ChapterSix
The Lovingale
I woke up at my most favorite time to wake up. But the colors I saw this morning were far brighter than the colors I often saw through my window back home. These colors—painted by a fair Artist’s hand—they were colors I had not seen for quite some time. They reminded me of things I hadn’t really thought about. Little things that should be thought about daily and appreciated.
Brilliant shades of pink and gold and crimson. Wonderful colors that left me in awe. I felt the sunlight come through the windows to me. It touched my skin and I loved it immensely.
My back was a mite sore from the night spent on the floor, but I forgot all about it when I realized I was all by myself.
I guess I was scared for a minute. I had never been here before or anywhere like it, and my siblings were gone. So there was nothing else I could do but go out the door alone.
Magnolias waved at me. Its flowers, whites and delicate.
I went out the gate and peered down the path sloping into town. I could see the village; it was just a little walk away. I could hear distant chattering and laughing. This corner of the world was waking up now.
I told myself I was going to explore.
After smoothing my hair down and tying it in a low ribbon down my back, I collected my boots, short and black with a dozen laces criss-crossed, and left the Lovingale.
My second friend I encountered was near a river, which I followed by its sound. I went through trees and trees and thought I was going to be lost, but I heard water swishing and splashing and I found myself fighting against thick brush and tall grass. I pushed myself out of the woods and stood before the river. It lapped against itself like a miniature ocean. The water wasn’t crystal and salty, but it was strong. I walked into the sand and watched that magnificent river. It was so big. So big and wide. This must be the Mississippi.
“Apple?”
I gasped at the sudden voice. It was simply a boy standing beside me.
“You scared me. I’m sorry.”
He held out an apple to me. His brassy hair swayed over his shoulders like Artie. And his eyes—blue, blue, eyes.
“I…” I hesitantly took his offering. “Thank you.”
“Take off your boots,” he told me. He scratched his head. His mouth twitched. But his eyes stayed on me.
“Why, if I may ask?”
“ ‘Cause.” Then his eyes darted past me and he looked around himself proudly, as if he owned the river.
I felt I had to ask, for the fun of it.
“Do you own this river?”
He chuckled. “Me? Nah. But ain’t it pretty nice?” He scooped up a palmful of muddy sand. He looked at me again. “Take off your shoes,” he repeated. “I de-taste shoes.”
“You mean, de-test?”
He looked at me like I was completely bonkers so I ceased trying to correct the people’s speech around here. Apparently, I was lost in thought again and was awakened when he said more urgently, “Take off your shoes!”
I blinked back my surprise and swiftly removed my shoes and stockings and my feet thanked me for it. My toes stretched luxuriously, and felt the sand between them. “What a nice feeling,” I admitted and picked up a clump of it and watched it fall through my fingers.
“Toldya so,” he said with a breezy laugh. He watched me take a bite into the apple and laughed like Felix when I flung it as far as I could away from me with a squeal.
“You naughty boy,” I scolded. “I nearly ate the head of a caterpillar in there.”
He bent over and laughed and pointed at me. I was used to that sort of thing so I shook my head and left.
“Wait!” he chased after me. “Have another one.” And out he produced another. “This one here’s safe. It ain’t got no bugs in it.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded bigly and I could sense that he was a trusting person who could also be trusted. I liked that about him. “I promise,” he nodded his head and assured me it was safe. I noticed all of his different facial expressions. He was a bit like Felix. They both liked to move and stretch and never sit still.
I tossed the apple up into the air and then back to my hand a few times.
The boy looked a little younger than me but a mite older than Felix. I guessed him to be fourteen, and so I asked.
“Yup, fourteen,” he said plainly, touching his chest with a finger. He snickered to himself a lot, and played with his own fingers, something I could tell in our small five minutes together. Merriment glistened in his eyes and as well as in his voice. He was happy, very happy. And he made me happy just being around him. A presence like Felix. “I have a brother around your age. I have a feeling you’ll like him. He’s looking for a friend.”
I then looked past him and up at a tall, tall, tree that was wider than the other trees around it. The branches extended out every which-way and leaned against other trees. The leaves were thick and alive and oh, so green.
“That’s my tree,” he informed me, in a warning sort of way.
“Really?” I took several steps towards it and he followed me. “You climb this tree? It’s so big and tall.”
“I can do it,” he said. And in half of two minutes, there he was, seated on a branch above me, swinging his legs and glinting down at me. He laughed at me again, me who must have seemed so small.
“You’re very good at that,” I told the boy.
He ducked behind a branch. “You can’t do it,” he teased.
I furrowed my brows. “Let me try before you sound so sure of yourself.”
“You can’t see me now,” he chortled while he waved at me and peeked his head around the other side of the branch, like it was the most cleverest thing. “I’m up here and you’re down there. You’re like the ants and I’m like an eagle. Eagles eat ants, you know.” He laughed again. “Bet you didn’t know that, huh?”
I wondered at him. But I didn’t ask any questions, because truthfully, I wanted this moment to last. Right now, I didn’t want someone to argue with me and think I was just a stupid child like Henry always did. I wanted someone who was simple and pleasing. This boy refreshed me with his sense of charm and the playful way about him that made me smile.
“Come down here and tell me your name.”
“It’s Charlie,” he hollered down to me. “Charlie Todd Ferguson.”
I nodded slowly, his name triggering other thoughts and recollections in my mind. Another Ferguson… “Well,” I shrugged. “I’d better go now, unless you’d like to accompany me.”
He scurried down faster than he had scurried up. He fell in step along with me. “I’m comin’ too.”
“Alright,” I smiled. “Maybe you can show me around this place.”
Charlie Todd Ferguson. He was fourteen years old. He loved to be alive. He was very much like Artie, who I knew was a relation in some way. They had to be.
Charlie talked to me the whole way through the forest about different sorts of things; about how he would never go to school, that no one could make him, and that he didn’t wear shoes. Never, not once in his life. Only one day, years and years ago, they had tried to put shoes on him and he ‘wouldn’t let them’. I didn’t know what that meant so I didn’t ask. I didn’t know who ‘they’ were either, but still, I didn’t ask any questions. I wasn’t entirely convinced that he had never before worn any shoes but I allowed myself to try and believe it, at least in this moment.
“Look,” he pointed to the ground near a muddy area that my feet sank into when I inched closer. He bent down and I did the same.
“What are we looking for?” I whispered.
He pointed again to the same spot and hovered over it closely. Silently, he reached his hand down and retrieved a brown toad.
“Ugh,” I stepped back. “It looks so bumpy.”
“Bumpy?” he asked, appalled. “It’s beautiful.” He handed it to me. I had not registered what was happening and peered down at it for ten whole seconds before I flung it away. “Oh, how horrible!” I exclaimed. I wiped my hands on my dress. “I hate toads.”
“Hate ‘em? They never done anything to you.”
“I know, but…hmm,” I considered this. “You’re right.” I sighed. “I always throw them away before they do something wrong to me. I never give them a chance.”
He crossed his arms. “You’re mean. Like Artie.”
I remembered that. “I am mean. And not just to little critters.” I sighed again, dejectedly. “I’m selfish and cruel and not at all brave.”
“That’s an easy fix,” he told me, and I almost believed him for a second. “It’s easy,” he said again as if he had come up with the idea himself.
“How so?”
“Tell me what’s your biggest fear,” he said in a jumble, his accent, thick and Southern, made it a bit hard to understand. My mind quickly interpreted it for myself, thankfully.
“Well, tell it then,” he said, still recovering from his first jumbled command.
The bigger the sentence was, the slower he spoke it. Maybe he had some form of difficulty speaking long sentences and words. I didn’t mind. I just decided maybe people in America were different. Or maybe it wasn’t America. Maybe this boy Charlie was different.
“I…I don’t really know,” was my reply.
He shrugged. “Whatever you hate to do, you just have to do it,” he said, pausing and looking at me curiously for a moment. Then he shoved my shoulder and laughed.
I took his hand when he offered it.
“Let’s go then,” I said.
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