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Let’s go...let’s go...the moon is full, let’s dance!
The sound of the swans’ laughter echoes through the glade, ringing to the stars above. The moonlight plays through their feathery hair and sparkles over their dresses as they ripple with the movement of their dancing feet.
Sophia hangs in the shadows, out of the moonlight, and runs her hands through her hair. Her feet ache to join the dance, to jump and leap alongside the others. But when she steps into the moonlight...
Ewww, her eyes are so scary!
You can’t join us!
So creepy...
So she stays rooted. She remains in the dark.
She ought to stay up in the clouds with her brother; she ought not to hurt her heart by following the others down to earth to attend full moon dances she won’t be allowed into. But watching...watching the beautiful swans that she will never be, as they throw their heads back in laughter, as they glow in the moonlight — she keeps coming because she can’t refrain from the dangerous art of wishing.
So focused is she on watching, and so focused are they are dancing, that none of them notice the human until she is standing nearly in the middle of the dance, staring with her mouth hanging open.
The dancers freeze. Moonlight ripples like water over statues.
Then they shriek. They honk and flutter and bolt for their skins where they hang from branches and bushes. They fling cloaks of white feathers over their shoulders, and with the beating of wings, they bolt, one after the other, into the sky, leaving behind a rain of feathers over the human’s head.
All of them, except, for Sophia.
She stands as still as she can, wondering if the shadows might hide her, might cloak her otherwise obvious white hair, her too-pale skin, her gleaming red eyes. The human woman stands right in front of her skin. Sophia can’t get to it without running right past her.
The woman blinks. Her mouth hangs open, her eyes fixed on the sky. Under one arm is a basket, and it sags in her grip, nearly falling to the ground. She rubs her eye with one fist, and stares at the sky some more. Sophia hopes, prays, the woman does not see her skin.
Her prayers go unanswered. The woman’s eyes catch on the glimmer of moonlight in Sophia’s feathers. She blinks, tilting her head. She reaches out and runs her fingers through the feathers.
“Oh!” she says. “It’s soft!”
Her voice is not the fearful rumble the others have said that humans sound like. It’s an ordinary voice. But Sophia still freezes. Is this it? Will the woman take her skin and force her to come home with her? Will Sophia never see her brother again?
The woman holds the skin a moment, watching the moonlight glimmer over the feathers. She looks up at the sky again. Her eyes catch — and she sees Sophia.
“Oh!!” the woman says. “This must be yours! Sorry! It just looked so pretty!”
She trots over, and Sophia flinches. The woman hesitates.
“Oh, did I scare you?? Gah! I’m sorry! But this is yours, right?”
She thrusts the skin at Sophia. Sophia stares. She looks up at the woman, but the human only smiles.
“You’re...giving it back?” Sophia whispers.
The woman blinks.
“Well, sure,” she says. “It’s yours, isn’t it? Wait, did you think I was stealing it? Gah! No, no, I’m sorry! I don’t take things that aren’t mine!”
She smiles, then, a bright, shining thing, something so utterly void of malice that it rivals the very sun.
“Besides,” she says, “Something like this would look much better on someone as pretty as you!”
Sophia’s breath catches and holds in her chest. ...pretty...? Her?
Her hands shake as she receives the cloak and hugs it to her chest. The woman smiles, nodding.
“You should definitely be careful out in the woods at night,” she says. “There’s all sorts of monsters and stuff! Do you need someone to walk you home since your friends left?”
“I...I’m fine,” Sophia says. She lifts her eyes to the strange human. She looks so...normal. So kind. “Who...are you?”
The woman beams.
“Nice to meet you,” she says. “I’m Katarina! Katarina Claes!”
~
“And then she just said something that I think was a thank you, and scurried off before I could ask her where she lived,” Katarina says.
She throws her hips into the next swing of her hoe, breaking up a big chunk of dirt. Keith raises both eyebrows as pins a sheet to the clothesline.
“Uh-huh,” he says. “And you’re sure you didn’t just take a nap while you were looking for firewood?”
“I would never do that!” Katarina protests, though the more she thinks about it, the more times she remembers dozing off in the middle of a chore. “Well, at least, I don’t think I’d have a dream like that. It was really real. ”
“Sure,” Keith says, in that voice he uses when he doesn’t believe her.
“Do you think my brain could make up someone so pretty?” Katarina demands. “She looked so scared though. I hope she got home okay.”
“There’s no one else living this far into the woods, big sister,” Keith says patiently. “But...if you’re so sure you saw a swan maiden, I’ll try to believe it.”
“I am sure, so there! ” Katarina says, breaking another chunk of dirt. Then she frowns. “A swan maiden?”
Keith gives her his best “really, big sister?” look.
“You can’t have forgotten all of dad’s silly stories,” Keith says. “About the swan maidens who live in the sky, and come down to dance on the full moon? And if you steal their skin, they have to come home and marry you?”
“What?? Why would you do that? That sounds awful!”
Keith sighs.
“It’s just a story,” Keith says. “You probably still subconsciously remember it, and that’s why you had that dream.”
Katarina frowns. She leans on her hoe, staring off into the woods around their little cottage. It had really felt real, though... She frowns as she turns it over in her head. Was that why the girl had seemed so scared? Because she’d thought Katarina was going to steal her skin and make her stay, like a prisoner? Gosh, that sounds awful to always be worried about that! Why would someone do such a horrible thing? Especially to such a sweet-looking girl...
She’d really had such pretty eyes, Katarina thought, remembering. A really overwhelming beauty, like an angel. She’d almost forgotten how to talk in front of her.
“I just wish I’d gotten her name,” Katarina says, mostly to herself.
~
Sophia peers around the tree, watching Katarina from far away.
She has such a nice laugh, Sophia thinks, watching the way her whole body seems to roll with the exuberance of it. There’s nothing halfway about her. She throws everything into what she does with a single-minded purpose and determination. She’s...pretty, Sophia thinks. There’s a beauty in her laugh, in the sparkle of her eyes, in her constant positive grin, in the easy way she teases her little brother while he rolls his eyes with the faintest of smiles. She has a brother, like Sophia. And they seem to care about each other so much. There’s a familiarity in the way he rolls his eyes, but smiles at her when she turns her back, and the way she sticks her tongue out at him when hes not looking. It makes Sophia smile — it makes her think of Nicol, though she’d never stick her tongue out at him, and he’d never roll his eyes at her. But there’s a comfort between them that she recognizes. A kindness. It makes her wonder if perhaps she wasn’t wrong — perhaps Katarina is actually the kind person she seems to be — the person that Sophia’s chest aches to believe she is.
She called me pretty , she thinks. And she made it sound true.
She’d never met anyone as bright and cheerful as Katarina. As warm, even to a stranger. It’s what drew her, like a moth to a flame, out in the dangerous daylight, to see if it hadn’t all been just a dream. She wonders what it is, this warmth in her chest when she looks at her, at her bright blue eyes, her silky brown hair, her quick smile. Her... oh, no she’s coming this way!
Sophia ducks behind the tree, panicking. Should she put on her cloak and flee? Is she being stupid, reckless, putting herself in harm’s way, following a human trap?
It’s too late for her to change her mind. Katarina rounds the tree, humming a little tune to herself as she swings her basket — and stops. Her eyes widen.
“Oh!!” she gasps. “It’s you!”
Then a look of triumph fills her eyes, and she punches the air.
“I knew it! I didn’t dream you! Oh! Did you get home okay last night?? I was going to walk you home but you seemed so nervous — oh, no, is that cause I had your cloak thingie? My brother was just telling me about swan maidens and stuff and I must have really scared you if that’s what you are, or am I making an assumption — oh, oops, I’m rambling!! Keith tells me I do that a lot!”
She swings her basket around in her exuberance. Sophia’s cheeks burn.
“Um,” Sophia says, nervously pulling on a lock of her hair with both hands. “I...I just wanted...to say...thank you.”
She shifts from foot to foot.
“For...for giving it back,” she says, touching her cloak. “I thought...I really thought that maybe you might...”
Katarina blinks. Then her eyes widen, and she quickly shakes her head.
“Oh, gosh! I’m sorry! If I’d known it would scare you so much I wouldn’t have touched it! But gosh, you don’t have to say thank you — I only did what any decent person should!”
Sophia looks up at her through her bangs, uncertain what to do with the flutter in her chest and the heat in her cheeks.
“Although, I mean, the truth is, I was really hoping I’d see you again,” Katarina says. Her cheeks are a bit red, too, as she scratches her cheek and looks up at the trees. “I mean, I didn’t even get to hear your name.”
Sophia tilts her head.
“You...really wanted to...see me again...?” she whispers. “Even though I’m so...creepy?”
Katarina’s eyes fly down to Sophia.
“Creepy??” she says. “What are you talking about?? You’re so pretty!”
Sophia’s cheeks flame, but Katarina doesn’t seem to notice.
“Like, gosh,” she says, rubbing the back of her neck. “Of course I wanted to see you again! But like, not just cause you’re pretty but um, because, I guess...well, there’s not many people out here in the woods, you know, and it would be really cool to have a girl friend my age, you know?? I mean! I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything, though, so — !”
“Sophia,” Sophia whispers.
Katarina blinks. Sophia ducks her head, wondering at the warm feeling spreading through her heart.
“My name is Sophia,” she says again, a little louder.
Katarina bursts into such a brilliant smile that it makes Sophia’s whole body light up.
“It’s so good to meet you, Sophia!” Katarina says, reaching for Sophia’s hand and squeezing it. “Hey! Would you like to stay for lunch? Keith and I were just gonna make some tarts!”
Sophia likes the way Katarina’s hands feel — a little worn and callused from work, but warm and gentle. She squeezes her fingers between Katarina’s, liking the way it feels to intertwine. Sophia looks back up at Katarina, into those kind, unshielded eyes.
“I think that would be nice,” she says. “I would love to.”