… a sense that she did not belong. Ignoring the crawling sensation in his back, he led her into the shelter and set himself to making breakfast.
Inside, she hobbled into the shadow and examined him from its relative safety. “So… erm. Where did ye find her?” he asked. Arthritis made any kind of manoeuvre either difficult or painful, breakfast was no different and his joints wailed for mercy as he wielded a pan over the fire. When she failed to acknowledge the question, he decided to give up talking, setting himself instead to the task at hand.
After a long, not altogether uncomfortable, silence and several minor burns, he set the pan down on his makeshift table and offered her a plate. When she did not take it, he lay it in front of her and cut the omelette in half before serving her. Then he sat back and watched to see her eat… she did not. “Are ye not hungry?” he inquired despairingly, turning his back to fill two small mugs with a very sweet and fragrant tea. When he turned back, she was eating, unhurriedly and with a subtle pleasure he could only guess. Shrugging, he balanced her cup by her plate and set himself to eating his portion… She left sometime during the meal without a word, and he soon forgot. Only once did he wonder where she had gone; when the carnival’s music sputtered and faded like a dying candle, leaving his valley filled with the gentle melody of silence…