Windblowne

border, forming a wide circle around it. From this line the open ground rose a quarter mile to the peak, where the most unpredictable and treacherous winds blew. Nothing was able to grow on the crest itself but a thin covering of hardy mountain grass. Strong as they were, even the giant oaks could not withstand the crest winds.

He had hoped he would be the only one here at this late hour. Surely no one, at least no one who wasn’t as desperate as Oliver, would risk damaging his kite or himself this close to the Festival. But near the peak, a few daring fliers were getting in some final minutes of practice. Oliver recognized them. They were all young men and women who had nearly made the final rounds last summer. They were braving the winds in these last hours, hoping to find some edge that could catapult them to the championship this year.

As he removed reels and twine from his pack, Oliver could not resist an intense and grudging admiration for those fliers. They were handling, with expert skill, the most sophisticated type of power kite, built specifically for jumping. Each kite had precision folds and angles designed to master the shifting winds of the crest. Complicated lines wound down from the kites to the reels held by the fliers, who heaved on the multiple strands, causing the kites to plunge in breathtaking dives and rise in swooping arcs. The kites danced about in complex forms, sometimes joining their neighbors to create intricate aerial patterns. Each kite commanded the air, seeming as though at any moment it might break free and fly off on its own, sweeping all of the others from the sky.

As Oliver watched, a flier left the group and fought toward the peak. Oliver held his breath.

For the briefest moment, the flier balanced herself, pulling hard against the unpredictable gusts, jousting with the wind. Then, in one expert motion, she swung her kite into the teeth of the gale and jumped.

She flew up and out, over the heads of her friends, who whooped and cheered. She twisted in flight, still in control, her legs kicking. At last she landed, far from the peak. Oliver was in awe. Her leap was just yards shy of the flat granite marker that noted the spot of the farthest jump on record. The dream of every flier in town was to break that record, but the marker had not been moved in almost fifty years. For this jumper, however, the extra practice was paying off. She looked as though she were ready to enter the first rank and threaten that mark.

With a guilty start, Oliver realized that he had gotten so caught up in watching that flier that he had delayed longer than he intended. He checked his handvane. The pointer was dancing wildly. He knew he ought to come back in the morning. The other fliers were urgently reeling in their kites.

There’s still time for a quick test, he decided. He looked nervously at his kite. It was a simple flat-wing model, or at least an attempt at one. He had heated the spine too quickly, and the whole thing was rather bent. He tried to ignore the other flaws, the clumsy rips and awkward joins. “You’re not so bad,” he whispered, stroking the kite in an attempt to smooth out its wrinkled sails. “I’ll just give you one test flight and then fix you up in time for the Festival.”

He looked around sheepishly, glad that no one was nearby to hear him talking to one of his kites, a childish habit that he could not seem to break.

He made his final preparations hastily, fastening lines to each side of the kite and securing them to the reel. He gripped the reel firmly in his hard leather glove. Time to fly. He grasped the kite with his other hand and, with what he hoped was a smooth, correct motion, tossed it up to catch the winds.

And then he heard it—an oncoming roar. The oaks behind him signaled their warning with a furious flailing: The night winds have come!

Oliver’s kite was torn to shreds instantly. He was thrown to the ground, his breath knocked from him. He grabbed desperately for his things, but they were whipped away—his pack, his handvane torn from his wrist, all gone. Oliver crawled back to the safety of the oaks as broken branches smashed into the ground around him, leaves and dirt stung his face, and winds screamed in his ears. He reached the trunk of the nearest oak and struggled to his feet. He leaned, heart pounding, his chest thick with fear. He could have been killed.

Numbly, Oliver staggered back through the oaks to his hidden trail. Everything was gone. All of his equipment. His hope of entering the Festival. His kite. Everything.

And when he put his hand into his pocket, he discovered that he had lost Ilia’s golden kite charm, too.

He stumbled brokenly down the mountain, fighting tears, hardly hearing the din raised by the oaks as the night winds battered and raged. On another night he would have listened in rapture, but tonight the sounds seemed full of despair.

Oliver had lost his lamp along with his pack, and he might have wandered in complete darkness if his way were not lit by the two moons, which traveled together through the night sky every midsummer. Nahfa, the larger, and Aspin, his smaller companion, signaled the start of the Festival when they drew near each other in the sky. Normally he would have stopped and gazed at them shining together, but tonight they only reminded him that he would be watching the Festival from the sidelines again this year, as he probably would every year for the rest of his life.

Consumed with dark thoughts, he plodded down, shoving branches aside. In his misery and fatigue, he did not notice the slim form that slipped from the shadows, wearing a heavy wool cap fastened under its chin, watching him intently as he disappeared down the secret path, toward Windswept Way and home. 

2

When Oliver woke, his bedroom was still dark. Normally he left his heavy curtains open so that the morning sunlight would wake him. Last night he had left them closed, and now his room was cheerless and dim. He sat up, blinking, wondering how late it was. It had been nearly sunrise when he had finally gone to bed.

He had spent hours eliminating everything from his room that reminded him of his failures. Gone from the walls were the paintings of kites. The racks for kitesmithing supplies were bare, and the chest that normally held reels and twine stood empty. Nothing lay on the workbench except a book titled Careers in Mining, which sat open to page one. Last night, he had resolved to stay up and read as much of it as he possibly could. Today, he resolved to read page two.

Even his not-so-secret drawer had been yanked open and emptied. He had tried to build it in the side of his workbench, as a place to hold his most treasured possessions, but since he was as skilled in carpentry as he was in kitesmithing, the drawer was crude and obvious and terribly unsecret. Anyway, it had held only kite supplies, and was empty now, so he didn’t care if it was secret or not.

He dressed slowly. With no kite, he had no reason to wear his flying clothes, and so he dressed only in a simple tunic, jacket, and trousers. In his closet he found his fur-lined boots, which he promptly kicked under the bed, where they joined the rest of his crumpled flying outfit. He peered around the room for something else to kick, but there wasn’t much left. He wondered if a tourist had come across the bundle of kiting gear lying beside the Way. Maybe they’d be able to make something useful out of Oliver’s things. Oliver certainly hadn’t.

Downstairs, his parents were sitting at the breakfast table. His mother was wearing her dusty smock and wolfing down cold meat and berry juice while waving her knife in the air and talking to his father. Oliver saw that no fire had been made in the stove, so he began to build one.

“This sculpture will be the best yet in the Anguish series,” his mother said excitedly, stabbing the air with her fork. “It represents my finest achievement in anguish!”

“Yes, dear,” his father said remotely, in much the same tone as he had asked Oliver for tea. His pen did not hesitate as it flew across the pages. He was still dressed in his nightclothes and had nothing before him but his papers and an untouched glass of juice.

“I mean it,” she continued. “We’ve got tourists coming from all over for that thing. The Festival, I mean. Some of them will be the sort who can appreciate art, unlike that fool mayor!”

“Yes, dear.”

“When they see Anguish Number Seven out there projecting despair, they’ll forget all about those frivolous kites and start focusing on the world around them! There’s another leaf death in progress, just like six years ago. Something must be done!” She thumped the table. Dust rose from her smock and hung, undecided, in the air.

“Yes, dear.” The pen scratched away.

They continued in this fashion as Oliver coaxed the fire to life. He wondered if his mother would be having this conversation with thin air if he and his father walked out of the room, and decided that she probably would. When the flames were leaping in the stove, Oliver began to fry bacon. The smell filled the kitchen.