I would just like to announce that since this book is nearing the climax of the story, I will soon stop posting chapters. however, this book will be available soon if you wish to finish the story.
C h a p t e r T w e n t y-Three
Wilding and Wondering
The sun shone hugely on us that afternoon and we had the best picnic of our lives.
We ate sandwiches and drank lemonade and everyone except I played ball out in the wild wind, as I was very tired and not in my complete health just yet. But every chance I got, I wrote another verse. This time, about Felix.
“Won’t you play ball with us, Annabelle?” Felix begged, his hair bleached in the sun. That was something I observed, and added to my little poem.
“She’s sick,” Claudia retorted. “She doesn’t need any panting children to—”
“I’m quite alright now, Claudia, but I do thank you for caring so much,” and I smiled gingerly up at her. “Maybe in a bit.”
I missed running about and playing with all of them, but lately I had felt so tired.
Artie sat down next to me. He breathed heavily and poured lemonade on his face.
“At least it’s going to good use,” I said.
He panted rapidly and laid down on the grass, his eyes closed and his mouth open like a dog. I laughed at him but he didn’t care. “You’re jealous of us,” he teased.
“No, I am not,” I replied, happily and honestly. “You simply look so wild-ed out.”
“Wild-ed out?” He opened his eyes and glanced up at me, still in the grass on his back.
“Elucidate, please?” Felix asked, approaching me.
“It’s a much better way of saying ‘worn out.’ You’ve been running and playing, splashing in rivers, walking in forests, and simply wilding yourself out.”
Artie shook his head like he thought it to be silly, but he was no more sane and serious than I was.
“I propose a toast,” I announced, taking up my cup in my hand. “To a great next summer of adventure and fun,” I said lightly and contently.
Artie took up a cup too. “To stars and heroes and picnics. And wilding yourself out.”
Henry and Felix clinked their cups together. “Hear, hear!”
“To Todd the Spectacular and all the other knights,” came Claudia’s small, humble voice.
“And to our Queen Annie the Brave,” Charlie said, and I was so happy, because now I knew he was no longer angry at me.
He sat behind Claudia and twirled her curls around his finger.
All of us—it felt so natural and meant to be, that we should be the bestest of friends.
We would one day pass on, but that friendship of ours—that was immortal.
I had at first invited Mrs. Eloise, but she gracefully declined with an odd look on her face. I understood her though, and did not judge a bit. When I was older I aspired to be like her in many ways, traveling and studying maps and writing nice things.
We were quite loud and boisterous, and she was elegant and a bit reserved. I wanted Henry and Felix and Claudia to know her someday, as I thought they would certainly admire her.
Afterward however, we did eventually pay her a visit, since she had insisted upon me bringing along my brothers and sister. Artie and Charlie came also.
They enjoyed themselves almost as much as I had when Artie first took me. Felix loved her maps and the pirate telescope she had discovered in Ireland. She had been on the Mediterranean and had collected whole basketfuls of colorful shells.
She had explored oceans and deserts and forests. She had done everything I ever wanted to do.
“Annabelle?” she called my name from her chair, where she sat with a map over her legs. She was pointing to her favorite islands and telling Felix about them all. But her eyes left her lap and fixed on mine.
“Yes?” I replied quietly. I stood by the piano, patiently.
“I asked you before if you’ve played. I believe you said, ‘not really.’”
“Well, it is true,” I spoke honestly. “I’ve no talent for it. But I know a piece or two.”
She smiled with dignity and sat back, giving the map to Felix. “I think you are more than capable of playing me a song. And singing, too.”
Color left my face and I stood straight and speechless. Henry looked up from his book and stared at me with curiousness and a bit of anxiousness, like he didn’t know what I would do.
Artie looked at me too. He smiled and I decided I couldn’t say no.
I hesitantly took a seat on the bench. I opened the lid of the piano. But something in me tensed. I felt I wasn’t meant to play this instrument. It wasn’t mine. It was someone else’s.
“Mrs. Rivet?” I asked, my eyes on the keys.
She didn’t answer me.
“This isn’t mine.”
“You’re right.”
I glanced up, and Felix and Claudia both looked at me expectantly.
“That was Robbie’s,” the old lady explained, though distantly. I wanted to know more, and I had a feeling that someday, I would. Eloise’s voice was so sad and mysterious sometimes. I loved it, though. Her voice was how I imagined the voice of some of the characters in the books I read and wrote in my mind.
The character who was dark and hidden in the start, but was soon learned to be a victim of a tragic fate long, long, ago.
But that didn’t quite fit her. I didn’t think she was some heartbroken victim, even if she did have a tragic fate. But that voice—
I’d like to call that a storybook voice.
Artie surprised me by standing up and sitting beside me on the bench. He was very solemn. I didn’t ask any questions. I played a chord. And then another. I thought I was just singing in my head, and I think I was, but when I glanced to my right I realized it was not just my voice but another’s alongside of me.
At first I hardly noticed Artie’s low, but perfectly beautiful singing voice over the sound of the piano melody I played. The strength of the keys grew and my shoulders relaxed. I felt more at home than I did a moment ago.
Because I wasn’t alone.
I played and Artie sang.
How we got to such a state still surpasses me. I’d have never done that only a year ago, back in England. And I think Artie wouldn’t have either. I think that maybe, we both needed each other in some way, for some reason. Artie calmed me down sitting there beside me, singing that song.
Artie sung, “Where Are You Calling Me,” a song about rivers and the way the wind blows, a song that was just a lullaby but had always been favored by myself, and my father and mother. It was one of the only tunes I knew how to play. I remember my father humming that song under his breath as he rocked Claudia to sleep over his shoulder. And when I saw Felix for the first time asleep in Mother’s arms, tucked under covers in bed, she was singing it.
It was fate that Artie knew that song. Fate, or should I say, something more.
Artie didn’t tell me where he had learned that song. But that was fine with me. In this world we do not need to know everything about others, even if sometimes it’s hard. But that’s why life is so exciting. So unpredictable and daring and suspenseful that we’re really never left bored of it.
And because that’s one of the most grandest things you can do in your life.
Wonder.
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