The Wind

Cai opened her dark eyes and stared up at the moonlit ceiling. She had just had a dream. Something about it felt very familiar, like the smell of her grandmother's house, or the feel of summer rain on your face. And yet she couldn’t remember it at all. All that remained was this lingering feeling. She lay there letting the warm feel of familiarity settle around her, trying to gently coax the dream to come back. But dreams are fickle beasts and this one it seemed had tramped away for good.

The wind came then and blew her green curtains through her window, they dragged across the bed before billowing freely into the room. The wind was calling to her, she could feel it. Cai rolled over and draped herself across the open windowsill staring out into the blue night. Watching as the wind tousled the fields and trees. She reached out her hand and let it play in the breeze.

This felt familiar too. She had always loved the wind. Always talked to them. Always ran and laughed and trusted them. She wasn’t sure if the wind knew her, but she liked to believe it, and something about the way they blew tonight felt different. Alive.

Everyone told her she was getting older and it was time to stop making up stories about the world and accept reality. So she had just stopped talking about it. If people wanted to live in the boring mundane order of the world that they created that was fine, but she wasn’t about to do the same. Had they really all lost that precious spark of magic they had been given as children? She prayed she would never forget, although it grew harder and harder to remember. Each year she felt like she had to dig deeper, look for different things to remind her, to inspire the same airy wonder she’d felt as a child.

She believed in the power of the wind and the wild and no one would take that away from her. 

Cai thought about going back to sleep but she was too enticed by the wind. She rolled out of bed and slipped into her clothes. Then she hopped out the window and onto the soft grass. Cai turned and walked around her fathers sprawling, untamed garden that she loved, pausing for a moment to marvel at the night-blooming flowers and twisting moonlit vines before continuing on and up the low hill they lived on. 

The path was familiar to her, she took it almost everyday and had no problem finding it in the dark. It slithered through the little wood like a curious snake. It didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry to get anywhere, and that was why she liked it. It meandered along the chuckling little stream and around the back of the hill, it skirted the edge of an open meadow dotted with sleeping flowers and continued lazily upwards. Occasionally stopping to dally about an interesting rock or pause at a massive dark tree.

When she reached the top she saw that the moon had reached it too and hung in the sky above her. She walked over the flat grassy top of the hill to dangle her feet off the small cliff on one side. Cai lay back and looked up at the waxing moon and the distant twinkling stars. The light of the moon smoothed out the sky so just a handful of stars lay strewn about the horizon. They winked slowly as if trying to get her attention. That's why the moon had to wain, to give the stars a chance to shine their brightest. She liked that about the sky. They always took turns, the night and day, the moon and the stars. Maybe if more people took time to look and learn what nature was quietly doing, the world would be a better place. 

She thought so, anyway. 

A gust of wind came sweeping down the valley and splashed over her, ruffling her hair and making her laugh. She lifted her arms and felt the wind slide through her splayed fingers. She loved the wind, in a way they were her oldest friend. Always there whether as a gail or a breeze. Clouds whispered across the moon and she felt the cozy darkness fold around her. This night was special. That’s why she had been woken up by a happy dream. That’s why she had felt the wind calling to her in her bedroom.

Her grandmother had always told her so. “You’ll know when the time is right, you’ll feel it in your belly and your eyelashes. When you feel this pull, don’t ignore it, follow your intuition Cai.” Sometimes it felt strong and other times she could barely feel it at all. This night Cai felt it like a howling tempest of necessity within her. She knew what she was doing. Cai stood up and looked over the edge of the small cliff. 

“Can you hear me wind?” She called into the night, “I want to come with you tonight!”

The wind danced happily around her, hello, they seemed to be saying. She smiled, wide and bright. 

“Take me on an adventure.”

Cai felt the dark night pushing in around her. The wind swirled and pulled at her as if coaxing her to take the last step. She looked out over the cliff edge, the bright stars lay sprawled around the border of the sky and the silver moon hung overhead. Colorful smells pushed past her nose and on into the darkness, swirling over the countryside beyond. Pine, oak, flowers and herbs and fruit from the garden, cool earth. She could feel the wind calling her. Could feel it in her gut. 

This perfect clear sweet scented night. Cai took a deep breath. The world was swirling and alive around her, it felt right, she put her hand out for the wind and stepped off the edge and into the blue air beneath. 

The wind’s gentle cool fingers wrapped around hers and lifted her high into the clear night sky. She laughed happily as they sped off together over the moonlit valley. She, cradled in the arms of the wind and the wind racing merrily along beside her. She could see the little brooks and open meadows of the valley. The small patches of woods scattered among the fields and houses. She saw her fathers garden and her still-open bedroom window, green curtains billowing slowly. 

Cai had been right. The wind was alive, the night below her was real and wild and wonderful. Cai smiled up at the moon with her skirt of stars dancing merrily along the hill covered horizon. How special, that this night, she could join them.