Singing Wind
Story by Aven Harper. Illustrations by Evelyn Park.
She had a name, but it counted for nothing, since they never used it.
They looked through her, as if she was a cobweb or a window pane.
She raised her voice, but they didn’t hear. She waved her hand, but they didn’t see.
When they forgot her name altogether, so did she.
She was Nameless.
And she began to fade, slowly at first, just a toe here, a fingernail there. Her skin grew translucent and strange, uncertain of itself.
She had trouble seeing herself in the mirror.
Every day, Nameless walked.
She walked for miles, over hill and under dale, following paths through the greenwoods and by the chattering streams. She talked to the water and she talked to the trees. She talked to anything that might hear, anything that gave her space and did not interrupt, did not change the subject, did not walk right through her window pane and leave her in broken pieces all over the floor.
The wildflowers listened.
The trees heard.
The rivers saw.
And Nameless could live for another day.
One day, she was lower than low, heavier than heavy, when she came upon an aspen tree. She sank down and leaned against its silver trunk. She could see the grass through her knees, a fallen stick through her ankles. Holding her hands up to the light, she could see right through them to the veins and tendons and bones.
She was glad. She wanted to disappear, to melt into the sun.
The wind blew through the aspen branches, shivering and whispering.
She looked up.
Did she hear words? Did the aspen speak?
All was silent. It was a still, watchful day.
Then the wind gusted again, and above her the golden aspen leaves rattled.
Your Name, it said. Your Name.
My name? said Nameless. My name?
The wind blew stronger, and an oak tree standing nearby, tall and proud, shook its thick canopy at her.
Singing, said the oak. Singing.
My name? said Nameless. Singing?
The wind dropped, and the trees waited.
All right, then, said Nameless. I will.
She opened her mouth, and sang. She had never sung before. Her voice was thin, and tremulous, and faded, like her body.
She did not sing with real words.
She sang the sound of the water, the gust of the wind, the clap of the pigeon’s wings.
She sang the leap of the mouse, the yellow of the primrose, the eye of the hawk.
She sang the dark of the earth, the bright of the moon, the wet of the rain.
Her voice grew stronger, and the wind grew stronger too.
And now she heard it clearly:
Your Name is Singing Wind…and your song is not lost.
She danced, and she sang her name, and the wind blew and blew and blew!
And they looked through her, as if she was a cobweb or a window pane.
She looked at them too.
Then she closed her eyes, and she said to herself:
My name is Singing Wind. And my song is not lost.
And every time she spoke her name, her skin grew taut and strong and her body grew solid again, solid as the oak tree, sure as the stones in the riverbed, certain as the screech of the owl.
So she left them, and made her own way in the world.
She sang to the trees and the rivers,
to the stars and the earth.
And Singing Wind was heard.
And Singing Wind was seen.
And that was all that mattered.