Idlebones

Tiny Dancer 3

 

Damione was fast asleep, snoring gently in his bunk across from
Gracie’s’ little bed. The room was dark now, the only light coming
from the pinpricks of red glowing embers that came from the fireplace.
As she watched the last dying stars of the fireplace tumbled into one
another, flared briefly, and then quenched themselves in the ash,
throwing their small room into darkness. The sound of her fathers
breathing, and her own heartbeat, were the only sounds to be heard.
Gracie Dressed herself slowly, quietly, mindful of waking her father
who would not approve of her night time excursions. She put on her
white thistledown shirt and tied her favorite mouse hair pantaloons
with the piece of human hair twine that she had platted into a belt.
She took a moment to pause and listen to the inky blackness, to the
soft, steady breathing of her father, before reaching under her bed
for the box.

Her feet were cold against the stone floor of the passageway outside
their room. It was narrow and low, lacking the warm floor covering of
baby duck feathers that Damione had laid across their floor. When she
was half way along the passage, Gracie sat down and leaned back
against the wall. Placing the small white box out from beneath her
shirt, she placed it on the floor before her and lifted the lid.
Her Mamma had given her these shoes. They were the most beautiful pair
of shoes she had ever seen. Not that Fairies are given to wearing
shoes, you understand. In fact, most of Gracie’s cousins in the forest
had always gone barefoot.
“It is from the days when we could fly”, Damione had explained one dry
hot evening as she had joined him in his hunt around the under floors
of the castle.
“In the days when Fairies had wings and could soar with the butterflies”.
Gracie had giggled at the thought of it. “We can’t fly, silly!” she
had said, playfully slapping her fathers forearm. She was used to his
tall tales, and how he would make up stories to keep her amused as he
examined his beetle traps.
“Oh but we could fly!” Damione had turned around to look Gracie
straight in the eye. Gracie had known this meant he wasn’t joking. He
was telling her something that was true as he could possibly know.
“We flew about the forests with the dragon and crane fly once upon a
time. Your great great grandfather himself had wings that could tip
the top of this roof, yet fold away like a shimmering silky spiders
web when he landed. He could fly higher then any other Fairy in his
day, you mark my words!” He said
Gracie had furrowed her brow and scratched her back where she imagined
some wings should be. The thought of flying ticked around her mind for
a moment.
“But why can’t we fly now then father?” she had asked eventually, a
little confused.
Damione had turned and resumed his labours with a sigh.
“It was taken from us” he said quietly, and had said no more of it.

The shoes where a brilliant white. They shone even in the dark
passageway, so much so that they lit up Gracie’s little button nose
and sparkled in her wide blue eyes, glistened against her tiny white
teeth as she smiled at them in her hands. Placing the box to one side,
she slid one soft shoe on her right foot, smiling at the warmth of the
cloth against her skin. Taking the two long lace strings that were
attached to the shoe she tied them, criss-crossed against each other,
before finishing them in a bow just below her knee. She did the same
with the other shoe, taking her time to cross the laces and make sure
that they fit just right before rising to her feet. As she always did,
she held out each foot in turn and admired the shoes. Admiring the
square, hard tip of each, before setting off for the steps at the end
of the passageway, treading soft padding footsteps that now seemed to
bounce with every step.

In the Castles throne room, nothing was stirring. The great wolf
hounds that paced the floors by day were banished to the castle keep
for the night, and the courtiers had long since drank their fill off
wine and stumbled off to their beds. Behind the great ermine and gold
throne that stood on a raised platform overlooking the great hall, a
small crumble of decayed wood moved aside and Gracie’s’ blond curls
emerged. She clambered out from her secret entrance, and stood looking
out over the vast stone floor from under the kings silent throne and
listened. Then, rising on her tippy toes, and holding her arms
outstretched as far as she could hold them, she pirouetted. One,
twice, three times she span, before stopping, hands held before her as
if waiting for some gift to be placed in her tiny palms, one toe
pointed to the floor before her, the other placed flat on the ground
behind her. She listened once more. Waited for a moment as she
breathed in the silence of the castles still, soundless walls, and
then stepped from beneath the throne and onto the floor.
In her mind, an orchestra had begun to play. Low, beautiful music like
birdsong began to fill the room. Behind her closed eyelids she
imagined beautiful ladies in flowing ball gowns, handsome soldiers in
bright red tunics, dancing and gliding about her, and she danced as
her mama had taught her, turning and pirouetting for hour after hour,
under the soft moonlight that fell from the high windows of the
silent, sleeping castle.