some memories never leave your bones.
like the salt in the sea; they become a part of you
- you carry them.
like the salt in the sea; they become a part of you
- you carry them.
He has never thought strawberries sickly sweet. He loves them unripened: sharp and hard and white. And when they are ripened too. When their skin is as red as a blood drop, their seeds pressed like buttons into a heart. He has eaten strawberries until they have turned his lips red as a rose and turned his tongue numb with their tanging sweetness. They might be his most favourite of all the woodland fruits.
But today his lips are not stained with the juice of wild grown berries. Today he has eyes only for flowers and as she asks him about the lightning he laughs, as reckless as a storm. “It is unpredictable and sharp.” He says with a grin that glows and glows and glows. It belongs to woodland nymphs and the laughing of crickets as the night ebbs into the hidden corners of thickets and groves. Even as he speaks, he thinks of a girl who is as unpredictable as lightning, how being with her feels like dancing with danger. He would be safer, he thinks, dancing with lightning. His heart did not ache and his head did not hurt after a storm.
The younger girl watches him with wide eyes, filled full with the delights of petrichor and wicked skies. He laughs again, reckless once more and turns for the woodland that watches them with greenleaf eyes. The ryegrass brushes at their knees, pale seeds left like kisses to burrow into the silk of their hair. Burrs hang like tangles in his black-gold hair and his eyes darken, deep as midnight water as he drinks in the strangling girl beside him. “Lightning is the most entertaining partner, Elli.” The wildwood’s boy whispers. He guides her with the grace of a king inviting a subject into his palace of leaves and trees and flowers.
He leads her beneath the bough of a hornbeam tree that rises like a great fountain, pouring green foliage out through the dappling sunlight. The air is full only with the taste of hazy sunlight, the afternoon slow and lazy with heat. Dustmotes swirl as the shade stretches out around them. He thinks as they step from the tulip fields into the wilder meadows, filled with enchanting nightshade and daisies. Red clover and yarrow tickle at their knees as they pass and a ferret lifts its head above the petals to watch the children pass.
The air fills with the babble of water and he leads them to an outcrop where a creek meanders dips, water tumbling its merry way down through the woods. The feral boy crouches beside the rocks and peers down onto the water. Sunlight pours in from above as water spray rises in a small, dancing steam from the little waterfall. A rainbow glimmers through the air, made in the meeting of water drops and sunlight. “Have you ever seen a stranger magic than this, Elli?” The boy whispers, enchanted, drawing the girl into his secret delight.
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