Stephen Messer - Windblowne

He turned down the hidden path toward Windswept Way, toward home. He walked quickly. He did not like the sound of the winds in the oaks, wailing and mournful. Oliver’s walk turned into a jog, and then he found himself running for the shelter and warmth of home, chased by the cry of the winds.

That night, Oliver quivered in bed, wide-eyed and sleepless. Outside, the winds howled. The treehouse creaked and groaned. Oliver thought the winds sounded angry enough to rip the treehouse from the tree’s embrace and send it spinning away. Oliver longed to run across the hall and place his hands on the trunk to reassure himself of its solidity and strength, but he didn’t dare leave his bed.

He could not fathom how his parents slept through this unusually powerful windstorm, but they seemed completely undisturbed. Oliver’s heart pounded and his mind raced. He was covered in sweat, his sheets twisted into knots.

I’m going to light a candle , he thought. He threw the covers aside. I’m going to light every candle I can find .

But then

BAM

something crashed against the treehouse so close to him that the wall shook and Oliver nearly screamed. He pulled the covers back over his head. And then a sound came again,

tap tap tap

like a person rapping on the shutter. He lifted his head cautiously from beneath the blankets. That had really sounded like

tap tap tap

someone knocking to get in. But no one could possibly be out at night, sitting on an oak branch, rapping on the window next to Oliver’s bed. He waited for several seconds.

TAP TAP TAP

Oliver rolled over and yanked the curtains aside. Moonslight flashed on something flickering among the lashing branches. No , he thought, it can’t be.…

He pulled up the window.

The winds invaded with a roar and nearly threw him from his bed. He clung to the windowsill as Great-uncle Gilbert’s kite, the simple long-tailed crimson kite, came crashing in, slamming into walls and bouncing off the floor and ceiling. It thrashed uncontrollably as Oliver struggled to close the window. Then the winds slackened briefly, the kite flew over Oliver’s head and out into the night, and the window slammed home.

Oliver fell back on his bed in astonishment. Somehow, improbably, the winds had gotten hold of the hidden kite. It was a colossal piece of luck. Now he possessed something his great-uncle wanted. Or he would possess it, anyway, as soon as he chased down the wayward kite.

This is a really stupid idea , said a little voice in the back of Oliver’s head. But Oliver had ignored that voice before, and he was going to ignore it now. He fished his rugged flier’s outfit from under the bed, dressed quickly, and raced from the room.

Using the front door was out of the question. With the winds hammering at the walls, opening the door would invite disaster. Oliver went straight to the emergency wind hatch in the tiny room off the kitchen. He lifted the trapdoor and put one foot on the first rung of the ladder.

Below him the ladder descended through the protected wind shaft and then along the trunk into battering darkness. He wavered. The odds of catching the kite were terribly low, and the odds of breaking a leg were terribly high. Should he really do this? The plan was sheer madness. Runs in the family , thought Oliver. Flattening himself against the trunk, he descended swiftly and dropped into the open winds.

He braced himself against the turbulence, his back to his solid home oak. The world was wild around him. Everything not rooted firmly in the ground had been lifted and thrown. The scream of the winds as they tore through the oaks was deafening, as though the night had life and was warning him back. Trembling, Oliver recalled childhood tales of wicked boys and girls who had been carried off by the winds, never to be seen again.

But I must have the kite , thought Oliver. I’ll catch it and come straight home. And I’m not going anywhere near the crest .

He staggered away from the oak. The moment he abandoned the oak’s solidity he became disoriented, all sense of direction lost in the churning night. The winds came up from behind and pushed him forward, and he fought back, peering about for the kite. At first he feared that it might have been blown too far away to catch, but then he spied a crimson blur.

The kite was flitting among a line of oaks. None of them were oaks that Oliver recognized. For a confused instant, he felt as though he had stepped into another world. Seven trees stood before him, looming in the dark; seven anguished silhouettes, broken and tortured. Then the winds shifted, the shadows changed, and Oliver realized he was not looking at seven oaks racked in pain but seven sculptures lining Windswept Way—his mother’s art.

His map restored, he ran, stumbling as the winds lashed him. His exposed face stung as twigs and leaves became missiles in the driving winds. He could barely keep the kite in sight, with all of the weird and distracting shadows changing each moment. He saw that it had moved upward on the Way. He gave chase, but the kite bobbed just out of reach, flying tantalizingly close and then darting away just as Oliver closed his fingers.

Suddenly the kite ducked sideways, into the forest. They had come to the secret path, and the kite had flown between the sentinels as though it knew the way. In fact, the kite had been flying in an oddly deliberate fashion all along.

With a crash, Oliver went headlong into the brush.

The kite reached the turn to Great-uncle Gilbert’s treehouse and slipped off the path. Oliver slipped after it.

Then light exploded through the oaks, a brilliant split-second flash that lit the forest in stark relief.

Oliver was momentarily blinded. When he opened his eyes again, the kite had disappeared.

He ran through the trees, moonslight spilling across his path, until he reached the clearing.

He arrived in the midst of a battle.

The seconds that followed were entirely confusing. Oliver saw Great-uncle Gilbert flying two of the bladed fighting kites, one in each hand, with astonishing skill. The kites were cutting tight circles on their short tow-lines. The old man was fending off three other kites, dark, speed-blurred shapes. But who was flying those kites? Oliver couldn’t see anyone else in the clearing.

“Great-uncle Gilbert!” Oliver shouted.

Great-uncle Gilbert glanced over. “Oliver!” he cried. “No!”

The distraction was all the dark kites needed. Two of them dove in, and Great-uncle Gilbert’s fighting kites disappeared in snapping spars and shreds of silk. The third attacked Great-uncle Gilbert directly, hooking onto his robe. Oliver whirled around. Where were the fliers?

A shout of pain came from the treehouse. Then someone, a boy, burst through the front door and pounded down the wooden steps.

The other boy was dressed in a flier’s outfit, exactly like Oliver’s. His arms were full of folded kites.

“Go!” cried the boy.

There was another dazzling flash.

Oliver’s vision spun and wavered, and it seemed as though he were seeing double. Two treehouses, two of every oak. He looked at the other boy. He was seeing double there, too. When he looked the boy in the face, he could have sworn that the face he saw was his own.

Two dark kites flew to the boy, hooking onto his gloves.

There was another blinding flash, and for a minute Oliver staggered about the clearing, groping, completely blind.

When his vision recovered, the clearing was empty. He saw no sign of Great-uncle Gilbert or any of the kites, or the other boy.

He looked toward the treehouse.