Thaddeus
The Solution came to my window last night. They had on their bird masks and black top hats. They wore a single brown scarf around their necks. I said I understood the need to rebel and protect our town against February. I reminded them of the tactics used last year.
Most important, they said, think of your daughter, Bianca.
I saw that some snow had gathered in a corner on the ceiling. I grabbed a broom to sweep it away.
When I turned back around, the Solution was walking away into the snowfall. It looked like they were skipping.
I closed my eyes. I imagined Selah and Bianca in a canoe so narrow they had to lie down with their arms folded on their stomachs, their heads at opposite ends, their toes touching. I dreamed two miniature suns. I set one each upon their foreheads. I dreamed a waterfall and a calm lake of my arms below to catch them.
Bianca
I know it was important to get up, but my body felt too heavy. My parents stood next to my bed and spoke slowly and moved slower. They said their bladders were being filled with lead and soon it would rise into their chests. My father smiled and ran in place, a tactic used against February last year, but I could see tears in his eyes, and then he stopped, shoulders slouched forward, head near his knees. Lead poured from his mouth.
My parents climbed into bed with me. The smell of mint made my stomach hurt. They held me and told me everything would be fine, that sadness would rise from our bones and evaporate in sunlight the way morning fog burned off the river in summer. My mother rubbed the kites on my hands and arms and told me to think of my lungs as balloons.
I just want to feel safe, I said.
Thaddeus
The Professor told us that to protect Bianca we should feed her mint leaves. In the rare warm months, we grew as much as we could, taking precious crop space to harvest huge bushels of mint we use in the nightly tea, bathwater and
SELAH’S MINT SOUP
8 cups chicken stock
2 cups mint leaves
3 large eggs
? teaspoon salt
? teaspoon black pepper
At night Selah rubs mint leaves into my beard and pats my lips dry with mint leaves. I braid mint leaves into Selah’s hair. I whisper into her ear, You are my sparrow. Through the night we check on Bianca. When Bianca awakes screaming against February, Selah picks her up and holds her and tells Bianca to think of cloudless skies, a moose letting her hang by one hand from his nose.
Caldor Clemens
Thaddeus Lowe! The guy who flies balloons. I spent my days collecting sap from the trees. Still do. Always covered in sap, tree bark splintered under my nails.
I’d be in the woods loosening the buckets and I’d hear the sky hissing. I’d look up. I’d see a scrawny guy with a beard in a basket that had a balloon fastened above it. The balloon was yellow with green stitching. He couldn’t have been more than a few feet above the tallest tree. At one point the basket brushed the heads of the trees and pinecones rained down. Gave me a nasty gash on my nose. I tasted blood, but that was no bother.
I went up in a balloon once with my sisters and we watched the sun roll across the horizon, clouds going red and pink, colors swirling around us in a mist. I shouldn’t be thinking about that anymore, because flight is over. Some people in this town say the more thoughts you have about flight the worse February haunts you. And then there’s the priests, who have locked away believers of flight someplace at the edge of town. But that’s just a dumb rumor. Could be true, though. If given the chance, I’d break open the skull of February. I’d swing a nice big bucket of sap right into the side of his head and watch the ice of his mind explode like confetti.
Last night everyone in town dreamed the clouds fell apart like wet paper in their hands.
Six Reports from the Priests
1. The Solution attempted to fly today.
2. They failed.
3. To hell with February, one member shouted. The rest cheered. They are a loud bunch. They wear bird masks. They throw apples through clouds.
4. The balloon collapsed on one side. The flames shot up. The flames spilled out and crawled across the field and up the birch trees, where flightless birds burned.
5. The snow continues to fall.
6. There has been talk of a war.
When Thaddeus arrived home he told Selah about a war against February. She bathed Bianca in mint water, ran a cloth in circles around her back.
I don’t know if a war will help anything, she said.
It’s the Solution, said Thaddeus. They have nothing to lose. I don’t know. It’s something we should consider. For her sake. He tilted his head toward Bianca.
Come, said Selah, and Thaddeus followed her voice as if the word were a hook thrown from the bathwater.
He knelt down beside the tub and placed his face in the mint water. Bianca felt him close to her back. The water rose to her chin. She remembered what it was like to swim in the river with June. The drain in the tub was a fish biting her toe. Thaddeus held his face in the water long enough for the mint to be fully absorbed into his beard.
There, said Selah tugging upward with a fistful of Thaddeus’s hair.
Water poured from his beard. Thaddeus walked into the kitchen and made a cup of tea, then went back into the bathroom. He watched his wife continue to bathe Bianca. He made sure to tip the teacup high enough when he sipped so that Bianca could see the balloon painted on the bottom.
Bianca whispers into the bathwater.
Maybe the priests aren’t really priests. Look at the way their silly robes move.
I want to be safe. I want to live inside a turtle shell.
Thaddeus tugs on his beard.
