Post by No Face on Mar 31, 2024 20:06:59 GMT -5
(Adeline leaves another letter at the Fens and leaves with a friend.)
The hottest of summer days in London were still pleasant most times, the clime of England defying the glowing sizzle that took over lands farther to the south. The Fens were no different. They might even have been England, too, in some sense--the hidden twin to England's own "Fens"--so they were mellow and warm in daylight, and lit by a single sun, it seemed, with a familiar hum of what should be, could be, insects a-buzz as they might have been anywhere.
The hole that once Adeline had leapt into emerged upwards still in a fan of vegetation, with the path away from the snarl of trees and brush that cloaked the Willow the only direction that gave an expansive view of the reed-pelted wetlands. It truly could have been England.
Except that there was a riding energy that the England of Adeline's birth did not share.
Cyrus called it "the hum," and to him that's what it was. Liessel Erphale had found it nigh debilitating. Aurelia Dumitru had been radiant with it.
It was here, an unignorable note that climbed right down the ear canal to the brain--or that got into the feet and made them itchy--that made quiet thoughts harder, and fidgeting more wild--or that filled the lungs with the giddy urge to laugh, to throw sheepish softness to the wind, to dance, to run, to leap, to hide--
It was more than it had been, when last she'd come.
The Indra's great iron armor was not here now.
It was like the air was beneath her skin. Foreign but not uncomfortable. Noticeable but overpowering. A buzzing current that Adeline Webber couldn’t decide if she liked or not. That was much like the Fens in general - a weird space between like and dislike. But this was the only hole in the border she knew how to cross.
Aurelia’s instructions were painfully clear. First was a stop to the Willow Tree where she sang a song about twinkling stars in the sky. Then it was to the house, eyes wary for any Fairies that might try and coax her into more songs or tales of mortal world. With each step she went closer and closer to the house until her hands started to shake with nerves.
She hoped that something would be waiting for her while also reassuring that if there was nothing, it did not mean the worst.
She'd had to fend off a creature that stood to her knee that looked made of flower petals, that wanted her to stand around so it could feel her hair. It had not seemed to know how to differentiate between her clothes and her hair, but she hadn't had to deflect it alone: the Willow had creaked to the side, the whole of it swaying in warning, and something else... the feel of it like walking into a spider's web and feeling it adhere to the skin of the face and arms... descended, unseen. Whatever was the source of that sensation, it ended, all at once and irrevocably, the demand and cowed the flower-petal being. The Willow ruled here, and the Willow had given its word.
The house had not been worked on since she'd last laid eyes on it. The Flynns had spent their scant time between the return from Harroway and their leavetaking with Aurelia in making the hole into Faerie safer from the world-side, and easier to climb out of from the Fens side.
So here was the half-recognizable, mostly living structure she'd last seen in the pre-dawn light. In the full light of the sun, it was covered in birds, and the air was filled with their chatter, the motion of the place alive with their hoppings and bickerings and teasings.
Where Aurelia had buried the dead shipsprite, the disturbed ground was untouched, and where she might have described finding the missive there was indeed nothing. But there were also no letters to be found anywhere. Not on the porch and not inside. The messages that Adeline Webber had given her had been borne away somehow, and Aurelia had secured them so that only one could read them.
The disappointment she felt was strong enough to steal her breath. “It’s okay.” She whispered aloud to no one but her and the Fens. “You expected this.” The reassurance wasn’t enough to take away the sting, but it did lesson the hurt. Squaring her shoulders for a fight she could not see, Adeline ventured deeper into the house.
As she walked, she pulled out a folded letter from her gifted Flynn kit and searched for a place to put it.
The roof was mostly rafters that were part of the living house, not from among the cut boards brought by the twins before they'd fully understood and struck a deal with the being (or beings) of the site. There were a few protected corners, and a stretch of real enclosed space.
There was a spot that had ashes. There were rafters above that she tilted her head back to look at. Adeline wasn’t sure where the best spot was to place her letter, or even if it was a good idea to do so. Sucking in a deep breath, she quietly wiped away the ashes left behind to clear a new space for her next letter.
The high chatter of the birds made its own kind of roof as Adeline sank down and made a space for the letter. Breezes shook the boughs surrounding the place, adding a rustle, and shadows flitted across her with every flight and flutter. One tiny blue bird with black legs as thin as pine needles and a sharp little black beak darted down and into the space behind her, landing on the leaf-strewn floor and unable to be still. It hopped in tiny little flicks of motion, and its head tilted in racheting little movements as it zeroed in on details. Adeline had its attention, but it watched while she worked.
The floor was dirt. Her nails and fingertips clawed that the dirt, making a space for the letter to be buried. The birds above snagged her attention, jerking her head up to look to listen to their chatter before back at the ground. A bird fluttered down though, blue with black legs hopping around in quick little movements.
"Hello." Adeline breathed, sitting back on her knees to look at the little feathered friend. "What are you doing down here away from your friends?"
The bird blinked at her, head still tipping as it regarded her, hopping backwards when she turned to regard it, but then hopping right back where it had been, its tiny claws leaving marks in the dirt.
Then it bowed forward, readied its wings, and took off right at her.
"You don't have to be -" the words were unfinished as the bird went straight for her.
She yelped, bringing her arm up to shield her face from its tiny claws.
She'd feel those claws, delicate and powered by small--though fervent--wings and a very lightweight bird, scrabbling for purchase along her arm, the dance of it, the beat of the wings sliding the attempts at a landing or a grip up her arm toward her elbow. The wings cooled the air toward her in their determined--panicked?--aggressive?--efforts--
The claws scratched her skin but did not cut. The feathers beat against her cheek but did not push. There was no bite of the beak. Adeline raised her head up over the edge of her arm. Blue eyes peering at little bead black ones. Without a word, she lowered her arm and stilled just enough to let the bird find purchase on her.
That made the difference.
The little blue bird's struggle finally got it up onto her stationary arm, where it stopped for a moment to stare at her--before that stillness on its part broke, and it was moving in those darting little movements again, this time up toward her sleeve, toward her shoulder.
Adeline sat very still on the ground in a pale pink dress summer dress with clear embroidered beads that were starting to fall off. Her hair was pulled back into a half updo with a matching bow leaving her neck and ears exposed. She breathed slowly, trying to remain as still as possible while the bird climbed along her.
It finally settled on her shoulder, tucking up close to her with a jittery determination before it stopped all that hopping.
"Are you finally comfortable?" Adeline asked the bird, turning her head just enough so that she could catch a glimpse of its blue feathers.
It tilted its head, which could have meant nothing or anything.
"I will accept that as a yes." She determined before looking down at the letter still in her hand. "I'm to bury this among other things. However, that seems to be put on pause for now." She eyed the bird again. "I shouldn't complain. The company is nice. But..." She looked up at the roof where the other birds were. "Why are you not up there?"
It resettled its feet, first one and then the other. Its weight was negligible. It grasped her shoulder, the fabric there, as well as it could, but made no reply to Adeline. It was, however, fixated on her face now that it was nearby.
"They don't seem so bad up there." She tilted her head. "A little noisy maybe but... then again, I'm not being quite myself." Adeline looked back at the blue bird.
It stayed. It did not suddenly speak, but it watched her and it stayed. And it would stay if she moved--to the best of its ability, balancing and adjusting unless she took pains to thwart it.
Some part of her had hoped...
Cutting the thought before it gave way to more sadness, Adeline took in a steadying breath. "Best get started then."
With the bird still on her shoulder, Adeline returned to digging.
It did nothing to get her attention, but every motion of her body, shift of her shoulder and back, it rode with a stubbornness.
"I thought you were Cyrus." She whispered to the bird while she dug. The letter had to be so deep - Aurelia told her to make sure of it. All the while, the words she had refused to think were now spoken aloud. "I don't know why but I had hoped."
The bird was a bird was a bird.
Only it was not acting like one now. It listened--couldn't help but hear--but could not answer if it understood; its head turned this way and that: those things were birdlike, to be sure. But it had approached, and now it stuck to Adeline as if tethered to her.
"Don't feel insulted though. It is fine that you're not." The depth was reached and she wiped her dirty hands on the pale pink dress without a care. "I still like you. I just had a small spark of hope. It's funny what a spark can do when you think about it." She placed the letter into the hole and opened the Flynn kit in search of other items.
The other birds came and went, mostly just dipping through and leaving again whenever they realized Something Is Moving down there. This one didn't budge.
"It can light a room. It can create a connection between two people, the kind that makes the world stop. It can light a fire -"
I want all fire to know you.
Adeline took in a sharp breath and looked around the thatched roof and the wood walls. "A spark can do many things." she whispered.
She was alone.
She was alone if she did not count the bird.
She was alone if she did not count that most of this house was alive.
She was alone if she overlooked the swarming, busy, carnival of birds.
She was alone, except that the Fens here and beyond were bright with curious beings of all descriptions, some hidden and some out in the sun beyond this space, moving freely.
"A spark can do many things." Adeline said with a little more confidence this time.
Uncertain if any of this would work, she dug through her Flynn kit and pulled out a few items. First was a small jar of salt. The second was a thick piece of white chalk. "Hold on." She told the bird before moving in a small circle on her knees, drawing the makings of a protection circle in the dirt.
The bird clung to her, dogged as ever.
It was only when her circle was nearly closed that it grew excited--in flits. Wings taking a beat--and then stopping, its feet trying to tighten, as if it forgot and then remembered to hold on.
Adeline closed the circle. It was larger than she expected, taking up most of the small room. But she wanted the hole on the inside.
"I hope there's enough." Opening the container, she began lining the inside of the dirt drawings with salt. A quick look over her shoulder at the bird had her asking. "Still doing good?"
With the circle closed, something came through the room like a breeze that stirred nothing.
The bird clung to her. It was clinging with all its might, though to Adeline the strength barely affected even the cloth at her shoulder.
"Here." Adeline reached for the bird's feet with the intent to move it to her knees. "it's more stable there than it is where you are at."
It pecked at her finger--again, fiercely, though to Adeline barely a tap. It fought to stay where it was.
"Okay. Okay. Okay." She said. "Stay there then." Leaving the bird to its own devices, Adeline studied the circle.
I want all fire to know you.
"Just so you're aware," Adeline said to the little bird. "I don't know if anything will come from this." All the same, she pulled out a pack of matches and lit one. The smell of oxidized sulfur filled the space. An orange glow with black smoke burned down the length of a matchstick. "Here goes nothing." She exhaled.
"Know my name." She spoke to the flame and to the circle and to the birds and to the air and to the very Fens itself. "Adeline Webber." And just when the flame was about to consume the matchstick, she dropped it onto the salt.
When Adeline relented, the bird shook its head, puffing its feathers all up and smoothing back down as if miffed or upset. Still, it didn't leave.
Not even when fire flared in her hand.
Know my name.
Adeline Webber.
It ate its way toward her fingers, and died to smoke as it fell to the salt, as if the smoke were its ghost.
After it went out down there, Adeline was still in the relative peace of the unfinished room, with all the lively sounds of the Fens just a little removed from her.
These were the workings of her spell. Markings in the dirt filled in with white grains of salt and a matchstick where grey smoke plumed into the air.
"Cyrus Singh." She whispered his name before speaking louder, as she tried to tap into the thrum of energy that filled the Fens. That buzzing that was just beneath the surface of bargains and promises made from those before and honored today by her. "He that is the wind to stoke the flames. Cyrus Singh. He that is made of iron from the fire. Cyrus Singh. I am fire. Hear my name. Adeline Webber."
How long would she wait?
The tiny tail of smoke from the match was already gone.
The blue bird seemed intent upon her and the blackened shrivel of a match below, as if it might have been a worm.
Adeline watched the smoke evaporate. The Fens were moving on around her. Just as the world beyond was moving on around her. Just as wherever Cyrus was continued to move on around her. Her eyes closed tightly, her fingers curling into fists at her sides as she concentrated harder on that buzzing sensation and the words she spoke.
"Please."
Nothing changed.
Nothing changed.
Adeline felt something crumble inside her chest, making it hard to breathe. Swallowing, she tilted her head back, trying to force air back into her lungs so that it might inflate something that hurt. Only when she was certain that pain was mastered did she look at the little bird with a sad smile.
"We tried." She admitted before placing the letter inside the hole she dug.
The bird did not answer.
But if she got up to go, it would do everything it could to stay perched on her shoulder. And if she left the house, the same. And if she went to the hole, the same.
The letter was buried. Pulling out a pocket knife, Adeline sliced her thumb and smeared her blood on a token that was given from Cyrus the last time Aurelia was here. A continuation of the previous spell to seal its contents for only him to see.
Having no where else to go, Adeline waited for a small time with the bird. Reaching to idly stroke its feathers if it would allow before finally rising to leave the house.
It ducked when her hand came in, and a little bobbing battle seemed to play out within it. Instinct to avoid vs absolute desire to remain glued to Adeline. The latter won, and Adeline would find the tiny bird delicate and soft, the feathers so fine that it was nearly impossible for the eye to discern where one stopped and others began.
It could not, did not, make any comment on her matchstick spell, and it remained mutely persistent.
"You are quite lovely." She said softly to the bird while she petted the little thing. "Thank you for sitting with me but I'm afraid I must go. I only have so much time here. It's part of the bargain."
The bird stared, and that was all it would do unless she tried again to dislodge it.
Rising from the ground, Adeline looked down at the little bird on her shoulder. "I do have to leave soon. I don't think you can stay with me forever." Making sure the bird was safe, Adeline left the house and entered back into the Fens.
It stayed, and even crept closer to her ear when a flight of fairies swept by, laughing together with a sound like many tiny bells. They left behind them the cloud of other birds over the house.
"You don't like them?" She whispered softly to the bird. "Neither do I. Here." Adjusting her hair, Adeline tried to hide the little blue bird from the sight of the faeries as she ventured closer to the exit.
She was speaking its language. It leaned in. It did reposition some of her hair, perhaps to make itself feel less entangled, but this it did not fight. It continued that mix of birdlike mannerisms and entirely unbirdlike determination, and tucked right up to her neck when she neared the way out.
"I don't know why you're so fixated on staying with me." She said to the little bird. "But let's see how far this will go." It wouldn't take long for her to reach the exit. "I have to jump but I'm worried you will get hurt."
No answer. It saw the hole, one eye trained on it for a moment, but all it did was flex a wing and quickly straighten three flight feathers with its beak.
"I make no promises for your safety." She said to the bird. "If this is what you truly want, then I won't fight it." Standing at the edge, Adeline counted down. "Three... two... one..."
And she jumped.
The bird actually freed one foot to use those ineffective claws to grip a small lock of her hair.
When Adeline jumped, the bird went with her, and her hair flew back and her dress shifted and its wings fanned this way and that in panicked attempts at anything resembling balance or grip--
Feeling the bird loses its grasp, perhaps some part of her anticipating it, she reached out to capture the bird between her hands and keep it cradled close to her as they begun to fall.
It let her.
If nothing else about it had been the antithesis of the way of birds, that permissiveness--even in distracted distress--unmistakably was.
She fell.
The bird fell.
And they would fall and fall, just as Adeline had experienced once before, until the fall transformed impossibly into something different--
Adeline Webber clutching a little blue bird to her chest fell down, down, down.
Waiting for down to turn into up.
Waiting for the world to right itself as she left the Fens to return home.
It was hard to know just how many rules Faerie followed, but perhaps at least the Borders followed some: Adeline would find herself rising instead, all as she remembered, and soon enough she would land in the bowels of the deep pit--also as she had to recall. Only, of course, the Flynns had been at work. The differences weren't great, but the going up would be easier on human legs and feet--
But in that first moment of coming back into the world, the surest sign being that the hum, that energy, was left behind and traded out for something her body knew and fit and understood and was in good synchronicity with... In that moment, when she'd found purchase back in the world, the bird was still in her hands, breathing fast (she'd feel it against her hands), every now and then making some convulsive struggle only to stop it just as quick), and when she had the light to look she'd find it somewhat scruffier than before, matted and miserable, but whole and alive.
And still a bird. Or something like one.
What a strange feeling to be relieved and so painfully despondent at the same time. She knew the walls of this manhole cover and saw that the bird was just a bird.
"You're okay." She said to the little creature, carefully placing it back onto her shoulders where it fought so hard to stay before.
"This is London or rather you are about to see London." She explained before making the slow trek back up.
And even up higher, when Adeline reached sight of the sky, the bird stayed. She would find that it was intent of remaining with her, even if she went indoors, or even with the noise of traffic.
For a brief moment, Adeline Webber took in the city. The familiar sights and sounds. She breathed in the smog air and detected scents of incoming rain.
"Well, we should head home then, yes?" She said to the little bird even as she started to walk. "You don't have to go with me but I do enjoy the company."
To her home Adeline went, carefully hiding the bird in her hair to keep any of the other girls from noticing until she reached her private room.
"It's not much, but this is home." She said, not feeling the slightest silly for speaking to a bird that followed her home from Faerie.
The bird, for the first time in a stretch, ventured to leave her with a half-winged, half-hopping flit to the next-nearest surface, peering around curiously.
The hottest of summer days in London were still pleasant most times, the clime of England defying the glowing sizzle that took over lands farther to the south. The Fens were no different. They might even have been England, too, in some sense--the hidden twin to England's own "Fens"--so they were mellow and warm in daylight, and lit by a single sun, it seemed, with a familiar hum of what should be, could be, insects a-buzz as they might have been anywhere.
The hole that once Adeline had leapt into emerged upwards still in a fan of vegetation, with the path away from the snarl of trees and brush that cloaked the Willow the only direction that gave an expansive view of the reed-pelted wetlands. It truly could have been England.
Except that there was a riding energy that the England of Adeline's birth did not share.
Cyrus called it "the hum," and to him that's what it was. Liessel Erphale had found it nigh debilitating. Aurelia Dumitru had been radiant with it.
It was here, an unignorable note that climbed right down the ear canal to the brain--or that got into the feet and made them itchy--that made quiet thoughts harder, and fidgeting more wild--or that filled the lungs with the giddy urge to laugh, to throw sheepish softness to the wind, to dance, to run, to leap, to hide--
It was more than it had been, when last she'd come.
The Indra's great iron armor was not here now.
It was like the air was beneath her skin. Foreign but not uncomfortable. Noticeable but overpowering. A buzzing current that Adeline Webber couldn’t decide if she liked or not. That was much like the Fens in general - a weird space between like and dislike. But this was the only hole in the border she knew how to cross.
Aurelia’s instructions were painfully clear. First was a stop to the Willow Tree where she sang a song about twinkling stars in the sky. Then it was to the house, eyes wary for any Fairies that might try and coax her into more songs or tales of mortal world. With each step she went closer and closer to the house until her hands started to shake with nerves.
She hoped that something would be waiting for her while also reassuring that if there was nothing, it did not mean the worst.
She'd had to fend off a creature that stood to her knee that looked made of flower petals, that wanted her to stand around so it could feel her hair. It had not seemed to know how to differentiate between her clothes and her hair, but she hadn't had to deflect it alone: the Willow had creaked to the side, the whole of it swaying in warning, and something else... the feel of it like walking into a spider's web and feeling it adhere to the skin of the face and arms... descended, unseen. Whatever was the source of that sensation, it ended, all at once and irrevocably, the demand and cowed the flower-petal being. The Willow ruled here, and the Willow had given its word.
The house had not been worked on since she'd last laid eyes on it. The Flynns had spent their scant time between the return from Harroway and their leavetaking with Aurelia in making the hole into Faerie safer from the world-side, and easier to climb out of from the Fens side.
So here was the half-recognizable, mostly living structure she'd last seen in the pre-dawn light. In the full light of the sun, it was covered in birds, and the air was filled with their chatter, the motion of the place alive with their hoppings and bickerings and teasings.
Where Aurelia had buried the dead shipsprite, the disturbed ground was untouched, and where she might have described finding the missive there was indeed nothing. But there were also no letters to be found anywhere. Not on the porch and not inside. The messages that Adeline Webber had given her had been borne away somehow, and Aurelia had secured them so that only one could read them.
The disappointment she felt was strong enough to steal her breath. “It’s okay.” She whispered aloud to no one but her and the Fens. “You expected this.” The reassurance wasn’t enough to take away the sting, but it did lesson the hurt. Squaring her shoulders for a fight she could not see, Adeline ventured deeper into the house.
As she walked, she pulled out a folded letter from her gifted Flynn kit and searched for a place to put it.
The roof was mostly rafters that were part of the living house, not from among the cut boards brought by the twins before they'd fully understood and struck a deal with the being (or beings) of the site. There were a few protected corners, and a stretch of real enclosed space.
There was a spot that had ashes. There were rafters above that she tilted her head back to look at. Adeline wasn’t sure where the best spot was to place her letter, or even if it was a good idea to do so. Sucking in a deep breath, she quietly wiped away the ashes left behind to clear a new space for her next letter.
The high chatter of the birds made its own kind of roof as Adeline sank down and made a space for the letter. Breezes shook the boughs surrounding the place, adding a rustle, and shadows flitted across her with every flight and flutter. One tiny blue bird with black legs as thin as pine needles and a sharp little black beak darted down and into the space behind her, landing on the leaf-strewn floor and unable to be still. It hopped in tiny little flicks of motion, and its head tilted in racheting little movements as it zeroed in on details. Adeline had its attention, but it watched while she worked.
The floor was dirt. Her nails and fingertips clawed that the dirt, making a space for the letter to be buried. The birds above snagged her attention, jerking her head up to look to listen to their chatter before back at the ground. A bird fluttered down though, blue with black legs hopping around in quick little movements.
"Hello." Adeline breathed, sitting back on her knees to look at the little feathered friend. "What are you doing down here away from your friends?"
The bird blinked at her, head still tipping as it regarded her, hopping backwards when she turned to regard it, but then hopping right back where it had been, its tiny claws leaving marks in the dirt.
Then it bowed forward, readied its wings, and took off right at her.
"You don't have to be -" the words were unfinished as the bird went straight for her.
She yelped, bringing her arm up to shield her face from its tiny claws.
She'd feel those claws, delicate and powered by small--though fervent--wings and a very lightweight bird, scrabbling for purchase along her arm, the dance of it, the beat of the wings sliding the attempts at a landing or a grip up her arm toward her elbow. The wings cooled the air toward her in their determined--panicked?--aggressive?--efforts--
The claws scratched her skin but did not cut. The feathers beat against her cheek but did not push. There was no bite of the beak. Adeline raised her head up over the edge of her arm. Blue eyes peering at little bead black ones. Without a word, she lowered her arm and stilled just enough to let the bird find purchase on her.
That made the difference.
The little blue bird's struggle finally got it up onto her stationary arm, where it stopped for a moment to stare at her--before that stillness on its part broke, and it was moving in those darting little movements again, this time up toward her sleeve, toward her shoulder.
Adeline sat very still on the ground in a pale pink dress summer dress with clear embroidered beads that were starting to fall off. Her hair was pulled back into a half updo with a matching bow leaving her neck and ears exposed. She breathed slowly, trying to remain as still as possible while the bird climbed along her.
It finally settled on her shoulder, tucking up close to her with a jittery determination before it stopped all that hopping.
"Are you finally comfortable?" Adeline asked the bird, turning her head just enough so that she could catch a glimpse of its blue feathers.
It tilted its head, which could have meant nothing or anything.
"I will accept that as a yes." She determined before looking down at the letter still in her hand. "I'm to bury this among other things. However, that seems to be put on pause for now." She eyed the bird again. "I shouldn't complain. The company is nice. But..." She looked up at the roof where the other birds were. "Why are you not up there?"
It resettled its feet, first one and then the other. Its weight was negligible. It grasped her shoulder, the fabric there, as well as it could, but made no reply to Adeline. It was, however, fixated on her face now that it was nearby.
"They don't seem so bad up there." She tilted her head. "A little noisy maybe but... then again, I'm not being quite myself." Adeline looked back at the blue bird.
It stayed. It did not suddenly speak, but it watched her and it stayed. And it would stay if she moved--to the best of its ability, balancing and adjusting unless she took pains to thwart it.
Some part of her had hoped...
Cutting the thought before it gave way to more sadness, Adeline took in a steadying breath. "Best get started then."
With the bird still on her shoulder, Adeline returned to digging.
It did nothing to get her attention, but every motion of her body, shift of her shoulder and back, it rode with a stubbornness.
"I thought you were Cyrus." She whispered to the bird while she dug. The letter had to be so deep - Aurelia told her to make sure of it. All the while, the words she had refused to think were now spoken aloud. "I don't know why but I had hoped."
The bird was a bird was a bird.
Only it was not acting like one now. It listened--couldn't help but hear--but could not answer if it understood; its head turned this way and that: those things were birdlike, to be sure. But it had approached, and now it stuck to Adeline as if tethered to her.
"Don't feel insulted though. It is fine that you're not." The depth was reached and she wiped her dirty hands on the pale pink dress without a care. "I still like you. I just had a small spark of hope. It's funny what a spark can do when you think about it." She placed the letter into the hole and opened the Flynn kit in search of other items.
The other birds came and went, mostly just dipping through and leaving again whenever they realized Something Is Moving down there. This one didn't budge.
"It can light a room. It can create a connection between two people, the kind that makes the world stop. It can light a fire -"
I want all fire to know you.
Adeline took in a sharp breath and looked around the thatched roof and the wood walls. "A spark can do many things." she whispered.
She was alone.
She was alone if she did not count the bird.
She was alone if she did not count that most of this house was alive.
She was alone if she overlooked the swarming, busy, carnival of birds.
She was alone, except that the Fens here and beyond were bright with curious beings of all descriptions, some hidden and some out in the sun beyond this space, moving freely.
"A spark can do many things." Adeline said with a little more confidence this time.
Uncertain if any of this would work, she dug through her Flynn kit and pulled out a few items. First was a small jar of salt. The second was a thick piece of white chalk. "Hold on." She told the bird before moving in a small circle on her knees, drawing the makings of a protection circle in the dirt.
The bird clung to her, dogged as ever.
It was only when her circle was nearly closed that it grew excited--in flits. Wings taking a beat--and then stopping, its feet trying to tighten, as if it forgot and then remembered to hold on.
Adeline closed the circle. It was larger than she expected, taking up most of the small room. But she wanted the hole on the inside.
"I hope there's enough." Opening the container, she began lining the inside of the dirt drawings with salt. A quick look over her shoulder at the bird had her asking. "Still doing good?"
With the circle closed, something came through the room like a breeze that stirred nothing.
The bird clung to her. It was clinging with all its might, though to Adeline the strength barely affected even the cloth at her shoulder.
"Here." Adeline reached for the bird's feet with the intent to move it to her knees. "it's more stable there than it is where you are at."
It pecked at her finger--again, fiercely, though to Adeline barely a tap. It fought to stay where it was.
"Okay. Okay. Okay." She said. "Stay there then." Leaving the bird to its own devices, Adeline studied the circle.
I want all fire to know you.
"Just so you're aware," Adeline said to the little bird. "I don't know if anything will come from this." All the same, she pulled out a pack of matches and lit one. The smell of oxidized sulfur filled the space. An orange glow with black smoke burned down the length of a matchstick. "Here goes nothing." She exhaled.
"Know my name." She spoke to the flame and to the circle and to the birds and to the air and to the very Fens itself. "Adeline Webber." And just when the flame was about to consume the matchstick, she dropped it onto the salt.
When Adeline relented, the bird shook its head, puffing its feathers all up and smoothing back down as if miffed or upset. Still, it didn't leave.
Not even when fire flared in her hand.
Know my name.
Adeline Webber.
It ate its way toward her fingers, and died to smoke as it fell to the salt, as if the smoke were its ghost.
After it went out down there, Adeline was still in the relative peace of the unfinished room, with all the lively sounds of the Fens just a little removed from her.
These were the workings of her spell. Markings in the dirt filled in with white grains of salt and a matchstick where grey smoke plumed into the air.
"Cyrus Singh." She whispered his name before speaking louder, as she tried to tap into the thrum of energy that filled the Fens. That buzzing that was just beneath the surface of bargains and promises made from those before and honored today by her. "He that is the wind to stoke the flames. Cyrus Singh. He that is made of iron from the fire. Cyrus Singh. I am fire. Hear my name. Adeline Webber."
How long would she wait?
The tiny tail of smoke from the match was already gone.
The blue bird seemed intent upon her and the blackened shrivel of a match below, as if it might have been a worm.
Adeline watched the smoke evaporate. The Fens were moving on around her. Just as the world beyond was moving on around her. Just as wherever Cyrus was continued to move on around her. Her eyes closed tightly, her fingers curling into fists at her sides as she concentrated harder on that buzzing sensation and the words she spoke.
"Please."
Nothing changed.
Nothing changed.
Adeline felt something crumble inside her chest, making it hard to breathe. Swallowing, she tilted her head back, trying to force air back into her lungs so that it might inflate something that hurt. Only when she was certain that pain was mastered did she look at the little bird with a sad smile.
"We tried." She admitted before placing the letter inside the hole she dug.
The bird did not answer.
But if she got up to go, it would do everything it could to stay perched on her shoulder. And if she left the house, the same. And if she went to the hole, the same.
The letter was buried. Pulling out a pocket knife, Adeline sliced her thumb and smeared her blood on a token that was given from Cyrus the last time Aurelia was here. A continuation of the previous spell to seal its contents for only him to see.
Having no where else to go, Adeline waited for a small time with the bird. Reaching to idly stroke its feathers if it would allow before finally rising to leave the house.
It ducked when her hand came in, and a little bobbing battle seemed to play out within it. Instinct to avoid vs absolute desire to remain glued to Adeline. The latter won, and Adeline would find the tiny bird delicate and soft, the feathers so fine that it was nearly impossible for the eye to discern where one stopped and others began.
It could not, did not, make any comment on her matchstick spell, and it remained mutely persistent.
"You are quite lovely." She said softly to the bird while she petted the little thing. "Thank you for sitting with me but I'm afraid I must go. I only have so much time here. It's part of the bargain."
The bird stared, and that was all it would do unless she tried again to dislodge it.
Rising from the ground, Adeline looked down at the little bird on her shoulder. "I do have to leave soon. I don't think you can stay with me forever." Making sure the bird was safe, Adeline left the house and entered back into the Fens.
It stayed, and even crept closer to her ear when a flight of fairies swept by, laughing together with a sound like many tiny bells. They left behind them the cloud of other birds over the house.
"You don't like them?" She whispered softly to the bird. "Neither do I. Here." Adjusting her hair, Adeline tried to hide the little blue bird from the sight of the faeries as she ventured closer to the exit.
She was speaking its language. It leaned in. It did reposition some of her hair, perhaps to make itself feel less entangled, but this it did not fight. It continued that mix of birdlike mannerisms and entirely unbirdlike determination, and tucked right up to her neck when she neared the way out.
"I don't know why you're so fixated on staying with me." She said to the little bird. "But let's see how far this will go." It wouldn't take long for her to reach the exit. "I have to jump but I'm worried you will get hurt."
No answer. It saw the hole, one eye trained on it for a moment, but all it did was flex a wing and quickly straighten three flight feathers with its beak.
"I make no promises for your safety." She said to the bird. "If this is what you truly want, then I won't fight it." Standing at the edge, Adeline counted down. "Three... two... one..."
And she jumped.
The bird actually freed one foot to use those ineffective claws to grip a small lock of her hair.
When Adeline jumped, the bird went with her, and her hair flew back and her dress shifted and its wings fanned this way and that in panicked attempts at anything resembling balance or grip--
Feeling the bird loses its grasp, perhaps some part of her anticipating it, she reached out to capture the bird between her hands and keep it cradled close to her as they begun to fall.
It let her.
If nothing else about it had been the antithesis of the way of birds, that permissiveness--even in distracted distress--unmistakably was.
She fell.
The bird fell.
And they would fall and fall, just as Adeline had experienced once before, until the fall transformed impossibly into something different--
Adeline Webber clutching a little blue bird to her chest fell down, down, down.
Waiting for down to turn into up.
Waiting for the world to right itself as she left the Fens to return home.
It was hard to know just how many rules Faerie followed, but perhaps at least the Borders followed some: Adeline would find herself rising instead, all as she remembered, and soon enough she would land in the bowels of the deep pit--also as she had to recall. Only, of course, the Flynns had been at work. The differences weren't great, but the going up would be easier on human legs and feet--
But in that first moment of coming back into the world, the surest sign being that the hum, that energy, was left behind and traded out for something her body knew and fit and understood and was in good synchronicity with... In that moment, when she'd found purchase back in the world, the bird was still in her hands, breathing fast (she'd feel it against her hands), every now and then making some convulsive struggle only to stop it just as quick), and when she had the light to look she'd find it somewhat scruffier than before, matted and miserable, but whole and alive.
And still a bird. Or something like one.
What a strange feeling to be relieved and so painfully despondent at the same time. She knew the walls of this manhole cover and saw that the bird was just a bird.
"You're okay." She said to the little creature, carefully placing it back onto her shoulders where it fought so hard to stay before.
"This is London or rather you are about to see London." She explained before making the slow trek back up.
And even up higher, when Adeline reached sight of the sky, the bird stayed. She would find that it was intent of remaining with her, even if she went indoors, or even with the noise of traffic.
For a brief moment, Adeline Webber took in the city. The familiar sights and sounds. She breathed in the smog air and detected scents of incoming rain.
"Well, we should head home then, yes?" She said to the little bird even as she started to walk. "You don't have to go with me but I do enjoy the company."
To her home Adeline went, carefully hiding the bird in her hair to keep any of the other girls from noticing until she reached her private room.
"It's not much, but this is home." She said, not feeling the slightest silly for speaking to a bird that followed her home from Faerie.
The bird, for the first time in a stretch, ventured to leave her with a half-winged, half-hopping flit to the next-nearest surface, peering around curiously.