they dumped the pages into a burning pit in the woods.
The priests sank their rusty spiked shovels into the mound of dirt and refilled the hole. Some of the priests felt tears roll down their cheeks but didn’t feel sadness. Others forced their minds to unravel the memory of wind. They nailed a second scroll of parchment to a second oak tree. It stated that all things possessing the ability to fly had been destroyed. It said that no one living in the town should speak of flight ever again.
It was signed, February.
Thaddeus, Bianca and Selah painted balloons everywhere they could. They pulled up floor-boards and painted rows of balloons onto the dusty oak. Bianca drew tiny balloons on the bottoms of teacups. Behind the bathroom mirror, under the kitchen table and on the insides of cabinet doors, balloons appeared. And then Selah painted an intricate intertwining of kites on Bianca’s hands and wrists, the tails extending up her forearms and around her shoulders.
How long will February last, Bianca asked, stretching her hands out to her mother, who was blowing on her arms.
I really have no idea, said Thaddeus, who watched the snow fall outside the kitchen window.
In the distance the snow formed into mountains on top of mountains.
Finished, her mother said. You will have to wear long sleeves from now on. But you’ll never forget flight. You can wear beautiful dresses — that’s what you can wear.
Bianca studied her arms. The kites were yellow with black tails. The color melted into her skin. A breeze blew over the fresh ink and through her hair.
Thaddeus
I kept a kite hidden in my workshop where the priests couldn’t find it. I unfolded the kite from its dusty box and told Bianca she could fly it for a few minutes. I tried to see if the priests were in the woods but only saw owls sidestepping through the snow.
I said to try again after the kite failed to take off. A hand pushed the kite to the ground. She tried a few more times, and the kite slammed downward. I saw a cloud shaped like a hand. I thought of Bianca and her happiness like bricks in mud.
It’s February, said Bianca.
I said, I’m sorry this didn’t work out. We can try again.
What’s the point, she said. It’s the end of flight. It’s February.
The point, I said, is to keep trying for the sake of trying.
That week we attempted to fly the kite each night. But what felt like a wind gust on my skin wasn’t enough to carry the kite. I went into my workshop, grabbed some glass jars, and back outside I handed them to Bianca. I took the kite and ran as fast I could. I ran like a madman, my mouth open in a sad air-swallowing attempt, heard Bianca laughing in the distance, looked dreamed of Selah and Bianca holding hands with August, carried the kite at my shoulder until I let it go and felt it collapse on my back. I fell face-first on the ground, ate snow and mud, tore my knee open on a rock.
Back up the hill, Bianca swirled the glass jars through the air. The kites on her arms twitched.
Here, she said, handing me the jars with careful, kite-stringed fingers. They are full now. Maybe the Professor can figure out what is wrong with our sky. Maybe we can figure out February.
Bianca
When I was really little, my father came into my bedroom with a sheet of fabric he said would one day fly in the sky.
I’ll show you, he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, then sliding toward the middle, where I sat with my legs crossed.
Through my bedroom window, I watched a tree lose a branch under the weight of snow that had been falling for months. Before the branch hit the ground, a sheet of yellow fabric floated down over my eyes. It felt like silk and smelled of oil and stream water.
I heard the clank of metal, and then a hot flame near the back of my neck, and then the fabric lifted from my face, and it bloomed into a giant flower that touched the ceiling and grew toward the corners of my bedroom.
What does this feel like, my father said.
It’s like being inside one of those globes the shopkeepers make in town, I said, now standing on the bed, fingertips reaching toward the flower. It feels wonderful. It feels like happiness.
It will be called, my father said, a balloon.
In the crop field, four people are found standing with their heads tilted back and arms frozen to their sides. Eyes closed, their mouths stretched open and filled with snow.
Thaddeus was buying apples when he overheard the group of former balloonists known as the Solution.
How much can we put up with. How many days will this dreadful season extend itself. Our town is a place of no flight and all snow because of February.
There were five of them, tall and thin, wearing long brown coats and black top hats. They had thin plastic masks over their faces. Each mask was painted as a different-colored bird.
You, said one of the members, who grabbed Thaddeus’s shoulder and turned him around.
Thaddeus faced the Solution, holding his basket of apples tight against his chest.
We’re starting a rebellion, a war, said a yellow bird mask, against February and what it stands for.
A war, repeated Thaddeus.
Yes, a war, a war, a war, the Solution repeated.
An orange bird mask continued, We’re sick of February, who we believe is responsible not only for a season of endless gray and snow but the end of flight.
A blue bird mask lurched forward and placed a square of parchment in Thaddeus’s coat pocket. He knocked one of Thaddeus’s apples out of the basket and into a pile of snow.
Remember us, said the Solution.
And they disbanded, walking, dreaming of flying, in separate directions.
Professor
At the entrance to our town stands the Peter statue. Peter initiated the bird migration. This led to the age of flight, which is a rare time of recorded joy for our town. The sky was a land of balloon travel, bird flight patterns and flying-machine experiments. The afternoons were hot, the evenings cool when we went to the top of the hill to watch the nightly umbrella effect. We walked barefoot through streams. The children exploded in piles of corduroy leaves. We named the changes in weather Spring, Summer, Fall and February.
Peter believed in the life of flight even when he was bound with twine to his balloon by the priests and sent to a deadly altitude. Peter believed that the month of February should be eliminated, that it was possible to move clouds with long poles and extend the seasons of Spring and Summer. He said it could be taken further, that utopia included a town that knew only June and July. He wrote on archived parchment that if February were allowed to expand, it would infest our moods and kidnap our children.
