Chapter Twenty-Five. Daye
Daye
When Daye opened her eyes, night pressed all around her, black and heavy and still. Too still. For a moment, time seemed to fold into itself, and Daye couldn’t tell the stillness of sleep from the stillness of last autumn; the silence of nighttime from the silence of unbeing.
She lay frozen, darkness and uncertainty pressing around her, her chest so very still.
And then an owl hooted outside, and suddenly Daye could breathe again. She inhaled convulsively, greedily, air flooding into her. Her hand automatically rose to check—what? That her skin was still pink and whole? That no part of her was slowly graying or flaking away?
Daye groped at the windowsill beside her until her hand closed around her favorite shell, heart-shaped and worn smooth with handling. It fit soothingly in her palm, gave her fingers something to do instead of shaping words that no one would see or reaching for Rory’s absent hand.
Gradually, her heart slowed. Her breath stopped sawing in and out in gasps and stutters. The room coalesced around her, night dim. And then she was awake, the night vast around her, and had no idea what to do next.
She had a feeling that there was a secret to it, some habit of aloneness that she’d never had reason to learn.
Not the temporary singleness of being the only one in the room, but some different flavor of lonesomeness: What it was not to have another presence twining through her days.
What it was to be suspended in time, with nothing but herself to give it shape.
Sometimes it felt like all that was left in Rory’s wake were questions, tugging at her skin like a thousand tiny fish.
Would she be able to come to the city with him?
What would happen to her if Rory didn’t come back?
What would she be if she didn’t fall apart?
What was she now, without Rory? What was she, what was she, what was she?
A companion who couldn’t accompany. A playmate that couldn’t take part in Rory’s new game. An empty stretch of sky, blank and vacant without Rory’s presence. Unmoored. Aimless.
Alone.
So very, very alone.
And so very silent. It felt as if, without Rory’s presence to keep it at bay, her silence was a constant pressure on her skin, her ears, her lips. A lurking presence, ready to swallow her whole. As if with one wrong step, she’d sink all the way down into it, never to be found again.
With a shiver, Daye threw back the blanket. She rummaged around in the chest until she found the jar of nuts and seeds she’d learned to keep for nights like this, crept through the sleeping, empty house, and set off into the forest.
By the time dawn came, Daye had already found a tree to lean against and was sitting, palms outstretched, offerings spilling from her fingers and into the soft grass.
She’d learned that if she held still, the birds would hop closer and closer, until they’d eat from the palm of her hand.
That if she didn’t move for long enough, they would perch on her wrists, her arms, her knees, their feathers brushing against her skin.
And that if she kept still after that, they would forget to notice her altogether, and the forest around her would fill with their song.
Daye held very, very still—the sort of stillness that in summer would be unthinkable, impossible, but that in spring was as easy as breathing—and soon she had a hand full of birds, her spring skin soaking in the sensations—the sharp drag of talons and the soft brush of feathers, the cool click of beaks and the flutter of heartbeats pattering against her palm—and birdsong was hanging between the trees, draping from branch to branch.
A blue jay jeered from the oak across from her. A chickadee chirped back. From somewhere on the ground, the chitter of badgers and the shuffling of deer answered them, a soft chorus.
Daye closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the trunk, and listened to the music of the forest rising around her. And, little by little, the silence enveloping her spooled back, until Daye could draw a full breath again.
It was … Saint Winebald’s Day’s choir echoing off the snow. The fastness of skating in winter and the weightlessness of floating in summer. It was the tantalizing promise of a language that she could have worn, if only she knew how.
But then a new sound was piercing through the forest—Rory’s voice, echoing between the trees as he called for her.
And the birds were falling silent, the clearing erupting into movement as they surged into the tree cover.
And Daye was running, running. And then Rory’s arms were around her, swinging her off the ground; his voice whispering in her ear, “I missed you.” And she held him as tight as she could; pretending, just for a moment, that she’d never be without him again.