Bird by Rita Murphy Page B

it.
    “The Hounds won’t like it.”
    “Blast the Hounds. They’ll never know. Come here, then, miss.”
    “What?”
    “Come on, now. No fear.” I stood up, shook the sand from my clothes and walked over to him.
    “Now, put the belt around your waist.” I did as he instructed. He took the twine and double- and triple-knotted it around the belt’s buckle, not a weaver’s knot, but the hard, fast knot of a fisherman.
    “Now take off your boots.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “If I do, I might get picked up.”
    “That’s the point, miss.”
    “Oh, no. Please, Farley. You don’t understand. It’s frightening being picked up.”
    “But to be a great lady, you can’t fear the wind. What if you have to go out to survey your lands and check to make sure the peasants are well fed? Will you be forever holed up in your palace?” I laughed. “Besides, it’ll be different this time. You won’t get taken. I’m here and I’ll hold firm. Do you trust that I’ll hold you?”
    “Yes. I do trust you, of course.” And I meant it. Farley was the person I trusted the most, though I had known him such a short time. He didn’t think me strange for my size or tease me for my fear. He understood something about me that not even I understood.
    “Well then?” I looked down at my heavy boots and Farley’s bare feet and I longed to feel the sand against my soles. “You’ll have to leave them behind.”
    “Yes, but I cannot promise what will happen, even whether I’ll be taken. The wind is unpredictable.”
    I bent down and began unlacing my boots. When they were free, I tossed them onto the beach and dug my toes into the sand, the way any other person might. Perhaps I had once, as a small child, felt this sensation, but I could not remember. For me, it was entirely new, like tasting a sweet fruit for the very first time. The sand’s warm grains caressed the bottoms of my feet. I longed to stand in it forever, but Farley was impatient.
    “Come on now,” he urged. “The wind is picking up. Take off your coat.” I slid out of my coat and dropped it on the blanket. I took Wysteria’s key ring and placed it beside the coat, feeling lighter than I had in a long time.
    “What should I do?”
    “Run. Run like we do with the kites. Make believe you’re the Dragon and I’m holding your line.” The line was long enough for me to run ten or twelve yards down the beach away from him. I’m sure it must have looked ridiculous, Farley holding on to me with a ball of twine, but I did as he said.
    “When you feel yourself starting to lift off, yank on the line so I’ll know.”
    “You’ll know,” I yelled over the wind. It did not take long. A gust swept under me and I was suddenly airborne. I yanked at the line, but by then it was obvious that my feet were no longer on the sand. Farley braced himself, wedging his legs between two large boulders near our blanket.
    “Will you look at yourself !” I heard him exclaim.
    I cannot fully describe the feeling of being lifted off the ground—I can only say it makes your stomach jump and something in your chest squeeze tightly about your heart. I waited for the moment when I would tumble out of control, be sent hurtling into a tree or against the cliffs. I braced for impact, but it did not come. Surprised, I lifted my head into the wind and saw only the open sky before me. Slowly, I put my arms out to my sides and glided above the beach, above the rocks and the gulls digging for clams, and above Farley, who stared up at me not in fear or disapproval, but in amazement. I could feel his strength on the other end of the line. I was airborne, and for the first time that I could remember, I was not afraid. As I soared above the earth, a sure and certain knowing swept over me that with Farley as my anchor, I could lean into the wind and it would carry me.
    Farley was trying to tell me something, but I could not hear his words over the rush of the wind.
    He mimed his request