Amanda Leduc - The Centaur's Wife

They both stop to stare. Tasha is confused. She turns to look at Heather. “Did we build one all the way out here?”

Heather walks to the greenhouse, puts her hand against the clouded door.

It’s old, Tasha realizes. It’s not one of theirs.

Heather grasps the door and pulls it open. The babies coo and stir.

Tasha can smell the flowers before she sees them. When she steps up beside Heather, her eyes fill with colour—the blue rustle of a jacaranda tree growing tall in the middle of the greenhouse. Pink and orange and red lilies that burst at their feet, the twining shocks of white and purple orchids that reach up through the tangles of green. The deep, dark red of amaryllis.

“Where did this come from?” Tasha says. “Why is everything—why is everything growing?”

“I don’t know,” Heather whispers.

“Did you build this? Is this where those flowers came from, the ones in your house?”

“I—no. Not me.” Heather shakes her head. “My father built this greenhouse. A long time ago.”

“Did he plant all of this?”

“Yes. But I thought everything died after he did. I haven’t been back here in years.”

Tasha stares into the greenhouse, tries to focus. The colours swim together. “Well, it isn’t dead now,” she says. “You’re sure this isn’t where your flowers are from?”

“I have no idea,” Heather says. She is staring at the amaryllis.

“Why are things growing here when they aren’t growing in the other greenhouses?”

It’s Heather’s turn to snap. “I don’t know, Tasha! Why are there vines growing over the houses when nothing grows in the gardens? Why are the goddamned sunflowers six feet high and the tomato plants turning yellow?” She falls silent and they both stand for a moment, breathing in. It smells sweet in here, and fresh. Everything feels new and also secret, as though it hasn’t been disturbed in years.

“Jilly,” Heather hisses suddenly and Tasha snaps back to herself. The baby looks at them, her hand caught in a plant hanging down by her face. Two green half moons are clamped around her fist. Tasha reaches for the plant and pulls it open. Jilly’s hand is unharmed, though covered with a sticky, greenish-white residue.

Tasha wipes the baby’s fist clean with her sleeve. She pulls a bandage from her side bag and wraps it around Jilly’s hand just in case. “Don’t let her put her fingers in her mouth until you’ve washed them.”

Heather nods. Then she puts her hand around Tasha’s. “Thank you,” she says. “I know I don’t say that enough.” She swallows. “We’d best get back.” She turns toward the city, not waiting for Tasha to follow.

Tasha pulls the greenhouse door shut, then runs to catch up. “If stories are never only stories,” she says, “then why do you tell the twins about fairies stealing babies from their cribs?”

Heather laughs—a high, clear sound that makes Tasha shiver.

“That story wasn’t for them,” she says. “It was for me.”

Once there was a bird who was jealous of the sun. No matter how high the bird flew, the sun was always higher, and it made the bird angry.

“Why should the sun fly higher than we do?” he said to his fellow birds. “We work so hard to stay in the air but the sun sits up there and does nothing. It’s not fair.”

“The sun has always flown above us.” The bird who said this was much older than the jealous bird, and had seen much more of the world. “This is how it has always been.”

“Why should something stay the same just because it has always been that way?” said the jealous bird.

The old bird said, severely, “The sun is higher. We are lower. The sun warms us when we’re cold and sends us light to see worms in the grass, and asks of us nothing in return. You should be grateful for this, not angry.”

“I will be grateful when the sun sees how much higher I can fly!” cried the bird. He threw his head back and crowed, and many other birds, massed around him, threw back their heads and did the same.

“You cannot fly higher than the sun,” the old bird warned. “It is foolish to even try.”

But the jealous bird would not be swayed, for he knew a secret his mother had told him long ago: the birds themselves had come from the sun.

When he was a fumbling chick in the nest, his mother had said, “You have sunlight in your wings. All that we are comes from the sun. We are the same. Before the world was born, when we all spun round in the sky together, the sun’s fire was also your own.”

And so the bird gathered all those who were set on fire by his words and told them they would fly to the sun and reclaim their place in the sky. “We have the sun in our feathers,” he said. As one, they spread their wings and lifted from the trees.

The birds flew high, and then higher still. They flew so high the air became thin; some birds gasped, but kept on struggling; other birds gave up and dropped back, far down to the ground. The jealous bird and a few close friends kept flying.

They flew so high the air was hard to breathe; they flew so high the sun began to burn their wings. One by one, the birds burst into flame and fell, screaming. When they hit the ground, the earth went black with mourning.

The jealous bird’s wings burned too, but he held his mother’s words deep inside and pushed on. He flew until the sky curved, until the great dark belly of the universe came into view.

The sun, the bird saw to his surprise, was still so far away. But the sun saw him, and knew who he was instantly.

“I have been waiting for you,” the sun said. “I have been waiting for so long.”

“I’m here to take my rightful place!” the bird cried. He puffed out his chest and waited for the sun to come at him, full of anger.

But the sun only smiled. “How long have I been here?” it said. “I have watched the world spin for millions of years. I have waited alone in the dark sky for company. You and your kind were content to fly amongst the trees and dream without daring to reach—to make me into a monster—when all along it is I who’ve been waiting for you.”

The jealous bird, shocked by this, almost fell. “You have always flown higher than we have,” he said. “Had I known that you were lonely, I would have come much sooner.”

“The kindness of your heart is not what brought you close to me,” the sun said. “You are here because you thought you were better than the best. I am here to tell you: you are.”

The bird was filled with joy at this. But then he thought of his friends who had fallen back to the earth and burned. “Does that mean my friends are weak?”

“Your friends are not weak,” said the sun. “But they did not believe. The world is so much bigger than the tops of your trees, and in the depths of their hearts, they were not sure. You understand that now, yes?”

The bird looked back down at the world from which he had come, and then at the sun. “Yes,” he said, and he no longer sounded jealous.

“Good,” said the sun. “There is still much to learn.”

And the jealous bird, no longer jealous, caught fire in truth this time, and shone as bright as any star had ever done.

The girls smile at two months—both of them at the same time, their mouths curling up as they watch one another. Their eyes follow her everywhere. On the rare days when sunshine filters through the front window, Heather spreads a blanket on the living room floor and lays them down. They stretch their arms to the ceiling. She whispers silly things into the soft cups of their ears.

On the rare evenings when the girls aren’t colicky and he is home from scavenging, B lies with her in the living room and makes funny faces at the babies. He calls them beautiful and gorgeous and Daddy’s favourite flowers. He picks them up and twirls them in the centre of the floor until their faces split with smiles, and then he goes into the kitchen and makes dinner for them all. His eyes say beautiful and gorgeous to Heather when he’s too tired—and they are both of them almost always too tired, now—to say the words.